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we will hear remarks from dr jeanne sai
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dr sai is a professor of psychology at
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stanford university
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and so welcome dr psy
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great thank you so much um thank you
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anthony and tony and to the two centers
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for inviting me to participate in this
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symposium about flourishing during such
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challenging times
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um it's been an honor to listen to these
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thought-provoking and powerful talks by
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robert debra and carol
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i'm still processing processing all of
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them it's a particular honor to go after
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carol who is such a pioneer in
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um making us think about you know
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different types of happiness
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and um and i have a new reading list
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carol
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so
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um and that's what i'm going to talk
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about today i'm going to talk about
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national cultural variation
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in ideal affect and
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or the emotions that we ideally want to
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feel and what implications this has for
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well-being and flourishing in older
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adulthood
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and i enter
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this
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topic from the perspective of someone
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who's been studying culture and emotion
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for over 30 years
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when i started doing this work as a
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graduate student most of the work was
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really done in anthropology there was
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relatively little work in psychology
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so as a graduate student
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with bob levinson at uc berkeley we did
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a series of studies where we brought um
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european americans so people who are
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born and raised in the united states and
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whose parents were and grandparents were
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born and raised in the united states and
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whose ancestors were from western europe
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and they identified as anglo-american as
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well as chinese-americans who were first
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or second generation
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chinese-americans
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whose parents were born and raised in a
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chinese country we had them come into
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the lab and we had them engage in a
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number of emotional tasks we had them
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relive different emotional episodes in
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their lives we had them watch sad and
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amusing film clips we even had them talk
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about emotional topics like sex and
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communication with their romantic
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partners in the lab and while they were
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doing that we measured different aspects
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of their emotional responses their
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physiology or how fast their hearts were
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beating how much they sweat
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we
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gave them little questionnaires to tell
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us how intensely they were feeling
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different positive and negative emotions
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and we recorded their facial expressions
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to look at what they were showing on
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their faces
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and what was kind of surprising to us
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was that contrary to the um
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anthropological record we actually found
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many more cultural similarities than
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differences in response
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emotional response in these particular
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tasks
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and it really made me start wondering
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whether or not we were really capturing
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the aspects of emotion in our tests that
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were the most consistently and
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powerfully influenced by culture
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and that's what led us to start doing
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work on um and and what we realized was
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that we were really focusing on what
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i'll call actual affect or how people
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were actually feeling in the moment and
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that instead culture might actually have
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a greater impact on how we ideally want
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to feel or what we call our ideal affect
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so we started doing some studies where
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we just asked people um
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in an open-ended way what is your ideal
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state and here are some typical
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responses that we got from a european
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american student this person says i just
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want to be happy
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normally for me that means i'd be doing
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something exciting i just want to be
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entertained i just like excitement
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and this is in contrast to a
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prototypical response from a hong kong
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chinese student who says my ideal state
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is to be quiet serene happy and positive
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and so i'm sure what you notice is that
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they both talk about being happy but the
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specific states that they associate with
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happiness vary
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the top response by the european
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american student is really associating
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happiness with excitement these high
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arousal positive states whereas the um
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the hong kong chinese student is really
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associating happiness with a lower
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arousal positive state and quietness and
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serenity
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and in fact for those of you who may be
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familiar with different models of
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emotion
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those two types of states are reflected
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in something called the affective
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circumplex which is just a way of
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organizing different emotional states
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and emotional expressions across
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different languages and in different
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countries people say that they describe
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their states in terms of at least these
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two dimensions a dimension of valence
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from positive to negative and a
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dimension of arousal from high to low
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so the excitement is really part of like
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enthusiasm and elation
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positive but very energizing and so
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throughout this talk i'm going to refer
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to these excitement states as high
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arousal positive states or hap states
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and they're in contrast to these equally
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positive states like calm relaxation and
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peacefulness but that are less
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energizing that are
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lower in arousal and i'm going to call
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them low arousal positive states calm
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states lap states
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and so what you can see is that
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um
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in our response in our the participants
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were really identifying happiness and
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associating happiness with these
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different states
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so to test this more systematically
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we um did it we created a measure
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of
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actual and ideal ethic based on existing
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measures of actual affect where we just
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asked people to use a five-point rating
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scale to indicate how much they actually
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felt all of these different states on
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average and then how much they ideally
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wanted to feel these states on average
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and what we found was that across the
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different cultures that we measured or
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that we sampled
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people reported that they wanted to feel
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more positive than negative and that
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they felt more positive
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they felt less positive and more
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negative than they ideally wanted to
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feel
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but we also found some consistent
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cultural differences in how people
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ideally wanted to feel so that even
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though everybody wanted to feel positive
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the specific positive states varied
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across cultures that were consistent
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with these open-ended responses i showed
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you earlier the european americans shown
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here in red wanted to feel these excited
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states more than their hong kong chinese
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counterparts in blue
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and the hong kong chinese wanted to feel
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the calm states these low arousal
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positive states more than their european
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american counterparts the chinese
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americans who are first and second
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generation so immigrant and children's
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of immigrants were like their european
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american counterparts and wanting to
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feel these excitement states more than
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the hong kong chinese but they're also
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like their hong kong chinese peers in
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that they wanted to feel the calm states
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more than their european american
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counterparts
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since this original study that was done
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in 2006 we've administered this measure
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and tens of thousands of participants
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and other people have used this measure
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as well and we consistently find these
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differences particularly and how much
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people want to feel these excited states
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and as an american you might know that
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this is why you know you're encouraged
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to feel passionate about what you do and
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passionate about who you love that's
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really an emphasis on these high arousal
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positive states now the other thing that
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i want to say is that
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in in subsequently we've seen these
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differences and how much people value
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calm but they seem to be more variable
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and so what we're doing right now is
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really trying to understand what are the
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different factors that influence how
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much people value con state so today i'm
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going to really focus on this variation
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and how much people value excitement
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states
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variation that exists across across
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cultures but also that exists within
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cultures
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and
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the other thing i want to say is that
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these cultural differences emerge
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against a backdrop of almost no
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differences in how much people are
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actually feeling these excited in these
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calm states and even when we do find
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these differences when we control for
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them we still find these differences an
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ideal
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affect okay
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so um
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let's see where am i um so this really
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led us um to um
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to theorize that even though culture
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influences both how we want to feel and
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how we actually feel it might culture
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might exert a greater influence on how
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we ideally want to feel a more stable
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and consistent influence on how we want
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to feel
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and to see whether or not this was the
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case we wanted to really look at
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people's environments to see well how do
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we begin to how do we learn from our
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environments how we ideally want to feel
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so of course we decided to look at the
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media and so we've done several studies
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trying to look at the emotional content
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of the different types of media that
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european americans or u.s americans and
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east asians are exposed to so in some
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older studies we showed that in the
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best-selling storybooks in the united
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states the characters in these
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best-selling storybooks have show these
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big broad toothy smiles these open
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broad toothy smiles or what we call
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excited smiles and they're more likely
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to be engaged in these high arousal
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activities compared to the characters
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and best-selling story books in taiwan
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and other east asian cultures which are
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more likely to show these closed calm
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smiles
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in older study looking at women's
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magazines in the united states and in
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china we found that the women's
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magazines had more excited smiles and
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fewer calm smiles
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and just a few years ago we even looked
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at the official website photos of the
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leaders in
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the united states and china and we found
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that across different occupations
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government business and academia
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american leaders were six times more
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likely to show these big broad toothy
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smiles compared to their chinese
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counterparts
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so the idea is that illustrators and
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advertisers and publicists are creating
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images
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that reflect cultural ideals and we're
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exposed to these ideals on a daily basis
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and we begin to internalize them without
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even really being aware of them so that
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we internalize these ideal affects and
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they sh they shape you know um
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shape our lives so
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the point is that these ideals um guide
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a lot of our behavior um and and that's
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why they matter so i'm just gonna we've
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done a number of studies to look at you
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know how does ideal ethic play itself
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express itself in our daily lives so we
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found that the more people value
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excitement the more likely they are to
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engage in
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physically rigorous exercise like
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running versus walking
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when given the choice between different
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consumer products the more people value
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excitement the more they choose
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stimulating products like on a week
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english breakfast tea versus more
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soothing products like calm
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chamomile tea
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even in the context of really more
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serious decisions like your health care
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provider we find that the more people
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value excitement the more likely they
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are to choose physicians who
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endorse a dynamic lifestyle for their
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patients versus a more calm and relaxed
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lifestyle
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in the last few years we've been really
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interested in how ideal affect plays
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itself out in interpersonal context
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um and we've been testing the hypothesis
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that when we meet people for the first
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time who are showing the emotions that
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match how we ideally want to feel we
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judge them more positively and we treat
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them more positively so in these studies
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we show our participants from different
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cultures
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faces both computer generated and real
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faces that vary in terms of race white
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and asian and gender male and female but
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most importantly emotional expression so
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excitement and calm
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and you can see these are the different
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computer generated faces here the real
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faces
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and what we find is that
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both cultural and individual differences
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in ideal affect influence
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who people see as friendly who they're
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more likely to befriend who they share
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resources with in these behavioral
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economic paradigms and even in
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employment settings who they hire and
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who they choose to lead so the more that
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people value excitement the more they
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see an excited target as more friendlier
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and more affiliative than a calm target
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the more
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excited friends they have and then the
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more they actually give money to people
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who have excitement on their uh who show
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excitement and um this is above
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controlling for differences in the race
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and the gender of the targets
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um so what does this all have to do with
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um well-being and flourishing in old age
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well
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we've been also interested then
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in how these cultural differences and
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individual differences and ideal affect
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influence how we view different things
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in our life not just happiness and
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well-being but also things like our own
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aging
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and we even though there's a lot of we
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know that there's a lot of research that
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suggests that how people view their own
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aging has real consequences for their
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cognitive and their physical health
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and this is work by becca levy that also
00:13:13
shows that if you have a more positive
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view of your own aging you actually live
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longer but there's relatively little
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research
00:13:20
looking at what actually predicts
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people's views of aging and we thought
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that maybe
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ideal affect or the degree to which you
00:13:28
value excitement might influence your
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personal view of aging now what do i
00:13:32
mean by personal view of aging well we
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asked in in our studies just two simple
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questions one was what what are you
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looking forward to about being 75 or
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older and what are you dreading about
00:13:44
being 75 or older so you can kind of
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think for yourself
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about this some of the responses that
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we've gotten from our participants are
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like this i'm looking forward to
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retiring and traveling hopefully
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maintaining my health and living near
00:13:58
family to spend time with them so we
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counted the number of things that people
00:14:02
mentioned that they were looking forward
00:14:03
to so in this case it's four responses
00:14:06
and then we asked what are you dreading
00:14:08
about being 75 or older
00:14:10
and here's this response i'm dreading
00:14:11
the slow deterioration of my body i'm
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dreading not being as energetic and
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strong as i am now i'm dreading the loss
00:14:18
of friends and family and and canada
00:14:21
this is counted as three so our overall
00:14:24
very crude measure of a personal view of
00:14:26
aging um was basically the number of
00:14:29
looking forward responses minus the
00:14:31
number of dreading responses so if it's
00:14:33
a positive number it means it's an
00:14:34
overall positive view
00:14:36
of one's personal aging and what we were
00:14:39
predicting is that the more that people
00:14:41
value excitement these excitement states
00:14:43
these high arousal positive statement um
00:14:46
states
00:14:47
the the more the less positive views of
00:14:49
old age they would have the more they
00:14:51
would dread than look forward to
00:14:53
their own aging
00:14:54
and um we predicted this because of a
00:14:56
lot of research showing that as you get
00:14:58
older
00:14:59
you view you experience more low arousal
00:15:02
positive states you see low arousal
00:15:04
positive states as
00:15:06
more pleasant you
00:15:08
show decreases in physiological arousal
00:15:10
so old age is associated with decreases
00:15:13
in physiological arousal and so the idea
00:15:15
is that if you value those states more
00:15:17
then you're going to dread old age so we
00:15:19
tested this hypothesis in two studies
00:15:22
and the first study is a cross-sectional
00:15:24
sample of um over 850 adults between the
00:15:28
ages of 20 to 90. they varied in
00:15:30
socioeconomic status we control for that
00:15:32
in our analyses
00:15:34
and
00:15:35
this is what we found in this data set
00:15:37
so i'm just going to walk you through
00:15:39
these um graphs
00:15:41
so this is how much this people value
00:15:44
excitement states and the red are the
00:15:47
european americans the x-axis is age so
00:15:50
this is from 20 to 90.
00:15:52
and again this is cross-sectional data
00:15:54
it's not longitudinal data but you can
00:15:56
see that for the european americans
00:15:57
there's really no difference in how much
00:15:59
they value excitement
00:16:01
the older adults compared to the younger
00:16:03
adults
00:16:04
the chinese the hong kong chinese are
00:16:06
here in blue and you can see that the
00:16:09
older hong kong chinese value excitement
00:16:12
less than their younger counterparts and
00:16:14
the same thing is true for the chinese
00:16:16
americans the older chinese americans
00:16:19
are valuing excitement less than their
00:16:21
than their younger counterparts and then
00:16:24
that means that when you come to old age
00:16:25
you see that actually the european
00:16:28
american older adults are valuing
00:16:30
excitement more than their chinese
00:16:32
american and their hong kong chinese
00:16:34
peers
00:16:35
now um in this study we asked about
00:16:37
their ideal effect and then we obviously
00:16:38
asked about their personal views of
00:16:40
aging among other things and this is
00:16:42
what it looks like in terms of their
00:16:44
personal views of aging so you can see
00:16:46
here
00:16:47
that um
00:16:49
the european americans here again are in
00:16:53
red
00:16:54
and there's really no difference between
00:16:57
the older adults and the younger adults
00:16:59
in terms of their personal views of old
00:17:01
age um here for the hong kong chinese
00:17:06
the older adults have more positive
00:17:08
views of old age than the younger adults
00:17:10
and the same thing is true for chinese
00:17:12
americans it's even more true this is
00:17:14
the zero line so this means it's sort of
00:17:15
a balance between what you're looking
00:17:17
forward to and what you're dreading and
00:17:19
obviously the positive values mean
00:17:20
you're looking forward to more things in
00:17:22
dreading and the negative values mean
00:17:23
you're dreading more things than you're
00:17:25
looking forward to about old age so then
00:17:27
what's the link between these two and
00:17:29
here you can see that across cultures
00:17:33
the more that people value excitement
00:17:35
the less positively they viewed old age
00:17:38
and so
00:17:39
these differences in how positively
00:17:42
the older adults viewed old age was
00:17:44
mediated by these differences
00:17:47
in um
00:17:48
ideal high arousal positive affects so
00:17:51
again that meant that the more this
00:17:52
supported our hypothesis the more that
00:17:54
people valued excitement the less
00:17:56
positively they viewed their own aging
00:18:00
so you might ask um well you might say
00:18:02
this is correlational so how do we know
00:18:04
that there's any causal relationship
00:18:07
when we flipped the order of the
00:18:09
mediators we didn't find a significant
00:18:11
difference but the better test was the
00:18:13
next one that we did where we did an
00:18:16
experiment and randomly assigned again
00:18:18
an experiment with
00:18:20
european american chinese american and
00:18:22
hong kong chinese participants and we
00:18:24
randomly assigned people to one of two
00:18:26
conditions in one condition people were
00:18:29
read this paragraph
00:18:30
saying that researchers have recently
00:18:32
discovered that the secret to a happy
00:18:34
fulfilling life
00:18:35
is feeling stimulated and invigorated
00:18:37
and then we say that in large samples it
00:18:40
was found that people reported feeling
00:18:41
these states
00:18:43
were happier and
00:18:45
had higher well-being
00:18:47
they predicted better relationships
00:18:49
higher life satisfaction and improved
00:18:51
quality of life several years later
00:18:53
in the control condition um people were
00:18:56
told the same thing but instead of
00:18:58
um
00:19:00
that the secret of to happy fulfilling
00:19:02
fulfilling life being stimulating and
00:19:05
invigorating was more tranquil and
00:19:06
well-rested so the secret to a happy
00:19:08
fulfilling life is feeling tranquil and
00:19:10
well rested
00:19:12
um and so we had participants read these
00:19:14
paragraphs and then write
00:19:16
examples of events in their lives where
00:19:18
this was true for them this is like a a
00:19:21
common um manipulation
00:19:24
and then
00:19:25
afterwards we had people complete our
00:19:28
measure of the personal views of aging
00:19:30
as well as our measure of actual and
00:19:32
ideal affect
00:19:34
and as we
00:19:36
and so this is just a manipulation check
00:19:38
to show that the participants who read
00:19:40
the paragraph um that i showed you did
00:19:43
indeed value excitement states more than
00:19:45
people who read the control paragraph
00:19:47
and then this is
00:19:49
their views of old age and what you can
00:19:51
see is that when
00:19:52
participants across the cultural groups
00:19:54
read the paragraph that increased their
00:19:56
evaluation of these excitement states
00:19:58
they actually reported
00:20:00
more negative views or less positive
00:20:02
views of of their own aging they listed
00:20:05
more things that they dreaded than they
00:20:07
looked forward to an old age and you can
00:20:09
see that this was not the case for the
00:20:11
controlled condition
00:20:13
so this is supporting then this idea
00:20:16
that certain kinds of
00:20:19
ideal affects can actually lead to more
00:20:21
negative views of aging
00:20:24
and um
00:20:25
and so
00:20:26
i think one point of this is that
00:20:30
um
00:20:31
that maybe we need to think about
00:20:34
changing sort of our ideals or our
00:20:36
cultural ideas a little bit
00:20:38
in the context of thinking about
00:20:39
flourishing in old age okay so to
00:20:42
summarize um
00:20:44
what i've shown you is that cultural
00:20:46
factors shape how we ideally want to
00:20:48
feel and that european american context
00:20:51
value excitement states more than many
00:20:53
east asian contexts we've replicated our
00:20:55
i showed you data from
00:20:57
chinese samples but we've replicated
00:20:59
them in south korean and japanese and
00:21:01
taiwanese and other east asian contexts
00:21:03
these cultural differences in ideal
00:21:05
affect predict a diversity of
00:21:08
interpersonal and personal behaviors
00:21:11
and
00:21:12
specifically valuing
00:21:15
excitement and other oops valuing
00:21:17
excitement and other high arousal
00:21:19
positive states
00:21:22
make people dread old age more which can
00:21:24
have implications for
00:21:26
health and mortality in old age as i
00:21:28
told you earlier there's data that
00:21:29
suggests that if you have a more
00:21:31
negative view of old age that can lead
00:21:33
to actually or result in more negative
00:21:35
outcomes in old age
00:21:37
and so as i said i think maybe one
00:21:39
intervention to promote flourishing in
00:21:42
older adulthood is to think about
00:21:43
changing um people's ideals and so i
00:21:46
want to just end
00:21:48
um by thanking the national institute of
00:21:50
aging that supported this the specific
00:21:52
studies that i showed you at the end but
00:21:54
also thank our other funding agencies
00:21:56
which have funded all of this work over
00:21:58
the course of two decades
00:22:00
as well as all of the different members
00:22:02
of the culture and emotion lab and thank
00:22:04
you for your attention
00:22:13
wonderful thank you dr psy for those
00:22:15
remarks um very very insightful um
00:22:20
we have a couple of minutes if there are
00:22:22
any questions if people want to drop
00:22:24
them in the chat or the q a we have a
00:22:25
few minutes before we take a break that
00:22:28
will then lead into the panel um as the
00:22:30
people are marinating or perhaps typing
00:22:33
i can maybe throw one question out to
00:22:34
you dr sai in response um
00:22:37
curious um
00:22:39
have you considered in your in your work
00:22:40
have you considered the role of
00:22:42
individual differences i guess on the
00:22:44
heels of talks that have focused on
00:22:46
ethnic or racial identity or
00:22:48
socialization how those in sort of
00:22:50
individual differences may show up at
00:22:53
the at the between group differences
00:22:55
between cultural differences that you're
00:22:56
detecting are they largely driven by by
00:22:59
individuals who are more strongly
00:23:00
identified or have had different
00:23:02
socialization experiences
00:23:04
yes that's a great question
00:23:06
um we do find that um
00:23:09
that cultural orientation or
00:23:10
acculturation to american culture is
00:23:13
associated with valuing the excitement
00:23:15
states more but as you saw that the
00:23:17
chinese americans are kind of endorsing
00:23:18
both cultures which so they're
00:23:21
truly multicultural they value the
00:23:23
excitement states as much as their
00:23:24
european american counterparts but they
00:23:26
still are valuing um the calm states and
00:23:28
in some cases they value them even more
00:23:31
than their east asian
00:23:32
peers it's like they've been really
00:23:34
exposed to a culture
00:23:36
the culture of their parents which is
00:23:38
kind of frozen in time
00:23:40
and so um so but there is as i said
00:23:42
variability within each um within each
00:23:46
cultural group absolutely in terms of
00:23:48
and it does seem to be associated with
00:23:51
increased acculturation um for the
00:23:53
immigrant uh the immigrant groups
00:23:56
and if that answers your question yeah
00:23:58
it it does it does thank you how that
00:24:00
shows up in in the space
00:24:02
um a lot of other questions
00:24:06
here um
00:24:08
oh anthony
00:24:14
anthony do you have a question
00:24:16
uh
00:24:16
sure i can ask a question
00:24:18
uh hi hi genie that was a lovely talk um
00:24:22
i'm curious about
00:24:24
um
00:24:24
[Music]
00:24:26
you didn't speak to this uh but the
00:24:28
discrepancy between ideal and actual
00:24:32
affect um i mean presumably people
00:24:36
want to actually feel
00:24:38
what they aspire to feel in other words
00:24:41
have a reduced discrepancy between ideal
00:24:44
and actual affect i don't know if you
00:24:45
would consider that a
00:24:47
barometer of flourishing it seems like
00:24:49
it's
00:24:50
being emotionally intelligent i don't
00:24:52
know but do you see cultural differences
00:24:54
in the discrepancy um between ideal and
00:24:57
actual affect and i guess more broadly
00:25:00
do you also see
00:25:02
um
00:25:02
effects of those discrepancies on sort
00:25:05
of well-being in general yes thank you
00:25:07
for that question in our early work we
00:25:10
definitely found the connections between
00:25:12
just the discrepancies across cultures
00:25:14
the greater the discrepancy the more
00:25:16
depressed and anxious people are
00:25:18
what's interesting is that the specific
00:25:20
type of discrepancy that's associated
00:25:22
with
00:25:23
depression and anxiety varies across
00:25:25
cultures so in the first study really
00:25:26
the for european americans it was really
00:25:28
just the discrepancy and excitement
00:25:30
states that was correlated with
00:25:31
depression
00:25:33
whereas for hong kong chinese it was
00:25:35
just the calm states and then for
00:25:36
chinese americans again i think
00:25:38
reflecting their bicultural orientation
00:25:41
it was the discrepancy in both states
00:25:43
that was associated with depression
00:25:46
with respect to the older samples that i
00:25:48
showed at the very end i think i didn't
00:25:50
have a chance to talk about it but of
00:25:52
course we measured how much people were
00:25:54
actually feeling all of those states on
00:25:56
average and we found actually fewer
00:25:59
cultural differences again or age
00:26:01
differences
00:26:02
well sorry fewer cultural differences in
00:26:04
the effects of age on actual ethics so
00:26:07
across the cultural groups
00:26:09
older adults felt more calm than younger
00:26:12
adults
00:26:13
they felt less negative affect than the
00:26:15
younger adults this is just a consistent
00:26:17
finding in all the literature and there
00:26:19
was no difference in how much they
00:26:21
actually felt these excitement states
00:26:24
when it came to ideal affect
00:26:27
um the european americans really didn't
00:26:29
show
00:26:30
a difference between the older and the
00:26:31
younger adults in their ideals it was
00:26:34
like it's a i think it's a reflection of
00:26:35
american views of aging that you like
00:26:37
really shouldn't adjust old age you
00:26:39
should be you know you should resist
00:26:41
aging you should be young
00:26:43
but for the hong kong chinese and the
00:26:45
chinese americans those older adults
00:26:48
valued
00:26:49
excitement less than their younger
00:26:51
adults
00:26:52
and and actually
00:26:54
other states as well which meant that
00:26:57
when you looked at the discrepancy
00:26:59
across cultures the older adults were
00:27:02
closer to their ideals than the younger
00:27:04
adults for european americans that was
00:27:07
driven by the the the differences in
00:27:09
actual but for hong kong chinese and
00:27:11
chinese americans it was driven by the
00:27:13
differences in actual and the
00:27:15
differences in ideal
00:27:17
which if you're still with me it means
00:27:19
that
00:27:20
the hong kong chinese actually showed
00:27:22
much smaller discrepancies between their
00:27:25
actual and their ideal affect compared
00:27:27
to the european americans and same thing
00:27:28
for the chinese americans
00:27:30
so it was like they were closer to their
00:27:33
ideal in part because of the changes
00:27:36
with age and actual affect but also
00:27:38
because maybe they were changing their
00:27:40
ideal
00:27:41
affect i don't know because it's
00:27:43
cross-sectional it's not longitudinal it
00:27:45
could be a cohort difference but i think
00:27:46
it's really intriguing
00:27:48
again to think that if the discrepancy
00:27:51
is a measure of well-being one facet of
00:27:53
well-being
00:27:55
then maybe it's not just about changing
00:27:57
your actual but also letting go of some
00:27:59
of your ideals you know in order to
00:28:01
flourish
00:28:03
and um to achieve some sort of
00:28:05
well-being or at least to shift the
00:28:06
focus which i i think is what you know
00:28:09
carol talks about in her work and you've
00:28:10
talked about in your work as well
00:28:14
thank you
