Cultural Differences in Preference for Entertainment Messages That Induce Mixed Responses of Joy and Sorrow

• In Event: Affect and Emotion in Mass Media

Abstract

Two cross-cultural studies were conducted to explore how affective states from viewing favorite entertainment messages vary as a function of culture. Koreans were more likely than U. S. Americans to prefer entertainment messages that induce conflicting responses (e.g., feeling positive and negative, laughing and crying). Furthermore, this cultural difference was larger for positively-valanced (i.e. comedy) than for negatively-valanced message (i.e., sad films). Naïve dialecticism held by East Asians which treats these contradictory responses as balance, harmony, and moderation was introduced as a plausible explanatory mechanism.

Authors

• Jinhee Kim, Pohang U of Science and Tech

• Mihye Seo, SUNY - Albany

• Hong-Sik Yu, Chung-Ang U

• Kimberly Neuendorf, Cleveland State U