Relations Between Cultural Orientation and Affect Valuation in Chinese American College Students

• In Event: Acculturation and Cultural Values

Abstract

Cultural orientation plays a major role in norms surrounding the valuation of emotional states. Specifically, cultural orientation may influence an individual’s ideal affect, the affective states that individuals value and want to feel. Previous studies and affect valuation theory have strongly supported the notion that (a) ideal affects are more strongly correlated with cultural background than are actual affects and (b) participants from Western cultures tend to value High Arousal Positive states (HAP; e.g. excited, elated, enthusiastic) over Low Arousal Positive states (LAP; e.g. calm, relaxed, peaceful) (Tsai et al., 2006). However, previous studies tend to focus more on between-group differences in affect valuation and neglect the potential within-group heterogeneity. These approaches overlook the complexity of cultural orientation in individuals who may be acculturating, and therefore may hold simultaneous cultural orientations toward both the mainstream culture and their heritage culture. This complexity is especially salient for Chinese American college students, who may be oriented towards Chinese culture while also participating in Western culture. As such, there is room to extend previous research on the influence of culture on affect valuation to include individuals who may simultaneously hold two cultural orientations.
The present study will examine the unique and interactive relations between Chinese and Western cultural orientations in predicting concurrent ideal affect using a sample of 1st-, 2nd- and 3rd-generation Chinese American college students (N=198). The first aim of the study is to examine whether Chinese and Western cultural orientations are predictors of both ideal HAP and LAP states above and beyond actual affects and covariates. The second aim of the study is to examine whether Chinese and Western cultural orientations interact in predicting ideal HAP and LAP states. Ideal/actual affects, cultural orientations, and other demographic covariates (parental education, years living in the U.S., and generation) were measured through self-report questionnaires on numeric scales.
As expected, results from correlation analyses show that higher Chinese orientation is significantly correlated with greater valuation of LAP states. Higher Western orientation is significantly correlated with greater valuation of HAP states. In hierarchical linear regressions predicting ideal LAP and separately ideal HAP, Chinese orientation and Western orientation were not significant predictors when controlling for actual HAP, years in the U.S., and parental education. However, there was a significant interaction between Chinese and Western orientation in predicting ideal HAP, such that greater Western orientation was associated with greater ideal HAP only for those individuals low in Chinese cultural orientation. These findings partially replicate previous studies on relations between cultural orientation and ideal affect. Results from the present study also extended prior research in showing that affect valuation for ideal HAP is influenced by the interactive relationship between Chinese and Western orientation, incorporating consideration of acculturation into affect valuation theory. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the precursors to ideal emotional states, which is informative to college communities who serve the growing population of Chinese American students.

Authors

• Pandora Arlene Lam, University of California - Berkeley
  Presenting Author

• Stephanie Haft, University of California - Berkeley
  Non-Presenting Author

• Qing Zhou, University of California - Berkeley
  Non-Presenting Author