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Beliefs About the Emotions of Self and Others Among Asian American and Non-Asian American Students

Basic Similarities and the Mediation of Differences

University of California, Davis, jtjohnson{at}ucdavis.edu

Asian American (n =103) and non—Asian American college students (n = 121) estimated their subjective experience and emotional display in 24 hypothetical affect-eliciting situations. Each respondent also made the same estimations for an acquaintance. Both groups overestimated their own subjective experiences relative to those of their acquaintances and also overestimated their own undisplayed affect, suggesting that these basic self—acquaintance differences about emotions transcend cultural heritage. However, Asian Americans estimated that they would experience more socially undesirable affect than non—Asian Americans estimated that they would experience, and Asian Americans also estimated that they would display these less socially desirable emotions more. Asian Americans also scored higher on the Loss of Face Scale and displayed a greater tendency to evaluate their subjective experience from the perspective of another, as assessed by the Social Awareness Inventory. Additional analyses indicated that these measures of individual differences mediated ethnic differences in self-estimations of less socially desirable affect.

Key Words: culture • emotion perception • self-other differences • loss of face • self-awareness

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