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Relationship Between Emotional Expression Discrepancy and Life Satisfaction Across Culture and Personal Values

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Abstract

People can experience a discrepancy between their ideal and actual emotions. We hypothesized that this emotional discrepancy would be associated with people’s life satisfaction, depending on their culture and individual emotional values. We tested this hypothesis across three cultures (the United States, Hungary, and South Korea) and three broad categories of personal values (hedonic, collaboration, and confrontation). Participants reported the levels of their ideal and actual expression of four discrete emotions (anger, excitement, empathy, and sadness), as well as their levels of life satisfaction and emotion-related personal values. A three-way interaction analysis revealed that the discrepancy in empathy expression (i.e., perceiving self as expressing more empathy than others in one’s culture) increased life satisfaction more among Americans with hedonic values than among Koreans with hedonic values. Furthermore, the discrepancy decreased life satisfaction among Hungarians with hedonic values. In addition, discrepancy in sadness (i.e., expressing more sadness than others) decreased life satisfaction less among Americans with collaboration value, while it decreased life satisfaction more in Koreans with collaboration value. In Hungary, the sadness discrepancy increased life satisfaction among people with collaboration value. Findings suggest that the association between emotional discrepancy and life satisfaction is moderated by both culture and personal values.

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Notes

  1. The complete list of goals is as follows: 1) feel better, 2) maintain or improve my relations, 3) protect my interests, 4) get the upper hand, 5) avoid dangers or mistakes, 6) be less emotional, 7) behave in a rational manner, 8) solve problems through cooperation, 9) demonstrate that I am strong, and 10) get support or help from others. The presentation order of the goals was counterbalanced.

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Funding

This study was funded by Keimyung University (grant number 20150186).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Keimyung University, 1095 Dalgubeol Daero, Daegu, South Korea

    Min Young Kim, Mohsen Joshanloo & Emese Foldesi

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  1. Min Young Kim
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  2. Mohsen Joshanloo
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  3. Emese Foldesi
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Correspondence to Min Young Kim.

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Conflict of Interest

Min Young Kim has received research grants from Keimyung University. Mohsen Joshanloo declares that he has no conflict of interest. Emese Foldesi declares that she has no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Kim, M.Y., Joshanloo, M. & Foldesi, E. Relationship Between Emotional Expression Discrepancy and Life Satisfaction Across Culture and Personal Values. Curr Psychol 39, 1087–1097 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-018-9826-6

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