Research Projects
Here you will find an overview of some major past and current research projects in the lab.
Culture fit of emotions and health
Cultural differences exist in emotional life because cultures provide social meanings to emotions, creating cultural variations in which functions they serve and what values they convey. For example, Anglo-American cultures predominantly view positive emotions favorably and negative emotions unfavorably, whereas East Asian cultures have more balanced views toward positive and negative emotions. These cultural scripts are shared through socialization and affect an individual's emotions and health. Our findings support that culturally deemed appropriate and valued emotions (i.e., culturally fitting) emotions lead to well-being and better health outcomes among East Asians and European Americans. What does culturally fitting emotional life look like and how does it affect well-being and health in other cultural contexts? We are now examining this idea in Latino cultures that have shared interdependent/collectivistic values with East Asian cultures but are expected to have different views toward positive emotions.
Representative publications (click to see)
To manage emotions, people often actively recruit social resources- known as interpersonal emotion regulation. For interpersonal emotion regulation to occur, people need to solicit others' attention to an individual's emotional needs. Importantly, this act is viewed differently across cultures. In independent cultures, an individual's emotions are valued as internal attributes that distinguish oneself from others and people are encouraged to express their emotions in general. However, in interdependent cultures, because maintaining group harmony is more fundamental to social relationships than communicating individuals' emotions, drawing attention to an individual's needs from collective concerns may risk social relationships. Moreover, hard interdependence which characterizes working-class culture in the U.S., values a sense of toughness and strength, and thus pursuing emotional support can be considered too "soft" and avoided. Focusing on college students from working-class vs. middle-class cultural backgrounds, we examine how cultures predict interpersonal emotion regulation and well-being with a multi-method approach. Our findings highlight cultural mismatch that first-gen college students experience puts an extra emotional burden on them as it makes them difficult to engage in interpersonal emotion regulation.
Interpersonal emotion regulation and cultures
Cultural values, emotions, and health among family dementia caregivers
