scholarly journals Contextual and Cultural Differences in Positive Thinking

2021 ◽  
Vol 52 (5) ◽  
pp. 449-467
Author(s):  
Li-Jun Ji ◽  
Thomas I. Vaughan-Johnston ◽  
Zhiyong Zhang ◽  
Jill A. Jacobson ◽  
Ning Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Theory Of Change ◽  
Positive Thinking ◽  
Positive Outcomes ◽  
Negative Events ◽  
East Asians ◽  
Positive Events ◽  
Lay Theory ◽  
Negative Thinking

Past research suggests that East Asians engage in less positive thinking than Westerners, but cultural differences in positive thinking may depend on context. The present research investigates how culture and context may interactively influence positive thinking. In Studies 1 ( N = 287) and 2 ( N = 245), participants read hypothetical positive or negative events, and indicated their endorsement of responses to each event that reflected positive versus negative thinking. Chinese more often than Euro-Canadians endorsed relatively negative thinking in response to positive events and relatively positive thinking in response to negative events. In Study 3 ( N = 573), Chinese (versus Euro-Canadians) generated more negative outcomes for positive events and more positive outcomes for negative events. These effects were mediated by lay theory of change, a belief that events change over time nonlinearly. The findings use diverse measurement approaches to highlight the importance of examining positive thinking in context across cultures.

Cultural Differences in the Construal of Suffering and the COVID-19 Pandemic

2020 ◽  
pp. 194855062095880
Author(s):  
Li-Jun Ji ◽  
Mark Khei ◽  
Suhui Yap ◽  
Xinqiang Wang ◽  
Zhiyong Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Positive Affect ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Theory Of Change ◽  
Positive Outcomes ◽  
Dialectical Thinking ◽  
Lay Theory

The present research examines how suffering is construed across cultures. Study 1 ( N 1 = 264; N 2 = 745) asked participants to provide free associations for suffering. Chinese individuals generated more positive associations than did Euro-Canadians. Study 2 ( N = 522) had participants create a hypothetical potion of suffering to represent what people would experience while suffering. Chinese participants added more positive ingredients and fewer negative ingredients than Euro-Canadians did. How would cultural differences in the construal of suffering matter in a real-life negative situation? Study 3 ( N = 608) showed that Chinese participants generated a greater proportion of potential positive outcomes for the COVID-19 outbreak and reported more positive affect during the pandemic than did Euro-Canadians. Thus, Chinese construe suffering more positively than Euro-Canadians. These findings are consistent with previous research on cultural differences in dialectical thinking and lay theory of change and have implications for coping and resilience.

scholarly journals Cultural Differences in People’s Psychological Response to COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suhui Yap ◽  
Albert Lee ◽  
Li-Jun Ji ◽  
Ye Li ◽  
Ying Dong
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Meaning In Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Theory Of Change ◽  
Cultural Work ◽  
Cultural Groups ◽  
Psychological Response ◽  
Lay Theory ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Over Time

The present research studied Chinese and Euro-Canadian students during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on their affect, optimism, well-being, and meaning in life. The results revealed both differences and similarities across cultures. As predicted, Chinese participants reported more positive affect and less negative affect, higher optimism, higher state psychological well-being, and higher meaning presence, compared to Euro-Canadian participants. The findings were replicated after a week’s delay. Analyses on longitudinal data showed that state optimism, state well-being, and meaning presence influenced one another over time. These variables also mediated the cultural differences in one another. These results are consistent with cultural work on naïve dialecticism and non-linear lay theory of change. Results also demonstrate underlying relationships among the constructs that are common to both cultural groups. Broadly, the present research highlights the impact of culture on people’s response to challenging life situations and the mechanisms underlying these cultural differences.

scholarly journals Focus on One or More? Cultural Similarities and Differences in How Parents Talk About Social Events to Preschool Children

2022 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megumi Kuwabara ◽  
Linda B. Smith
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
The United States ◽  
Dependent Measure ◽  
Negative Events ◽  
Social Event ◽  
Positive Events ◽  
Social Events ◽  
The Social ◽  
Puppet Show

How parents talk about social events shapes their children’s understanding of the social world and themselves. In this study, we show that parents in a society that more strongly values individualism (the United States) and one that more strongly values collectivism (Japan) differ in how they talk about negative social events, but not positive ones. An animal puppet show presented positive social events (e.g., giving a gift) and negative social events (e.g., knocking over another puppet’s block tower). All shows contained two puppets, an actor and a recipient of the event. We asked parents to talk to their 3- and 4-years old children about these events. A total of 26 parent–child dyads from the United States (M = 41.92 months) and Japan (M = 42.77 months) participated. The principal dependent measure was how much parent talk referred to the actor of each type of social event. There were no cultural differences observed in positive events – both the United States and Japanese parents discussed actors more than recipients. However, there were cultural differences observed in negative events – the United States parents talked mostly about the actor but Japanese parents talked equally about the actor and the recipient of the event. The potential influences of these differences on early cognitive and social development are discussed.

Experimentally Modifying Interpretations for Positive and Negative Social Scenarios in Children: A Preliminary Investigation

2012 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanos P. Vassilopoulos ◽  
Nicholas J. Moberly ◽  
Georgia Zisimatou
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Preliminary Investigation ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Negative Events ◽  
Positive Events ◽  
Socially Anxious ◽  
Social Events ◽  
Interpretation Biases ◽  
Training Control

Background: Past research suggests that socially anxious individuals display a tendency to interpret ambiguous and clearly valenced information in a threatening way. Interpretation training programs, in which individuals are trained to endorse benign rather than negative interpretations of ambiguous social scenarios, have proven effective for reducing anxiety-related cognitive biases. However, it is not clear whether the same paradigms are effective in modifying interpretation biases for clearly valenced social information. Method: In this experiment, a group of unselected children (aged 10–13 years) was trained to endorse the more positive of two possible interpretations of mildly negative and positive social events. Results: Data revealed that this group (n = 77) showed a decrease in catastrophic interpretations and an increase in neutral interpretations of mildly negative events compared to children in a no-training control group (n = 76). Furthermore, participants in the training condition showed an increase in positive interpretations and a trend for a decrease in discounting interpretations of positive events. However, training did not affect emotional ratings of mildly negative and positive events or trait social anxiety. Conclusions: Notwithstanding certain limitations of this pilot study, we believe that the results are promising with regard to modifying interpretative biases for clearly valenced vignettes, and that further study regarding the effects of training on mood is warranted.

A Realistic/Theory of Change Approach to the Evaluation of Health Promotion in Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Sandwell

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 393-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie Carroll ◽  
Monica David ◽  
Brian Jacobs ◽  
Kalvinder Judge ◽  
Barry Wilkes
Keyword(s):  
Health Promotion ◽  
Health Interventions ◽  
Theory Of Change ◽  
Positive Outcomes ◽  
Workplace Health ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
Stakeholder Expectations ◽  
Realistic Theory

Discovering a theory of change for health promotion in small- and medium-sized enterprises highlights important lessons about how successful workplace health interventions work and the conditions conducive to positive outcomes for ‘hard to reach groups’. In the evaluation of targeted health promotion initiatives carried out by the Workwell project in Sandwell, a theory of change has emerged that indicates the need for a sensitive understanding of the contexts of interventions and the importance of developing mechanisms appropriate to local conditions and stakeholder expectations.

Responsiveness processes and daily experiences of shared reality among romantic couples

2021 ◽  
pp. 026540752110176
Author(s):  
Yael Bar-Shachar ◽  
Eran Bar-Kalifa
Keyword(s):  
Significant Interaction ◽  
Epistemic Uncertainty ◽  
Romantic Partners ◽  
Negative Events ◽  
Romantic Couples ◽  
Positive Events ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Daily Diaries ◽  
Shared Reality ◽  
Critical Process

Shared reality (SR) is the experience of having an inner state believed to be shared by others. Dyadic responsiveness has been suggested to be a critical process in SR construction. The present study tested the extent to which SR varies in the daily lives of romantic partners and whether this variability is related to responsiveness processes. We predicted that disclosure of personal events to one’s partner as well as perceived partner enacted responsiveness would be associated with daily levels of SR. We further predicted that these associations would be more pronounced when one has low epistemic certainty with respect to the disclosed event. To test these hypotheses, daily diaries were collected from 76 cohabiting romantic couples for a period of 4 weeks. Participants reported the occurrence of daily personal positive and negative events, indicated whether they had disclosed these events to their partner, and described how their partner had responded. As predicted, the disclosure of positive and negative events, as well as the perceptions of partners’ constructive responses to these disclosures, were positively associated with daily SR. A significant interaction was found between epistemic uncertainty (i.e., low perceived social consensus) and responsiveness processes in the context of negative (but not positive) events; specifically, when participants experienced low certainty, the disclosure of the event and the perceived partner’s constructive response were more strongly associated with SR.

scholarly journals Good is stronger than bad for eudaimonic well-being

2022 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 455-490
Author(s):  
Gonzalo Martínez-Zelaya ◽  
Marian Bilbao Ramírez ◽  
Darío Páez Rovira
Keyword(s):  
Life Events ◽  
Representative Sample ◽  
Negative Life Events ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Negative Events ◽  
Positive Events ◽  
Post Traumatic Growth ◽  
Post Traumatic ◽  
Basic Beliefs

Perceived changes in basic beliefs and growth related to life events were examined in three studies. A representative sample (N = 885), a sample of students and their families (N = 291) and a sample of students (N = 245) responded with a list of positive and negative life events, a scale of changes in basic beliefs and a post-traumatic growth scale. Positive events were strongly associated with changes in basic beliefs, while only weak associations were found for negative events. In addition, negative changes in basic beliefs were associated with growth only in negative life events and positive changes in basic beliefs were generally associated with growth.

Understanding Child Anxiety

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Eli R. Lebowitz
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Child Anxiety ◽  
Anxiety Level ◽  
Negative Events ◽  
Biological Factors ◽  
Positive Events ◽  
Perceived Risks ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
Ultimate Outcome

This chapter provides an overview of anxiety in general, and child anxiety in particular. A child who is anxious is typically going to overestimate the likelihood of negative events and to downplay the likelihood of positive ones. What is the ultimate outcome of these predictable patterns of thinking? If negative events seem highly probable, while positive events seem less likely, it is not surprising that anxious children tend to veer away from perceived risks and to move toward a more cautious course of action. The chapter then addresses some common questions asked by parents of children with anxiety. Multiple things can contribute to a child’s anxiety level, including internal and biological factors as well as external and environmental factors. Anxiety can also look very different in different children. It is useful to think about a child’s functioning in four separate domains: body, thoughts, behavior, and feelings. Anxiety can impact each domain in various ways.

scholarly journals In Human Memory, Good Can Be Stronger Than Bad

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constantine Sedikides ◽  
John J. Skowronski
Keyword(s):  
False Memory ◽  
Psychological Impact ◽  
Human Memory ◽  
Negative Information ◽  
Negative Events ◽  
Regulatory Activity ◽  
Positive Information ◽  
Positive Events ◽  
Self Protection ◽  
Positive Content

Some researchers assert that the psychological impact of negative information is more powerful than that of positive information. This assertion is qualified in the domain of human memory, in which (a) positive content is often favored (in the strength of memories for real stimuli or events and in false-memory generation) over negative content and (b) the affect prompted by memories of positive events is more temporally persistent than the affect prompted by memories of negative events. We suggest that both of these phenomena reflect the actions of self-motives (i.e., self-protection and self-enhancement), which instigate self-regulatory activity and self-relevant processes.

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