Who Can Buffer Marginalization Risk? Affect Experience, Affect Valuation, and Social Marginalization in Japan and Brazil

Previous research has associated social marginalization with the rejection of mainstream cultural values. Since cultural values reflect affect valuation, the present research investigates the relationships between social marginalization and ideal/actual affect in two different non-WEIRD cultures, Brazil and Japan. As a social marginalization index, we used the NEET-Hikikomori Risk Scale (NHR). We predicted that cultural differences would emerge in the valuation of affective states. Affect valuation theory suggests that in East Asia, individuals are encouraged to pursue and value low arousal positive emotions (LAP: e.g., calmness, serenity) over high arousal positive emotions (HAP: e.g., excitement, elation, etc.) as they can harm social relationships in these societies. In contrast, Latin American cultures value HAP over LAP, because social relationships are promoted through vibrant positive emotional expression in these cultures. Hence, we hypothesized that individuals’ ideal affect, actual affect, and the discrepancy between ideal and actual affect would be associated with higher risk of social marginalization. Participants from Japan (N = 54) and Brazil (N = 54) reported their ideal affect and actual affect and completed the NEET-Hikikomori Risk Scale (NHR). Regression analyses showed that actual HAP and the discrepancy between ideal and actual HAP were negatively associated with NHR in Brazil, but no association was found in the Japanese data. The other variables, including ideal affect, were only minorly or not significantly associated with NHR. Though the study has limitations regarding its small sample size, we can explore future perspectives and discuss the relationships between emotion and cultural marginalization. Socioecological factors that promote actual HAP in Brazilians may encourage other mainstream cultural ideals, which buffers against cultural marginalization.

Culture and ideal affect: Cultural dimensions predict Spotify listening patterns

Ideal affective states tend to differ across cultures - those from East Asia typically pursue low-arousal positive affect, while Latin American and Western European individuals pursue high-arousal positive affect. Previous research has shown that music may be an effective way to regulate affective state; however, this is seldom examined through the lens of cultural differences. Furthermore, the relationships between valence and arousal of music preference and specific cultural dimensions remains underexplored. As such, this study examined cultural differences in ideal affect through music preference on Spotify. In total, 32,400 songs were drawn from weekly charts across 12 months on Spotify, from 27 countries (three culturally similar regions; Western-European, East-Asian, and Latin-American). The valence and arousal of music from these countries was examined between cultures, and within the context of six cultural dimensions. Consistent with theories around cross-cultural ideal affect, we found that Western-European countries preferred higher arousal music than East-Asian countries, and Latin American countries preferred the highest arousal music. In addition, both Western countries and East Asian countries showed a similar preference for neutral valence music. This contradicted the expected universal preference for positive valence, which was evident only for the Latin American countries. Finally, high uncertainty avoidance was associated with positive valence and high arousal in music, and positive valence was also associated with higher indulgence, and lower long-term orientation. We provide evidence that cultural differences in ideal affect map on to cross-cultural music preferences, and that these preferences relate to several cultural dimensions.