Will you boost my joy or dampen it? Cultural differences in hedonic interpersonal emotion regulation in romantic relationships.

What is it about?

Many of us believe that it is important to help romantic partners feel good and avoid feeling bad. However, our research shows that people from different cultural contexts don’t always think or act this way. Through three studies with over 2,500 participants, we found that European Americans are more likely to boost their partner’s positive emotions while reducing negative emotions—the process we call “hedonic interpersonal emotion regulation”. In contrast, East Asians don’t engage in hedonic interpersonal emotion regulation much, and if anything, they tend to favor a counter-hedonic approach by trying to dampen their partner’s positive emotions or maintain negative emotions. Moreover, hedonic interpersonal emotion regulation leads to greater relational benefits for European Americans than for East Asians, including greater relationship satisfaction and more adaptive physiological responses during real-time interaction. These cultural differences are accounted for by the fact that compared to European Americans, East Asians endorse dialectical beliefs about emotions more—i.e., the cultural beliefs that positive and negative emotions can coexist in a state of balance.

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Photo by leah hetteberg on Unsplash

Photo by leah hetteberg on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Hedonism is considered a fundamental human motive that drives how we manage our own and other’s emotions. Yet, our work suggests that this principle does not travel well across cultural boundaries. Our analysis shows that there is no one-size-fits-all strategy when it comes to helping others manage their emotions. Instead, socio-cultural context is critical for understanding what is and what is not optimal within relationship dynamics.