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Self-Conscious Emotions as Dynamic Cultural Processes Batja Mesquita Department of Psychology Wake Forest University
Mayumi Karasawa Department of Communication Tokyo Woman’s Christian University “To better understand the functions and outcomes of the emotions … researchers must specify the exact emotions involved in these processes. … These emotions will produce divergent behaviors, thoughts, and feelings, so differentiating among them is meaningful and necessary” (Tracy & Robins, this issue). Tracy and Robins (this issue) argue convincingly that the appraisals, and therefore meanings, associated with emotions are decisive for the psychological concomitants and consequences of these emotions. As Tracy and Robins (this issue) eloquently point out, the understanding of self-conscious emotions is importantly contingent on an understanding of the self that feeds those emotions. We argue that (a) Tracy and Robins’s characterization of the self-conscious emotions perfectly fits with the ways the self tends to be construed in North American and Western European contexts of the cultural mainstream and (b) that appraisals associated with self-conscious emotions differ considerably across cultures as a function of culturally different models of self. The cultural differences in appraisals are important and meaningful as they are predictive of many psychological processes emerging as parts of the self-conscious emotion. The cultural differences, as well as differences in the development of self-conscious emotions across cultures, suggest furthermore that emotions are better represented as dynamic cultural processes than as discrete entities that are invariant across times and places.
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Self-Conscious Emotions in Western Cultures The self in Western cultures has been characterized as independent (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Markus, Mullally, & Kitayama, 1997). An independent self is relatively autonomous and bounded. Its social relationships are based on freely negotiated contracts and agreements (Triandis, 1994, 1995). There is no obligation to act according to other people’s needs and expectations. Rather, acts are seen as the expressions of personal feelings, desires, and talents, and the result of uniquely individual goals and intentions (Markus & Kitayama, in press). Perhaps because of the value placed on demonstrating one’s uniqueness, individuals
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often attribute their successes and failures to individual ability (Mascolo, Fischer, & Li, 2001). According to an independent model of the self, then, people act on their own instigation and through their own ability. An important aspect of an independent model of self is that individuals must depend on themselves, and thus they must believe in their own abilities and develop positive self-esteem (Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999; Kitayama, Matsumoto, Markus, & Norasakkunkit, 1997). Children are socialized to depend on themselves rather than on others for performing any given task (Mascolo et al., 2001). From very early on, American parents direct children’s attention to themselves and to their own worthy accomplishments (Miller, Fung, & Mintz, 1996). Parents and other educators encourage children to feel good about their own achievement and bring the child’s responsibility for this achievement to the foreground. The main goal is self-realization, that is, the expression of the positive characteristics of the self. The appraisal configurations of self-conscious emotions that Tracy and Robins (this issue) propose can be understood from an independent model of the self. Positive self-conscious emotions—the ones experienced upon success—result from the appraisals that a situation is identity-goal congruent (i.e. “does it matter who I am,”), and attributed to an internal locus (i.e., it occurred “because of something about me”). Negative self-conscious emotions—the ones experienced upon failure—result from the appraisal that a situation is incongruent with identity goals for which there is an internal attribution. Thus, essential for self-conscious emotions is whether an event reflects self-realization (identity-goal congruence), and whether one is independently responsible for it (internal locus of attribution). Identity-goal congruence and internal locus of attribution are two significant parameters for the independent self. In North American culture, the emotion of pride reflects the self as competent, valuable, or capable of producing socially worthy outcomes (Mascolo & Fischer, 1995; Mascolo et al., 2001). Whereas pride in the early stages of child development is much more diffuse (recognizing that the mother’s smile is contingent on one’s acts), pride in later stages of child devel161
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opment becomes the emotion to signal and reinforce identity-goal congruence by the person’s own doing. Thus, pride in independent contexts develops into the emotion that signals major accomplishments of an independent self. In a Western context, pride is an outstanding example of an emotion that signals and reinforces the accomplishments of the independent self. It feels good to be proud, and consistently, pride is one of the emotions that best predicts general well-being in Western samples (Kitayama, Markus, & Kurokawa, 2000). Conversely, shame is an outstanding example of an emotion that signals one has failed to achieve the central tasks of an independent self, namely self-esteem and positive independence (Kitayama, Markus, & Matsumoto, 1995). This may be one of the reasons that shame in independent cultures has been rated as deeply aversive (Tangney, Miller, Flicker, & Barlow, 1996). As with pride, shame in Western contexts is rather unarticulated in the earlier stages of child development, where it signals disapproval of a parent contingent on some act. However, shame develops into an emotion that signals outcomes that are identity-goal incongruent because of a flawed self (Mascolo & Fischer, 1995). Thus, shame becomes the very sign of a failing independent self. This may be a reason that shame in Western societies is made “invisible” (Scheff, 1988), that the development of shame takes place relatively late in development (Miake & Yamazaki, 1995), and that shame representations are less elaborate than in many other cultures (Eid & Diener, 2001; Mascolo et al., 2001; Shaver, Wu, & Schwartz, 1992). Thus, pride and shame mark, respectively, the very ideal as well as the most undesirable state of an independent self. In independent contexts, the appraisals associated with shame and pride—or hubris, as it might be called—are understandable from the most salient concerns of the independent self: To have (or not have) the internal, stable qualities that enable one to control goal-congruent outcomes. These are the appraisals of pride and shame that Tracy and Robins (this issue) identify.
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Self-Conscious Emotions in East Asian Cultures The literature on self-conscious emotions in East Asian (and other1) cultures provides evidence for the 1
We highlight the variability of shame and pride by discussing the occurrence of these emotions in East Asian cultures. Self-conscious emotions in the so-called Mediterranean honor cultures would form another illustration of the cross-cultural variability of self-conscious emotions that is well documented (Abu-Lughod, 1986; Blok, 1981; Peristiany, 1966).
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more general point that Tracy and Robins made, namely that self-conscious emotions derive their structure and meaning from the self. However, it also suggests that different models of self lead to different self-conscious emotions, and thus that the appraisals Tracy and Robins (this issue) suggest are not universally characteristic of self-conscious emotions. The self in East Asian cultures has been characterized as interdependent (Markus & Kitayama, 1991, 1994), which is inherently connected to other people. The self is conceived of primarily as part of ongoing relationships. The major, normative task for the self, then, is to maintain the interdependence among individuals—or more specifically to adjust and fit into important relationships, to occupy one’s proper place, to engage in appropriate actions, and to promote relevant others’ goals. Related to the central objective for interdependent selves, to maintain harmonious relationships (Kitayama & Markus, 2000), are a pervasive sensitivity to potential negative outcomes (Elliott, Chirkov, Kim, & Sheldon, 2001; Karasawa, 2001; Lewis, 1995), and the motivation to avoid those outcomes. One way to avoid negative outcomes is a continuous effort to self-improve, and a major route to self-improvement is self-criticism. The East Asian belief is that it is healthy to be dissatisfied with oneself, as this motivates ongoing efforts to improve oneself (Heine et al., 1999). Consistent with this idea, Japanese have been shown inclined to interpret events in self-effacing ways, as opposed to North Americans who displayed self-enhancement when interpreting the same events (Kitayama et al., 1997). Furthermore, self-criticism is fostered in childrearing practices and at school (Karasawa, 2001; Mascolo et al., 2001). For example, Miller and colleagues (Miller et al., 1996) showed that many self-narratives of 3-year-old Taiwanese children are about events in which the children violated certain norms (and shamed their environment), and that caretakers encouraged this type of narrative in their children by shaming them into acknowledgments of the social rules. Moreover, Lewis (1995) described the daily practice of communal hansei (self-criticism) in Japanese classrooms. Establishing identity-goal incongruence is thus a prevalent and valued cultural practice in East Asian cultures. Being an interdependent self also means having interdependent fates. Meeting identity goals is a communal effort, and people in close relationships can only meet their identity goals together. Conversely, failing to meet identity goals has relational consequences as well, as it affects other people with whom one shares an interdependent identity. Interdependent selves strive to protect each other from face loss, among others by meeting relationship obligations, and thus by publicly paying tribute to the importance of the rela-
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tionship (Chang & Holt, 1994). The public meaning or perception of situations—or the question “What are the consequences of this behavior on other’s opinion?”— is very important. Many situations are assessed from the perspective of a generalized other (Cohen & Gunz, 2002). In interdependent contexts, it may be less important what the behavior tells us about the locus of attribution as what its relational and public effects are.
Shame in Interdependent Contexts The first important fact to note is that shame, at some level, is consistent with the goals of the interdependent self (Kitayama et al., 1995). Shame is consistent with the cultural norms of modesty and self-criticism in East Asian cultures. Showing shame is interpreted as aligning oneself with the social rules and expectations. Consistently, Japanese respondents in one of our studies indicated a preference to report a situation of shame or humiliation over one of personal value or pride (Mesquita et al., 2003). More generally, shame indicates an acknowledgment of important social rules and expectations. Wang, Li, and Fischer (cited in Mascolo et al., 2003) found that shamelessness was considered a much more despicable mental state than shame: “In China, shamelessness is … worse than being ashamed, as it connotated a lack of connection to the social values and moral systems that organize shame” (p. 383). Thus, shame is one way of showing social engagement, a central goal in East Asian interdependent contexts. With rare exceptions, shame motivates the family or the community to reintegrate the ashamed individual into their midst (Braithwaite, cited in Mascolo et al., 2003). Shame in East Asian cultures “is not primarily a threat to self-esteem: instead, it is a vehicle for social cohesion and the development of self” (Mascolo et al., 2003, p. 395). The relatively positive cultural value of shame in East Asian cultures is more than just an interesting fact about the social desirability of an otherwise universal emotional experience. Rather, it has important consequences for the phenomenology of shame in different cultures. There is some evidence suggesting that the different social connotation of shame affects the very appraisal of the emotion itself. In a large cross-cultural study, Wallbott and Scherer (1995) found that in collectivist cultures (in which an interdependent self is presumably prevalent) shame was appraised as significantly less immoral, and as having fewer negative influences on self-esteem and on relationships than was shame in individualist cultures (in which independent forms of self are presumably prevalent). Shame experiences were thus found to be different with regard to the very appraisals that the researchers considered central to the emotional experience (Scherer, 1997a, 1997b).
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Developmental work on shame also suggests that cross-cultural differences in shame appraisals exist, and that they increase over the course of development (Mascolo et al., 2001). In the course of childhood, shame in Chinese children transforms from an emotion of distress very much like the initial stages of shame in independent contexts, into a more complex emotion, in which children start realizing how their performances affect the social evaluation or face of significant others, such as their mother or father. Toward the end of the developmental trajectory, shame experiences happen, when one’s public self brings dishonor to the self and the family, sometimes even the family name. The appraisal of shame at the latter stages of development thus importantly diverges from Western appraisals of shame in a number of ways that are not articulated in Tracy and Robins’s (this issue) model. First, the identity goal at stake is not only public but is relational: At stake are one’s obligations to others, to one’s parents, to the nation, and so on. Shame is the evaluation that what one does is importantly incongruent with relationship goals, and that it brings dishonor on the people or groups to which one belongs. Strictly speaking, shame may still be considered an infraction of an identity goal, however the goals are relational, and this has important consequences for the consequent behavior. Furthermore, there are differences in the locus of attribution of shame. Importantly, shame in East Asian cultures can easily result from situations that do not have an internal locus of attribution, as it may also be elicited by the behavior of family and group members who bring dishonor. Moreover, whereas shame in Western cultures tend to be more about internal flaws, and thus about internal locus of attribution, shame in East Asian cultures seems to be primarily about negative social outcomes, without much regard for the locus of attribution. One Japanese-American study of shame experiences (Crystal, Parrott, Okazaki, & Watanabe, 2001) found that shame in the Japanese group was most intense when the public self was compromised, thus when one was “openly being ridiculed and rejected” or “ fantasizing to himself that [one] has been made ridiculous” (Benedict, 1946). In contrast, the highest intensity of shame in the American group was reported in response to situations that showed character flaws. Internal locus of attribution thus seems to be a less salient dimension of appraisal in East Asian cultures than it is in independent North American contexts in which it was conceived. Finally, the distinction between stable and global attributions does not seem to hold very much importance in East Asian cultures, because what counts are the social outcomes, the fact that one has failed to fulfill one’s duties and obligations in the eyes of important others, rather than the precise origin of behavior. One consequence is that the distinctions between the
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various self-conscious emotions are not as clear in East Asian contexts. Shame and guilt are not distinguished in the Chinese context (Mascolo et al., 2001), and the Japanese word haji is translated as both shame and embarrassment (Sera, 2003). All these appraisal distinctions have important phenomenological consequences; however, more important, they make the cultural differences in shame responses understandable. Whereas shame in independent contexts tends to lead to withdrawal, shame in interdependent contexts leads to attempts to restore relationships. The Japanese word for shame—haji —“highlights the indebtedness or inferiority to [relevant] others and the ultimate significance of the others to the person” (Kitayama et al., 1995, pp.445–446). Shame is often accompanied by declarations of shame, public apologies, and public weeping to parents, in-group, or the nation, and to public and private declarations of one’s intention to change one’s unworthy actions and identity (Mascolo et al., 2001; Mesquita et al., 2003). For example, one of the most frequent Japanese responses in the humiliation/shame situations (Mesquita et al., 2003) is gambaru that can be loosely translated as a resolve to self-improvement. Shame in East Asian cultures is thus an emotion of hope, rather than one of ultimate failure. Shame in East Asian cultures does not seem to fit the Western characterization of shame as an emotion that “give[s] rise to anger directed both toward the self and others that is likely to impair rather than facilitate subsequent interactions” (Miller & Tangney, 1994, p. 275). Rather, shame in East Asian contexts is an emotion that is met with relative benevolence by the social environment, and that spurs the individual’s motivation to repair relationships, approach significant others, and generally perform better in the future. It is very questionable that shame in East Asian cultures is best characterized by the appraisals Tracy and Robins (this issue) put forward.
Although pride as defined by Tracy and Robins (this issue)—good feelings about an identity-congruent outcome for which one is responsible—may occur in East Asian cultures, this is not the most salient self-conscious emotion in the positive domain. Mascolo et al. (2001) described the more common emotion in China as one of social honor, and its antecedent as the path of self-harmonization (contrasting with the Western path of self-realization). The Chinese emotion of social honor follows on accomplishments that positively reflect on the honor of one’s parents or in-group, and thus on the positive evaluation or praise that others will have of the parents, the in-group, or the nation. Importantly, the identity goal involved is relational as it was for shame/guilt. For example, Chinese respondents reported more pride-like feelings because of good performance of one’s team than did the American sample, whereas one’s own good performance elicited more pride in Americans than in Chinese respondents (Stipek, 1998). In the Chinese group, success was thus established based on the outcomes for the in-group (parents, classmates, etc.), rather than on the outcomes for the individual. Furthermore, the typical appraisal of social honor (the Chinese counterpart of pride) is that the locus of attribution is not the self, but rather others together with the self (Mascolo et al., 2003). Japanese agency attributions are made in a similar fashion (Markus & Kitayama, in press):
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Pride in Interdependent Contexts
Japanese cameras often show the athlete in the context of coaches and other team members and reporters ask questions that promote less individualized portrayals of the sources of action. They ask “Who encouraged you or who helped you to overcome your previous weaknesses in this event?” … Thus Naoko Takahashi, the women’s marathon gold medalist, accounted for her win saying “here is the best coach of the world, and all the people who support me—all of these things were getting together and became a gold medal.” (Markus & Kitayama, in press, manuscript p. 23)
Pride, as in celebrating positive features of the self, is inconsistent with the interdependent goal in East Asian cultures to maintain harmonious relationships. Chinese respondents in one study expressed a negative view of experiencing and expressing pride in personal accomplishments, and they tended to agree with statements suggesting that pride was only appropriate for achievements that benefit others (Stipek, 1998). In another study, pride feelings did not predict general well-being in the Japanese group, whereas these feeling did predict well-being in a North American group (Kitayama & Markus, 2000). Thus, whereas pride signals the realization of the independent self, it is not congruent with the goals of an interdependent self.
Success is thus attributed to the in-group rather than to the self strictly. This means that there is no reason to celebrate the self per se, and in fact, self-effacement can be found in many success situations (Kitayama et al., 1997; Mascolo et al., 2001). When success is acknowledged in interdependent East Asian, contexts its meaning is different as well. Rather than being an endpoint, success makes the need for more effort salient to ensure continued good performance (Heine et al., 1999). Once again, the behavioral implications are significant. Whereas pride in Western cultures is often accompanied by exuberance and glowing, presumably in celebration of the achievement, pride or social honor in East Asian cultures leads
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tual constitution of culture and emotions (Shweder, 1991). Emotions are not independent entities that somehow come to life when the individual “pushes the right appraisal buttons,” however rather they develop in context, are rich in meaning, and therefore have distinct social and behavioral consequences in different socio-cultural environments.
to sustained efforts (Mesquita et al., 2003), and to self-effacing remarks on the part of the individual and the in-group, reflecting the awareness that improvement is always possible and that joint efforts will have to be extended to continue to live up to social expectations (Mascolo et al., 2001). Western-style pride that celebrates the accomplishments of a competent self is thus not very prevalent in East Asian contexts. Rather, pride signals increased honor of the group as accomplished by joint effort. Pride calls for more effort to avoid shortcomings and to avoid disappointing important others, or worse, to avoid shaming their name. The characterization of pride as a feeling that strengthens the sense of personal worth is not adequate to explain the contexts in which it occurs, the phenomenology, and the behaviors accompanying pride-like emotions in East Asian cultures.
Note Batja Mesquita, Department of Psychology, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC 27109. E-mail:
[email protected]
Emotions as Entities or Processes?
References
Tracy and Robins (this issue) assume that the types of appraisals that elicit different emotions will “generalize across cultures.” The authors concede that cultures may affect individuals’ propensity to make certain appraisals, and thus the frequency of the associated emotion. However, they assume that each self-conscious emotion when it occurs is characterized by a culturally invariant pattern of appraisals. Our caption of the cross-cultural literature on self-conscious emotions challenges this assumption. Rather, the research suggests that the patterns of appraisals that characterize self-conscious emotions in East Asian contexts differ significantly from the ones Tracy and Robins (this issue) propose. The cultural differences, in addition to being interesting for their own sake, also illuminate an important conceptual issue: Emotions may be better viewed as processes rather than entities (Mesquita, 2003). The developmental research on self-conscious emotions is particularly illuminating. Children in different cultures start with largely universal, rudimentary responses that signal others’ approval or disapproval of an outcome that was related with the child’s acts. However, socialization in different cultures transforms the rudiments into responses that perfectly mesh with the major practices of the self in the respective cultures. Self-conscious emotions in independent contexts become markers of personal worth, or the lack thereof, whereas self-conscious emotions in interdependent contexts become the signals of satisfactory and unsatisfactory social engagement and interdependence. The nature of the very emotions the appraisals and behaviors is modeled to fit the models of self: Self-conscious emotions become expressions of the specific models of self of the cultures in which they emerge. Thus, the cultural differences in self-conscious emotions point to the mu-
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Development, Culture, and Alternative Pathways to Self-Conscious Emotions: A Commentary on Tracy and Robins Linda A. Camras and Serah S. Fatani Department of Psychology DePaul University Tracy and Robins (this issue) provide an admirable synthesis of the literature on self-conscious emotions and generated a model that will be an important basis for future systematic research. However, although the authors touch on developmental and cultural considerations, these issues are not major foci within their article. In this commentary, we examine some questions that consideration of development and culture might raise about their specific model and, more important, emotion models in general. These include questions
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about (a) coherence among emotion measures across development, (b) self-construals across cultures, and (c) alternative pathways to emotion.
Developmental Coherence Among Emotion Measures Most systematic studies of self-conscious emotions in adults have relied on verbal report in their measure-
