Culture and Memory for Emotional Experiences: On-Line vs. Retrospective Judgments of Subjective Well-Being

Five studies were conducted to examine the genesis of cultural differences in global reports of well-being. The first three studies were designed to determine whether cultural differences in emotional experiences would emerge at the time of actual experience or at the time of retrospective judgments, using diverse methods from a scenario rating task (Study 1), to a daily diary method (Study 2) and an experience sampling method (Study 3). The results of Studies 4 and 5 were designed to examine the memory, conscious weighting, and non-conscious weighting hypotheses. The results indicate that although there were no cultural differences in on-line experiences of well-being, European Americans tended to report a higher degree of well-being than did Asian Americans in retrospective reports. Studies 4 and 5 also indicate that these cultural differences are not due to explicit memory for emotional events or conscious weighting of positive vs. negative information. Rather, the cultural difference in retrospective reports of well-being appears to be due to non-conscious weighting of positive vs. negative information.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Oishi, Shigehiro

Contributors dc:contributor

• Ed Diener

• Psychology, Personality

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI9990101

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/82322