Valuing high arousal negative states increases negative responses toward outgroups across cultures.

Previous research demonstrates that the more people experience anger, fear, and other high arousal negative states (HAN) on average, the more prejudice and harm they express toward outgroups. Here we demonstrate that valuing HAN-above and beyond actually experiencing HAN-increases people's likelihood of engaging in harm toward cultural outgroups in everyday life. In Study 1, U.S. European Americans (N = 227) read hypothetical scenarios in which a member of another cultural group at school, work, or home made them uncomfortable. As predicted, the more participants ideally wanted to feel HAN, the more negatively they responded to the outgroup member in these scenarios (i.e., the more HAN they felt, the more they viewed harmful actions as appropriate, and the more likely they were to engage in these actions). To assess generalizability, in Study 2, we provide evidence from Canada (n = 162) and Taiwan (n = 170) that despite cultural differences in the valuation of specific types of HAN, wanting to feel HAN still predicted negative responses toward cultural outgroups in both cultures. These findings raise the intriguing possibility that reducing people's valuation of HAN might play an important role in increasing tolerance of cultural diversity in multicultural societies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

East versus West: psychology of religion in East Asian cultures.

Despite advancements in psychology of religion, most of what we know is derived from studies in Western Christian cultures. We review recent research investigating the impact of religion on various outcomes in East Asian cultural and religious contexts (versus Western Christian) including: religiosity components and measurement, health, personality, cognition and emotion, morality and values, and intergroup attitudes and behavior. While religion sometimes has similar effects across contexts (e.g. increased health, prosociality, and traditional values), the associations observed in Western contexts are often weaker or inexistent, especially in the moral domain. In some occasions, opposite effects of religion in East Asian contexts are observed (e.g. decreased prejudice). These observations suggest an interaction between religious and cultural factors.

Feeling excited or taking a bath: Do distinct pathways underlie the positive affect-health link in the U.S. and Japan?

Feeling good is linked to better health in Western contexts. Recent studies show, however, that the affect-health link is not consistent across cultures. We suggest two reasons for such inconsistency. The first follows from research showing that North American (vs. East Asian) cultures tend to value high arousal positive (HAP) states, for example, excited, more than low arousal positive (LAP) states, for example, calm. The second is one we propose for the first time. Positive affective experience is manifest in internal feelings but also in affective practices, such as taking a bath (a highly valued affective experience in Japan) or a fitness workout (a highly valued affective experience in the United States). We hypothesized that the HAP feelings/practices-health link would be stronger in the United States versus Japan, and the LAP feelings/practices-health link would be stronger in Japan versus the United States. Using survey samples from the United States (N = 640) and Japan (N = 382), we examined how health outcomes are shaped by positive affective feelings and practices varying in arousal. In a first set of analyses, HAP feelings predicted better physical and biological health in the United States but not in Japan. No cultural differences were consistently found for the effect of LAP feelings on health. In addition, engaging in HAP practices predicted better physical and biological health in the United States whereas engaging in LAP practices predicted better physical health in Japan but not in the United States. These findings suggest that the pathways underlying the culture-health link are culturally variable. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Who Turns to Acupuncture? The Role of Mistrust of Rationality and Individualist Success.

OBJECTIVE: In this postmodern society, people tend to abandon conventional medicine for alternative medical systems, such as acupuncture. What are the reasons for this defiance regarding modern rationality and individualist success? Who turns to acupuncture? METHODS: This study (n=89) examined whether world views opposed to the predominance of rationality (i.e., mistrust of science, spirituality, paranormal beliefs) and individualist success or consumerism (i.e., power, achievement, and materialism), typically associated with the postmodern era, might explain this attraction toward acupuncture. Participants were recruited through Internet forums interested in complementary and alternative medicine and completed the questionnaire voluntarily. RESULTS: Attraction to acupuncture related negatively with materialism and achievement as well as positively with spirituality, paranormal beliefs, and mistrust in science. Spirituality, paranormal beliefs, and low achievement were the main predictors of attraction to acupuncture and explained 44% of the variance. The mistrust in science mediated the relationship between spiritual and paranormal beliefs and the attraction toward acupuncture. Low achievement explained the link between low materialism and positive attitudes toward acupuncture. CONCLUSION: The general mistrust of our rational and individualist modern society is indeed an important predictor of attraction toward acupuncture, in addition to demographic variables.

Buddhist concepts as implicitly reducing prejudice and increasing prosociality.

Does Buddhism really promote tolerance? Based on cross-cultural and cross-religious evidence, we hypothesized that Buddhist concepts, possibly differing from Christian concepts, activate not only prosociality but also tolerance. Subliminally priming Buddhist concepts, compared with neutral or Christian concepts, decreased explicit prejudice against ethnic, ideological, and moral outgroups among Western Buddhists who valued universalism (Experiment 1, N = 116). It also increased spontaneous prosociality, and decreased, among low authoritarians or high universalists, implicit religious and ethnic prejudice among Westerners of Christian background (Experiment 2, N = 128) and Taiwanese of Buddhist/Taoist background (Experiment 3, N = 122). Increased compassion and tolerance of contradiction occasionally mediated some of the effects. The general idea that religion promotes (ingroup) prosociality and outgroup prejudice, based on research in monotheistic contexts, lacks cross-cultural sensitivity; Buddhist concepts activate extended prosociality and tolerance of outgroups, at least among those with socio-cognitive and moral openness.