TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2017//
TI  - Two sides of emotion: exploring positivity and negativity in six basic emotions across cultures
JO  - Frontiers in psychology
A1  - An, Sieun
A1  - Ji, Li-Jun
A1  - Marks, Michael
A1  - Zhang, Zhiyong
SP  - e610
EP  - e610
VL  - 8
IS  - 
N2  - We employ a novel paradigm to test whether six basic emotions (sadness, fear, disgust, anger, surprise, and happiness; Ekman, 1992) contain both negativity and positivity, as opposed to consisting of a single continuum between negative and positive. We examined the perceived negativity and positivity of these emotions in terms of their affective and cognitive components among Korean, Chinese, Canadian, and American students. Assessing each emotion at the cognitive and affective levels cross-culturally provides a fairly comprehensive picture of the positivity and negativity of emotions. Affective components were rated as more divergent than cognitive components. Cross-culturally, Americans and Canadians gave higher valence ratings to the salient valence of each emotion, and lower ratings to the non-salient valence of an emotion, compared to Chinese and Koreans. The results suggest that emotions encompass both positivity and negativity, and there were cross-cultural differences in reported emotions. This paradigm complements existing emotion theories, building on past research and allowing for more parsimonious explanations of cross-cultural research on emotion.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 1664-1078
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00610
ID  - ref1
ER  -