COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2014 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2014.881324 ROUTLEDGE Routledge Taylor & Francis Group Cognition & Emotion Defending honour, keeping face: Interpersonal affordances of anger and shame in Turkey and Japan Michael Boiger1, Derya Güngör1, Mayumi Karasawa2, and Batja Mesquita1 1Center for Social and Cultural Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium 2Department of Communication, Tokyo Woman's Christian University, Tokyo, Japan In the present study, we tested the idea that emotions are afforded to the extent that they benefit central cultural concerns. We predicted that emotions that are beneficial for the Turkish concern for defending honour (both anger and shame) are afforded frequently in Turkey, whereas emotions that are beneficial for the Japanese concern for keeping face (shame but not anger) are afforded frequently in Japan. N = 563 students from Turkey and Japan indicated how frequently people in their culture experience a range of interpersonal anger and shame situations, and how intense their emotions would be. As predicted, participants perceived emotional interactions to occur frequently to the extent that they elicited culturally beneficial emotions. Moreover, the affordance of culturally beneficial emotions differed in predictable ways not only between cultures but also within cultures between situations with close vs. distant others and male vs. female protagonists. Keywords: Culture; Affordances; Anger; Shame; Honour; Face. Patterns of emotional experience differ across cultures. These cultural differences are meaningful in that they seem to be consistent with the concerns that are central in the respective cultures (Mesquita, 2003). Indeed, one overarching finding across studies is that emotions that are in line with cultural concerns appear to be culturally "up- regulated" and thus occur frequently; emotions that are in opposition to cultural concerns appear to be culturally "down-regulated" and thus occur rarely (e.g., De Leersnyder, Boiger, & Mesquita, 2013). The concerns that are central in a cultural context, therefore, seem to shape the emotional lives of the people who engage in this context. Much of the cross-cultural research on emo- tional patterns has contrasted North American and Japanese contexts because the central concerns in these cultural contexts are maximally different: Correspondence should be addressed to: Michael Boiger, Center for Social and Cultural Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Leuven, Tiensestraat 102 - box 3727, 3000 Leuven, Belgium. E-mail: michael.boiger@ppw. kuleuven.be We thank Philippe Verduyn for his help in programming the preliminary daily diary study and three anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and encouraging remarks. This research was supported by a grant from the Research Council of the University of Leuven. C 2014 Taylor & Francis 1
BOIGER ET AL. North America is a prototypical independent cul- ture, with an emphasis on autonomy and individual achievement, whereas Japan is an interdependent culture, with an emphasis on connectedness and social harmony (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Rothbaum, Pott, Azuma, Miyake, & Weisz, 2000). Several studies have confirmed that patterns of emotional experience differ between North Amer- ica and Japan in ways that fit these different concerns (Boiger, Mesquita, Uchida, & Barrett, 2013; Kitayama,