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Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
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Somatic and Social: Chinese Americans Talk about Emotion

Jeanne L. Tsai

Stanford University, jtsai{at}psych.stanford.edu

Diana I. Simeonova

Stanford University

Jamie T. Watanabe

San Jose Medical Center

Empirical findings suggest that Chinese and Americans differ in the ways that they describe emotional experience, with Chinese using more somatic and social words than Americans. No one, however, has investigated whether this variation is related to differences between Chinese and American conceptions of emotion or to linguistic differences between the English and Chinese languages. Therefore, in two studies, the authors compared the word use of individuals who varied in their orientation to Chinese and American cultures (European Americans [EA], more acculturated Chinese Americans [CA], and less acculturated CA) when they were speaking English during emotional events. Across both studies, less acculturated CA used more somatic (e.g., dizzy) and more social (e.g., friend) words than EA. These findings suggest that even when controlling for language spoken, cultural conceptions of emotion may shape how people talk about emotion.

Key Words: culture • verbal expression • emotion • language • Chinese • LIWC

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 30, No. 9, 1226-1238 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/0146167204264014
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