Most people say they want to feel good. What they actually do to feel good, however, varies considerably. This may be because people differ in the specific feelings they value. While some people value positive feelings that involve intense physiological activation, such as excitement, others value positive feelings that involve minimal physiological activation, such as calm. Variation in affect valuation, or the affective states that people value and would ideally like to feel, may account for cultural and individual differences in the types of substances and drugs that people use to feel good (or to stop feeling bad), the leisure activities they engage in, and the ways they express their emotional distress. Although previous research has focused on cultural variation in values and goals, no studies have explicitly examined cultural variation in valued affective states. The proposed studies use a variety of methods (interview, survey, experience-sampling, experimental, physiological, and observational) to examine affect valuation in European Americans, Chinese Americans, Chinese in Beijing, and Chinese in Hong Kong. Specifically, the studies aim to: (1) develop a reliable and valid cross-cultural measure of affect evaluation, (2) provide empirical support, for a theory of affect valuation that integrates theoretical and psychometrically validated models of affect, values, and goals, (3) investigate the mechanisms underlying cultural differences in affect valuation, and (4) examine how affect valuation influences affective experience. Study 1 is a survey study that examines the reliability and validity of a measure of affect valuation; tests predictions that American culture values excitement and other high activation positive states, while Chinese culture values calm and other low activation positive states; and examines whether Chinese-American differences in reports of substance use, leisure activities, hypomanic symptoms, and preferences for visual stimuli are mediated by cultural differences in affect valuation. Study 2 uses experience sampling methods to examine how affect valuation influences daily activities and whether our theory of affect valuation applies to on-line affect. Studies 3-5 examine the effects of: (a) culture on affect valuation, (b) culture on preference behavior, and (c) affect valuation on preference behavior, using experimental designs. Finally, Study 6 examines how affect evaluation shapes physiological, subjective, and expressive responses to emotion-eliciting stimuli.
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