Culture and savoring of positive experiences
department or school: Arts, Faculty of
department or school: Psychology, Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Lindberg, Tracy L.
issued: 2009-12-21T23:37:52Z
issued: 2004
related degree: Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: Savoring is the process by which people enhance, intensify, or prolong their affective reactions to positive events (Bryant, 1989). Drawing on recent research regarding cultural variation in affective norms and experience, I examined savoring and related constructs in Japanese, Asian North American and European North American respondents. As defined in previous research with American samples, the construct of savoring was found to generalize to East Asian samples, with equivalent factor structure and similar relations on measures of convergent and discriminant validity. As predicted, East Asian respondents endorsed lower capacity for anticipating, savoring in the moment and reminiscing. Mediation analyses suggested that attitudes regarding the importance of enhancing positive feelings and beliefs about change played a role in mediating the relation between culture and savoring, but self-construal did not. In self-nominated positive events, East Asian individuals included more interpersonal and achievement events and made reference to positive events from the distant past or anticipated future in addition to current events. In contrast, European North Americans nominated more leisure events, and were temporally oriented to the present and recent past. Predictions with respect to cultural differences in savoring strategies were generally supported, with European North Americans endorsing more Self-Congratulation, Behavioral Expression and Sensory Perceptual Sharpening both in self-nominations and ratings on the Ways of Savoring Checklist (WOSC). Although the majority of strategies nominated across cultures were captured by the WOSC strategies of Sharing and Memory Building, several novel savoring strategies were reported by East Asian respondents, including Making Greater Effort and Continuing Connection with Others Involved. These results are generally consistent with other research finding both elements of universality and cultural variation in the experience of pos…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/16982
note: C U L T U R E AND SAVORING OF POSITIVE EXPERIENCES by T R A C Y L. LINDBERG B.A. (Hons.), Simon Fraser University, 1992 M.A., Simon Fraser University, 1995 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE F A C U L T Y OF G R A D U A T E STUDIES (Department of Psychology) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA December 2004 ©Tracy L. Lindberg, 2004 11 Abstract Savoring is the process by which people enhance, intensify, or prolong their affective reactions to positive events (Bryant, 1989). Drawing on recent research regarding cultural variation in affective norms and experience, I examined savoring and related constructs in Japanese, Asian North American and European North American respondents. As defined in previous research with American samples, the construct of savoring was found to generalize to East Asian samples, with equivalent factor structure and similar relations on measures of convergent and discriminant validity. As predicted, East Asian respondents endorsed lower capacity for anticipating, savoring in the moment and reminiscing. Mediation analyses suggested that attitudes regarding the importance of enhancing positive feelings and beliefs about change played a role in mediating the relation between culture and savoring, but self-construal did not. In self-nominated positive events, East Asian individuals included more interpersonal and achievement events and made reference to positive events from the distant past or anticipated future in addition to current events. In contrast, European North Americans nominated more leisure events, and were temporally oriented to the present and recent past. Predictions with respect to cultural differences in savoring strategies were generally supported, with European North Americans endorsing more Self-Congratulation, Behavioral Expression and Sensory Perceptual Sharpening both in self-nominations and ratings on the Ways of Savoring Checklist (WOSC). Although the…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2005-05
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0092290
language: eng
degree discipline: Psychology
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.
scholar level: Graduate
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/16982