Newborn East Asian infants have a higher threshold to pain in infancy, cry less readily, and quiet more quickly ( Brazelton, Tobey, & Collier, 1969 Caudill & Weinstein, 1969 Freedman, 1976 Freedman & Freedman, 1969). While socialization differences are likely the key vehicle for promoting differences in self-evaluative emotion and behavior, the developmental literature suggests that temperament differences may also play a part. ![]() For example, East Asian parents of elementary school children emphasize improvement following failure whereas American parents of similarly aged children emphasize success ( Ng, Pomerantz, & Lam, 2007). If self-evaluative emotions have emerged during this same period in Japanese children, cultural differences in the expression of self-evaluative and other expressions in achievement contexts during the preschool period may reflect differences in the socialization of values regarding achievement. In American culture, individual differences in achievement striving and self-evaluative styles on such tasks are also evident during this period ( Dweck, Chiu, & Hong, 1995 Skinner, 1991 Smiley & Dweck, 1994). Success or failure on simple tasks have been shown to be valid contexts for eliciting self evaluative expressions by age four ( Lewis et al., 1992 Lewis & Ramsay, 2002). While there is no reason to suppose cultural differences in the emergence of the cognitive underpinnings of these emotions, once they emerge their expression and the contexts which elicit them are subject to socialization pressures. Expressions of self-evaluative behavior and emotion expressions of shame and pride are evident by age 3 years in success and failure situations ( Lewis & Sullivan, 2006 Lewis, Alessandri, & Sullivan, 1992 Lewis & Ramsay, 2002 Stipek, Recchia, & McClintic, 1992). Exposure embarrassment, an early form of self-consciousness, appears in Western children as soon as the cognitive representation of self is attained ( Lewis, Stanger, Sullivan, & Weiss, 1989). The cognitive underpinnings for self conscious emotions emerge sometime after 15–20 months of age, making the expressions of shame, embarrassment, and pride possible as children begin to learn the standards and goals of the social group ( Lewis, & Brooks-Gunn, 1979 Lewis, 1992). Evidence suggests that the self-conscious emotions emerge in all children once specific cognitive processes develop. The specific goal of this study is to examine cultural differences in self-conscious emotions during the preschool period. Although both biology and socialization impact on the expression of these emotions as well as others, little work in children explores early cultural differences in the expression of self-evaluative emotions. Self-evaluative emotions of shame, embarrassment, and pride have been found to be influenced by both biological and socialization factors ( Ferguson, Stegge, & Damhuis, 1991 Kochanska, 1995 Lewis, 1992 Lewis & Ramsay, 2002 Rothbart, Ahadi, & Hershey, 1994). These results demonstrate that cultural differences, whether due to temperament or direct socialization of cultural values, influence how children respond to achievement situations. ![]() ![]() The low amount of sadness and shame expression, and the limited range of number of different expressions observed in the Japanese children agree with the general finding that East Asian infants and young children differ from Western infants and children primarily in the display of negative expressions. This finding supports the idea that success and failure are interpreted differently by Japanese children during the preschool years. American children however showed more evaluative as opposed to exposure embarrassment. African American and White American children did not differ from one another. The results showed that Japanese children differed from American children in expressing less shame, pride, and sadness, but more of both exposure and evaluative embarrassment. The children were Japanese (N=32), African American (N=63) and White American of mixed European ancestry (N=54). The emotional responses to achievement contexts of 149 preschool children from three cultural groups were observed.
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