Social Justice Commons^™

Asian Americans Respond Less Favorably To Excitement (Vs. Calm)-Focused Physicians Compared To European Americans, Tamara Sims, Birgit Koopmann-Holm, Henry Young, Da Jiang, Helene Fung, Jeanne L. Tsai

Psychology

OBJECTIVES:

Despite being considered a "model minority," Asian Americans report worse health care encounters than do European Americans. This may be due to affective mismatches between Asian American patients and their European American physicians. We predicted that because Asian Americans value excitement (vs. calm) less than European Americans, they will respond less favorably to excitement-focused (vs. calm) physicians.

METHOD:

In Study 1, 198 European American, Chinese American, and Hong Kong Chinese community adults read a medical scenario and indicated their preference for an excitement-focused versus calm-focused physician. In Study 2, 81 European American and Asian American community college students listened …

The Cultural Shaping Of Compassion, Birgit Koopmann-Holm, Jeanne L. Tsai

Psychology

In this chapter, we first review the existing literature on cross-cultural studies on compassion. While cultural similarities exist, we demonstrate cultural differences in the conception, experience, and expression of compassion. Then we present our own work on the cultural shaping of compassion by introducing Affect Valuation Theory ( e.g., Tsai, Knutson, & Fung, 2006), our theoretical framework. We show how the desire to avoid feeling negative partly explains cultural differences in conceptualizations and expressions of compassion. Specifically, the more people want to avoid feeling negative, the more they focus on the positive (e.g., comforting memories) than the negative (e.g., the …