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Do More, Say Less: Saying "I Love You" in Chinese and American Cultures
Abstract
Reticence to express emotions verbally has long been observed in Chinese culture, but quantitative comparisons with Western cultures are few. Explanations for emotional reticence have typically focused on the need in collectivist culture to promote group harmony, but this explanation is most applicable to negative emotions such as anger, not positive expressions such as Wo ai ni [I love you]. A survey on verbal usage of Wo ai ni was administered to university students in Beijing and Shanghai, and compared to uses of I love you by American students in the United States. Chinese respondents were not only overall more reticent than Americans in their love expressions, but differed from Americans in avoiding I love you expressions with family (especially parents). Interviews revealed that Chinese and American students, the two groups endorsed different reasons for saying Wo ai nil I love you. The reasons Americans provided most often related to the inherent importance of saying I love you, while this was the least frequently mentioned reason by Chinese. Bicultural Chinese interviewees observed that one could perform nonverbal actions or even say English I love you as substitutions for saying Wo ai ni. Chinese survey respondents did not endorse these options, and instead consistently minimized both verbal and nonverbal love expressions. The pattern of responses is consistent with theoretical proposals about high vs. low context cultures, especially with regards to the usefulness of saying I love you for relationship management purposes, and for asserting (or avoiding) statements of one's individual autonomy.
... In translating the romantic word or utterances, it is necessary to have a cultural context. For example, the word love in the USA, it is acceptable to say I love you to family members even though they are already teenagers/adults (Caldwell-Harris, Kronrod, & Yang, 2013). However, in Indonesia, saying the word I love you to a family member who is already a teenager/adult is a weird thing and creates a feeling of discomfort. ...
50 First Dates is a movie that broadly known around the globe in 2004 as one of the best romantic comedy movie in the 2000s. This research aims to analyze type of romanticism and the translation techniques used in the 50 First Dates movie subtitle in Amazon Prime Video. This research uses qualitative method with case study as a research design. This research uses document analysis with transcript and subtitle of the movie. The data are analyzed using theory from Lomas (2018) in finding the type of romanticism and theory by Molina and Albir (2002) to find out the types of translation techniques. Based on findings, there are 6 types of love found out of 14, namely: Philia (31.03%), Storge (25.28%), Paixnidi (21.83%), Ananke (13.79%), Epithymia (5.74%) and Pragma (2.29%). Regarding the translation techniques, 9 out of 18 types of translation techniques are found, namely; Established Equivalent (47.61%), Linguistics Compression (15.87%), Borrowing (8.73%), Reduction (8.73%), Compensation (7.93%), Linguistics Amplification (4.76%), Modulation (3.17%), Amplifications (2.38%) and Particularization (0.79%). Based on the data, the researcher found that the translation used more than one translation techniques. Therefore, the researcher grouped them into single (59.77%), duplet (31.03%), triplet (8.04%), and quadruplet group (1.14%). From the findings, it can be concluded that the most found type of love is Philia. On the other hand, the most dominant type of translation techniques is Established Equivalent with various combinations.
... Again, the distinction between individualistic and collectivist cultures is important. People in individualistic cultures seem to be more openly conveying emotional feelings and use a more expressive style than people from collectivist cultures, which is illustrated by the reticence of verbal and non-verbal expression of the emotion love by Chinese people compared to Americans (Caldwell-Harris et al., 2013). Moreover, it was found that there are several linguistic differences in the emotional expression between people from individualistic cultures -where emotion terms are related to the self and the use of nouns and adjec-tives is more prominent -and collectivist cultureswhere emotion terms are more often used to refer to relationships intead of the individual, and more interpersonal verbs are used (Semin et al., 2002;Mesquita et al., 2016). ...
... This is in line with studies on emotional reticence in East Asian cultures. Caldwell- Harris et al. (2013) compared verbal declarations of love in Chinese and American English, where they placed the reticence of both verbal and non-verbal emotional expression in Chinese opposite to the frequent use of 'I love you' as displaying American expressivity. ...
Political disagreement with family members can have a deleterious impact on familial relationships, but the long‐term consequences are understudied. This study examined the relational outcomes of familial political incongruence two years after the 2019 social unrest in Hong Kong and the extent to which frequency and types of family contact explain their association. This two‐wave questionnaire study augmented with a 14‐day daily record of family contact recruited (1) young adults and (2) parents with children aged 18–30 ( N = 559). Nearly half of the respondents reported significant political incongruence with their parents/children. We observed consistent findings in both adult children and parents. Greater parent–child political differences were associated with reduced likelihood of having positive family communication and family functioning. Increased political differences with family members were associated with greater odds of family dysfunctionality. Moreover, expression of love and care mediated the effect of political differences with family members on changes in family functioning. This study demonstrates familial political incongruence exerts an influence on families two years after the unrest. Parent–child political differences are associated with a decline in the quality of family communication and family environment. We discuss how parent–child political incongruence drives a family to worsened well‐being through dysfunctional family dynamics.
Embedded within the sociocultural context of romantic relationships are features such as race, culture, neighborhoods, the legal system, and governmental policy. Due to the inherent difficulties with studying large structures and systems, little work has been done at the macro level in relationship science. This volume spotlights the complex interplay between romantic relationships and these structural systems, including varied insights from experts in the field. In turn, more diverse and generalizable research programs on the social ecology of relationships can be developed, helping to facilitate advances in theory. Scholars and students of relationship science in psychology, sociology, communication, and family studies will benefit from these discussions. This title is part of the Flip it Open programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.
In two online survey studies (N = 688 and N = 247, respectively) we developed and validated a new psychometric scale for measuring emotional resonance reduction in bilinguals’ LX (“later learnt language”) relative to their L1 (“first language”). The final scale, dubbed RER-LX (for Reduced Emotional Resonanc e in LX ), comprises 15 items and possesses a number of desirable psychometric properties. It yields good test reliability (expected alpha between 0.8 and 0.9), produces near-normally distributed test scores, and exhibits content validity in terms of its underlying factor structure. Moreover, it correlates well with the only other instrument previously used for the same purpose (BEQ subscale comprising BEQ-swearing , BEQ-feelings and BEQ-anger ). However, compared to the BEQ items, RER-LX has significantly better discriminant validity in relation to LexTALE, a widely used measure of proficiency in English as a second language. Our new scale will be useful to researchers studying bilingualism and emotion.
Decades of cross‐cultural research have revealed an interesting and important relationship between culture and emotion. The effects of culture are far‐reaching, with emotion sensitivity and recognition affected by cultural familiarity, a type of ingroup advantage. This entry describes cross‐cultural similarities and differences with regard to emotional expressions: how and when different emotions look and sound, as observed with a variety of stimuli. Recent investigations with emoticons have also provided insight into how emotional display rules differ in online venues. Applied research is presented to describe the effect of setting on these cross‐cultural differences. Findings from small‐ and large‐scale investigations demonstrate the many ways that culture influences how emotion is expressed between friends and family, with mental health professionals, and with coworkers. Both cross‐cultural and emotion researchers alike stress the importance of sensitivity training to better understand the ways in which emotion is expressed and perceived.
Much of our communication is nonverbal. This type of communication is based on a socially shared meaning system beyond language. Cultural variation has been mainly studied using two classifications: Hall's high‐ versus low‐context cultures and Hofstede's individualism versus collectivism. Nonverbal expressions are more common in high‐context, collectivistic cultures. A number of traditional fields in nonverbal communication are reviewed: gestures, expression of emotions, proxemics (personal space and crowding), and a recent field of increasing importance: nonverbal computer‐mediated communication. It is concluded that the field is rich in data, has some domain‐transcending themes (e.g., delineating universal and culture specific aspects in nonverbal communication) but lacks theories that can integrate domains of nonverbal communication.
Why do people fall in love? Does passion fade with time? What makes for a happy, healthy relationship? This introduction to relationship science follows the lifecycle of a relationship – from attraction and initiation, to the hard work of relationship maintenance, to dissolution and ways to strengthen a relationship. Designed for advanced undergraduates studying psychology, communication or family studies, this textbook presents a fresh, diversity-infused approach to relationship science. It includes real-world examples and critical-thinking questions, callout boxes that challenge students to make connections, and researcher interviews that showcase the many career paths of relationship scientists. Article Spotlights reveal cutting-edge methods, while Diversity and Inclusion boxes celebrate the variety found in human love and connection. Throughout the book, students see the application of theory and come to recognize universal themes in relationships as well as the nuances of many findings. Instructors can access lecture slides, an instructor manual, and test banks.
This article reports differences across 23 countries on 2 processes of emotion regulation––reappraisal and suppression. Cultural dimensions were correlated with country means on both and the relationship between them. Cultures that emphasized the maintenance of social order––that is, those that were long-term oriented and valued embeddedness and hierarchy––tended to have higher scores on suppres-sion, and reappraisal and suppression tended to be positively correlated. In contrast, cultures that minimized the maintenance of social order and valued individual Affective Autonomy and Egalitarianism tended to have lower scores on Suppression, and Reappraisal and Suppression tended to be negatively correlated. Moreover, country-level emotion regulation was significantly correlated with country-level indices of both positive and negative adjustment. The 37 coauthors of this article, in alphabetical order by last name, are as follows:
An elaborate and pervasive set of practices, called guanxi, underlies everyday social relationships in contemporary China. Obtaining and changing job assignments, buying certain foods and consumer items, getting into good hospitals, buying train tickets, obtaining housing, even doing business-all such tasks call for the skillful and strategic giving of gifts and cultivating of obligation, indebtedness, and reciprocity. Mayfair Mei-hui Yang's close scrutiny of this phenomenon serves as a window to view facets of a much broader and more complex cultural, historical, and political formation. Using rich and varied ethnographic examples of guanxi stemming from her fieldwork in China in the 1980s and 1990s, the author shows how this "gift economy" operates in the larger context of the socialist state redistributive economy.
Individualism-collectivism has a direct effect on communication styles and an indirect effect that is mediated through self construals and values. It was hypothesized that cultural individualism-collectivism, self construals, and values would have separate effects on individuals’use of low- and high-context communication styles. As predicted, the results of this study suggest that independent self construals and individualistic values mediate the influence of cultural individualism-collectivism on the use of low-context communication, and interdependent self construals and collectivistic values mediate the influence of cultural individualism-collectivism on the use of high-context communication. The patterns for cultural individualism-collectivism were not as clear-cut. The findings suggest that individual level factors (i.e., self construals and values) are better predictors of low- and high-context communication styles across cultures than cultural individualism-collectivism.
This exploratory study is aimed to advance the understanding of emotion expression across cultures by focusing on the declaration of love and studying its expression across cultures. In particular, the use of the locution “I love you” was investigated. Results indicate that the use of the locution “I love you” fluctuates greatly across cultures: It is used exclusively for romantic declarations of love in some cultures, but has a much wider distribution in others. Interestingly, nonnative speakers seem to use the locution “I love you” more in English than their native language. Differences are also noticeable within cultures, particularly across genders and age groups. Thus, females tend to use the expression more often than males. In addition, there seems to be more widespread use of the locution now than just a few decades ago.
Residential mobility is an increasingly important personal and societal issue in both the United States and the world in general. However, it has received relatively limited attention in psychological theorizing and research. This article demonstrates the importance of residential mobility in understanding the self, social relationships, and well-being. Recent research has shown that residential mobility (number of moves for an individual or percentage having moved recently for a neighborhood) is associated with the primacy of the personal over the collective self. It is also associated with "duty-free" friendships and group memberships rather than obligatory friendships and group memberships. Overall, residential mobility is associated with lower levels of well-being at the individual level of analysis. Finally, residential mobility is associated with personal forms of subjective well-being (based on self-esteem, the verification of the personal self) as opposed to interpersonal forms of subjective well-being (based on social support, the verification of the collective selves). In short, residential mobility is a powerful, parsimonious explanatory construct in the self, social relationships, and subjective well-being and may be a key to understanding the future of mind and behavior in the increasingly mobile world.
© The Author(s) 2010.
Over the last several decades, China has emerged as one of the premier economic powers in the global environment due, in part, to several government-instituted policies that were aimed to break ties with the past and pave the way for China’s future. These policies also had a significant impact on the Chinese family, moving it away from the Confucian traditions of the past where the family was considered an autonomous unit that provided the basic structure of Chinese social, economic, and political life. As the Chinese government implemented various policies—most notably the Cultural Revolution, the Open-Door policy, and the One-Child Policy (OCP)—the Chinese family not only became much less autonomous but also was subjected to changing familial and social norms. In this article, the authors describe the impact these and other policies had on the Chinese family and the questions that arise from these changes concerning the three generations that have been most directly affected by these policies.
Individualism-collectivism emerges from the literature as a high-order concept, explaining cross-cultural differences over a wide range of situations, with collectivists more inclined than individualists to provide for others. The present study challenges this conceptualization. Not only the readiness to support others (input) but also the expectation to receive support (output) has to be taken into account. Subjects in Hong Kong, Turkey, Greece, The Netherlands, and the United States (New York State) completed a questionnaire asking how much support they expected to receive from and give to persons in a range of social categories. Results showed that (a) the ratio between input and output as well as (b) the patterning of input and output over social categories were similar in all samples. Ratings of emotional closeness that were also obtained could account for most variance between social categories. The findings fit an interpretation of cross-cultural differences in terms of specific patterns of interpersonal relationships.