Chapter 17. Cross-Cultural Psychology of Aging

Abstract

It is public knowledge that the world's population is aging. However, what is seldom discussed is the fact that between 2010 and 2040, 66.5% of the world's older population increase will be accounted for by Asia; and within Asia, 42.0% of the increase will be accounted for by China alone. However, empirical studies on aging among the Chinese are few, and the scant findings sometimes suggest that the aging of the Chinese may be different from what is suggested in the mainstream literature. Moreover, cross-cultural differences in the psychology of aging are often different from the ethnic and racial differences on aging that have been described in the literature. For example, the difference in socioeconomic status that drives much of the health inequality observed in the ethnic/racial literature has a very minor presence in the cross-cultural psychology literature. In this chapter, we first review our own theoretical and empirical work, and the work of others, on East-West differences in age-related personality, social relationships and cognition. Next, we discuss two other approaches to studying cross-cultural aging. The first approach uses aging as a proxy of cognitive and neural changes, and then tests whether cultural differences in cognition diminish or magnify with these changes. The second approach compiles cross-national data sets to test the generalizability of aging-related phenomena.

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K.W. Schaie & S.L. Willis (Eds)
Handbook of the Psychology of Aging, Eighth edition. © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.2016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-411469-2.00017-0DOI:
Cross-Cultural Psychology of Aging
Helene H. Fung and Da Jiang
Department of Psychology, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
CHAPTER
17
CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY
OF AGING
It is public knowledge that the world’s pop-
ulation is aging. However, what is seldom dis-
cussed is the fact that between 2010 and 2040,
66.5% of the world’s older population increase
will be accounted for by Asia; and within
Asia, 42.0% of the increase will be accounted
for by China alone (Cheng, Chi, Fung, Li, &
Woo, 2015). Yet, empirical studies on aging
among the Chinese are few, and the scant find-
ings sometimes suggest that the aging of the
Chinese may be different from what is sug-
gested in the mainstream literature. Moreover,
cross-cultural differences in the psychology
of aging are often different from the ethnic
and racial differences on aging that have been
described in the literature (Jackson, Govia, &
Sellers, 2011). For example, the difference in
socioeconomic status that drives much of the
health inequality observed in the ethnic/racial
Cross-Cultural Psychology of Aging 323
A Theory: Aging in Culture 324
Individuals Make Sense of Life Through
Internalizing the Values of Their Cultures 324
Age Differences in Personality 326
Age Differences in Social Relationships 328
Age-Related Cognition 329
Other Approaches 331
Using Aging as a Context to Test
Cultural Differences 331
Cross-Cultural Aging as Tests
of Generalizability 332
Summary, Caveats, and Conclusion 333
Acknowledgments 334
References 334
OUTLINE

17. CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY OF AGING
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324
literature has a very minor role in the cross-cul-
tural psychology literature. In this chapter, we
first review our own theoretical and empirical
work, and the work of others, on East–West dif-
ferences in age-related personality, social rela-
tionships, and cognition. Next, we discuss two
other approaches to studying cross-cultural
aging. The first approach uses aging as a proxy
of cognitive and neural changes, and then
tests whether cultural differences in cognition
diminish or magnify with these changes (Park,
Nisbett, & Hedden, 1999). The second approach
compiles cross-national data sets to test the
generalizability of aging-related phenomena.
A THEORY: AGING IN CULTURE
In a theoretical paper published elsewhere
(Fung, 2013), we argue that socioemotional
development across adulthood may be part of
the life-long socialization process: individu-
als in each culture learn to be better members
of their culture as they grow older. Cultural
differences in aging (i.e., age by culture inter-
actions) occur when people from different cul-
tural contexts learn different ways to become
better members of their culture. By proposing
this argument, we agree with the basic prem-
ise of lifespan developmental theories (Baltes
& Baltes, 1990; Brandtstädter & Greve, 1994;
Carstensen, 2006; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995)
that as people age, they shape their world in
ways that maximize their well-being; but we
add that people do so within the confines and
definitions of their respective culture.
In particular, we argue that (i) individu-
als make sense of life (i.e., figuring out what is
important to them) through internalizing the
values of their cultures; (ii) these internalized
cultural values become their personal goals that
guide their development across adulthood; (iii)
cultural differences in aging result when indi-
viduals from different cultures each pursue
their own internalized cultural values with age.
Below we describe these theoretical postulates
in greater detail.
Individuals Make Sense of Life
Through Internalizing the Values of
Their Cultures
The need to make and maintain meaning is
one of the basic human needs (Heine, Proulx, &
Vohs, 2006). Since birth, individuals try to fig-
ure out what is important in life through socio-
cultural artifacts such as schooling, work, sex
roles, and social relationships (Kegan, 1994).
Gradually, individuals learn to resolve con-
flicts between societal demands and personal
desires (Erikson, 1950, 1968, 1982) by means
that include but are not limited to internalizing
societal demands and turning them into per-
sonal goals. This process is known as “sociali-
zation” (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) or “cultural
learning” (Vygotsky, 1934/1962) in the human
development literature, and “acculturation” in
the immigration literature (Berry, 1997).
For example, individuals in independent cul-
tures (Markus & Kitayama, 1991) learn to value
personal autonomy and uniqueness since birth,
through interactions with their parents (Keller,
2003). Their parents maintain a certain level of
personal distance from them (in terms of face-
to-face contact, object stimulation, and mutual
eye contact), and encourage them to express
the self as a separate physical entity in actions,
words, ideas, and feelings (Lewis & Brooks-
Gunn, 1979).
In contrast, individuals in interdependent
cultures (Markus & Kitayama, 1991) learn to
see the self as embedded within social units
through proximal parenting (Keller, 2003), i.e.,
their parents provide them with much body
contact and stimulation. They also learn to
prioritize the needs of the group over their
own needs by being encouraged to follow the
customs and norms embraced and prescribed
by their parents and the society. Parents also
directly teach children the values that they

A THEORY: AGING IN CULTURE
IV. COMPLEX PROCESSES
325
perceive as culturally important (Tam, Lee,
Kim, Li, & Chao, 2012).
Later, as the individuals enter schools, those
in independent cultures are encouraged to
learn through exploration (Chao, 1995). But
those in interdependent cultures are given more
dogmatic education and training (Chao, 1995),
as well as direct moral education and formal
training on how to relate to other (Wu, 1996).
The learned culture values influence the indi-
viduals’ moral judgment (Vauclair & Fischer,
2011), priority of different needs (Triandis,
1995) and definition of life satisfaction (Oishi,
Diener, Lucas, & Suh, 1999).
There are reasons to believe that these social-
ization processes intensify with age. Heine
and colleagues (2006)’s Meaning Maintenance
Model postulates that the demand to satisfy a
need is increased when other needs are not sat-
isfied (see also the literature on fluid compen-
sation: McGregor, Zanna, Holmes, & Spencer,
2001; Steele, 1988). Almost all theories on adult
development and aging agree that the second
half of life is associated with some losses and
declines, particularly in the physical and cog-
nitive domains (Rowe & Kahn, 1997). These
losses and declines may motivate older peo-
ple to seek satisfaction by other needs. Since
identifying with and internalizing cultural
values help to fulfill the need for belonging-
ness (Baumeister & Leary, 1995), to protect self-
esteem (Steele, 1988) and to reduce epistemic
uncertainty (Hogg, 2001), people may do so
to a greater extent with age, to compensate for
losses and declines in other areas.
For example, Neugarten (1968, 1977) argues
that older adults perceive themselves as less
able to effect change in the world. They thus
place greater emphasis on meeting sociocul-
tural demands.
Although not focusing on age-related losses
and declines, a few other theories make pre-
dictions that are consistent with the argu-
ment that socialization may intensify with age.
Erikson’s psychosocial theory of development
(1950, 1968, 1982), for example, describes each
developmental stage as a conflict between per-
sonal needs and societal demands. After resolv-
ing all these conflicts, the ultimate goal in the
last stage of life (i.e., old age) is integration,
which can be understood as the integration of
personal goals and cultural values, Along the
same vein, socioemotional selectivity theory
(Carstensen, 2006) argues that with age, people
perceive future time left in life as increasingly
limited. This sense of limited future time moti-
vates older people to prioritize goals that aim at
deriving emotional meaning from life. Making
sense of life through identifying with and inter-
nalizing the values of one’s culture is likely to
be a good way to derive emotional meaning
from life.
To test whether older adults were indeed
more likely to endorse and internalize cultural
values than did younger adults, we (Ho, Fung,
& Tam, 2007) examined personal and cultural
values among younger (aged 18–23 years) and
older (aged 54–89 years) Hong Kong Chinese.
Values were measured by the Schwartz Value
Questionnaire (1992), which consists of 56 val-
ues grouped under ten value types: power (e.g.,
social power, authority), achievement (e.g.,
successful, capable), hedonism (e.g., pleasure,
enjoying life), stimulation (e.g., daring, a var-
ied life), self-direction (e.g., creativity, freedom),
universalism (e.g., broadminded, wisdom),
benevolence (e.g., helpful, honest), tradition
(e.g., humble, accepting my portion of life),
conformity (e.g., politeness, obedient), and
security (e.g., family security, social order). To
measure personal values, we asked participants
to rate the importance of each value to self. To
measure cultural values, we adopted the inter-
subjective importance approach (Wan, Chiu,
Peng, & Tam, 2007) and asked participants to
rate the importance of each value in reference
to their culture (i.e., the Chinese culture). We
calculated the correlation coefficient between
the ratings of personal and cultural values for
each participant, across all 56 values. We found

17. CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY OF AGING
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326
age differences in the correlation coefficients,
such that older participants showed a higher
congruence between personal and cultural
values than did younger participants. We also
computed mean differences between personal
and cultural values for each participant and
then compared their age differences. Smaller
discrepancies between personal and cultural
values were found among older than among
younger participants.
To further investigate what drove this higher
congruence of personal and cultural values
among older relative to younger participants,
we examined age differences in personal
values. Older participants reported higher
endorsement of all personal value types that
are more communal in nature (i.e., universal-
ism, benevolence, tradition, conformity, secu-
rity) than did younger participants. They also
reported lower endorsement of four out of five
personal value types that are more agentic in
nature (i.e., achievement, hedonism, stimula-
tion, self-direction) than did younger partici-
pants. These findings, taken together, suggest
that with age, Hong Kong Chinese move away
from more agentic values to more communal
values, resulting in a closer association between
personal and cultural values. In other words,
we have preliminary support for the theoretical
postulate that people increasingly internalize
cultural values with age. Indirect evidence is
also found in the literature on moral judgment.
Jiang, Li, and Hamamura (in press) found that
older adults made more principled moral judg-
ment toward issues pertaining to fairness and
justice than did their younger counterparts.
Since moral judgment is closely associated with
cultural values (Vauclair & Fischer, 2011), older
adults’ more principled judgment may reflect
their higher endorsement of cultural values.
Internalized cultural values become personal
goals that guide adult development. Cultural dif-
ferences in aging result when individuals from dif-
ferent cultures each pursue their own internalized
cultural values with age. Once people internalize
their cultural values as their “personal values,”
their goals are set based on these values. To the
extent that everyone develops across adult-
hood in ways that are consistent with internal-
ized cultural values, cultures with different
values should show different patterns of adult
development. Indeed, in the self-enhancement
literature, Sedikides, Gaertner, and Toguchi
(2003) found that individuals with higher lev-
els of independent self-construal self-enhanced
on individualistic attributes (e.g., arguing for
your position and against your group) whereas
those with higher levels of interdependent self-
construal self-enhanced on collectivistic attrib-
utes (e.g., avoiding open confrontation with
your group). To the extent that self-enhance-
ment guides the direction of self-development,
or put in another way, adult development,
we would expect independents to show age-
related increases in individualistic attributes
and interdependents to show similar increases
in collectivistic attributes. We have tested this
hypothesis in the following three areas: age-
related personality, social relationships, and
cognition.
Age Differences in Personality
For a number of years, personality develop-
ment has been assumed to manifest in exactly
the same way across cultures. Indeed, cross-
sectional patterns of age differences in person-
ality were found to be largely the same across
cultures, ranging from Germany, Italy, Portugal,
Croatia, South Korea (McCrae etal., 1999), the
United Kingdom, Spain, the Czech Republic,
Turkey (McCrae et al., 2000), Russia, Estonia,
Japan (Costa et al., 2000) to the People’s
Republic of China (Yang, McCrae, & Costa,
1998). These findings have often been taken as
evidence that personality development is uni-
versal. Yet, these cross-cultural findings were
almost always obtained within the scope of the
Five-factor model—neuroticism, extraversion,
agreeableness, openness to experience, and

A THEORY: AGING IN CULTURE
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327
conscientiousness (commonly known as the
“Big Five”). It remains possible that age differ-
ences in other aspects of personality may differ
across cultures.
Meanwhile, the literature in cultural psy-
chology (Cheung etal., 2001) has reliably doc-
umented that when personality was measured
not just by measures imported from the West
but also by indigenous measures developed in
China, six factors—interpersonal relatedness in
additional to the Big Five—were found among
several Chinese samples. Interpersonal relat-
edness covers items such as social reciprocity,
harmony, face, and adherence to norms and tra-
dition. When the expanded measures were then
imported back to the West, the interpersonal
relatedness factor was again found among sev-
eral American samples (Cheung etal., 2001).
Conceptually, what distinguishes inter-
personal relatedness from the Big Five is that
while there is no theoretical reason to suspect
that the Big Five may differ in importance
across cultures, there is reliable cross-cultural
evidence to suggest that interpersonal related-
ness is more important among Chinese than
among North Americans. For example, Chinese
are found to be more interdependent than
are North Americans (see Oyserman, Coon,
& Kemmelmeier, 2002 for a meta-analytical
review). Relationship harmony is more impor-
tant than self-esteem to the psychological well-
being of Chinese, whereas the reverse is true
for North Americans (Kwan, Bond, & Singelis,
1997). Moreover, the lexical approach of person-
ality argues that as people in a community talk
to one another, they use vocabulary to describe
different personality attributes. The personal-
ity attributes that “people in the language com-
munity have found particularly important and
useful in their daily interactions” (John, 1990,
p. 67) are represented by more synonyms in
the language, and are eventually picked up as
a factor when the language is factor analyzed.
The fact that the interpersonal relatedness fac-
tor was first identified in the Chinese language
suggests that it is more “important and useful”
in that culture.
To test whether age differences in personal-
ity existed for interpersonal relatedness, we
(Fung & Ng, 2006) examined age differences
in the Big Five and interpersonal relatedness
among younger (below 30 years old) and older
(above 50 years old) Canadians and Chinese.
Findings revealed that age differences in the
Big Five did not differ across cultures. Yet, age
differences in some aspects of interpersonal
relatedness (i.e., social reciprocity and adher-
ence to norms and traditions) were found only
among Chinese but not Canadians. We inter-
pret these findings as suggesting that personal-
ity may change with age according to cultural
values. For Chinese, their culture emphasizes
social reciprocity and adherence to norms and
traditions, so they may learn to exhibit these
characteristics to a greater extent with age.
Canadians, in contrast, do not live in a culture
that emphasizes these personality characteris-
tics; they thus do not exhibit these characteris-
tics to a greater extent as they grow older.
To test whether this interpretation is cor-
rect, we (Fung, Ho, Tam, & Tsai, 2011) exam-
ined age differences in social reciprocity among
European Americans and Chinese Americans,
aged 20–90 years. Conceptually replicating
the findings of Fung and Ng (2006), age was
positively associated with social reciprocity
among Chinese Americans but not European
Americans. Moreover, individual differences
in values moderated these cultural differences.
The association between age and social reci-
procity was non-significant among European
Americans as a group; but it became posi-
tive among European Americans who valued
tradition (seeking group acceptance) more.
Conversely, the association between age and
social reciprocity was significantly positive
among Chinese Americans as a group; but
the association was weaker among Chinese
Americans who valued hedonism (seeking
individual pleasure) more. These findings

17. CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY OF AGING
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328
suggest that people from each culture develop
their social reciprocity, or more generally, their
personality, with age according to what they
value. In sum, there is at least some prelimi-
nary evidence to suggest that socioemotional
aging may not be defined by a particular pat-
tern across cultures. Even when the mechanism
of aging is the same, the exact pattern of soci-
oemotional aging across cultures may differ
depending on the particular values each culture
socializes its members with.
Further cross-sectional findings for the role
of cultural values in personality development
were obtained in a study on age differences
in dispositional optimism among Americans
and Chinese (You, Fung, & Isaacowitz, 2009).
Prior cross-cultural research has suggested
that optimism is closely associated with self-
enhancing tendencies that are considered to be
significantly more desirable among European
Americans than among East Asians (Chang,
Sanna, & Yang, 2003). The well-documented
positive self-evaluation in Western cultures
may not be generalized to the Asian cultures.
There is a tendency to report self-criticism
in Asian cultures, such as Japan (Kitayama,
Markus, Matsumoto, & Norasakkunkit, 1997)
and Korea. These Asian cultures believe that
self-criticism is vital for individuals to sup-
port the group and maintain social harmony
(Kitayama etal., 1997). These findings suggest
that viewing oneself as negative or pessimistic
may be somewhat adaptive in some Asian cul-
tures. Under this context, we (You et al., 2009)
examined optimism across age. We found that
while Americans as a group were more opti-
mistic than were Chinese, this cultural differ-
ence was greater with age. Older Americans
were more optimistic than were younger
Americans; yet, older Chinese were less opti-
mistic than were younger Chinese. These find-
ings, though cross-sectional, suggest that the
direction of personality development may be
determined by what is desirable and appro-
priate in each culture. Americans, living in a
culture that regards optimism as desirable,
become more optimistic with age. Conversely,
Chinese, who live in a culture that values opti-
mism less, become less optimistic with age.
Age Differences in Social Relationships
Other than personality, social aging also
seems to show cross-cultural differences. A
particular pattern of age differences in social
network characteristics (SNC) has been reli-
ably reported in the literature, including our
earlier work (Fung, Carstensen, & Lang, 2001).
Across cultures, increasing age was associated
with fewer peripheral social partners, yet the
number of emotionally close social partners
remained relatively stable across age. It should
be noted that most of the studies on age-related
SNC cited above were conducted in the United
States and Germany. We (Yeung, Fung, & Lang,
2008) predicted that East Asians with a higher
level of interdependence (Oyserman et al.,
2002) might be more likely to maintain interac-
tions with social partners of greater diversity
even when they grew older. In particular, East
Asians might be more likely to maintain or
even increase the number of close social part-
ners, and be less likely to reduce the number of
peripheral social partners, with age.
To test these hypotheses, we (Yeung et al.,
2008) examined age differences in SNC among
Chinese, aged 18–91 years. More importantly,
we tested whether individual differences in
interdependence moderated these age differ-
ences. The stability of the number of emotion-
ally close social partners across age, typically
found in Western studies (Fung, Lai, & Ng,
2001), was replicated only among Chinese
with a low level of interdependence. In con-
trast, those with medium or high levels of
interdependence exhibited a positive associa-
tion between age and the number of emotion-
ally close social partners. Similarly, although a
negative association between age and the num-
ber of peripheral social partners was observed

A THEORY: AGING IN CULTURE
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329
for the entire sample, the association was sig-
nificant only among those with low or medium
levels of interdependence. The association was
much weaker, and in fact, no longer significant,
among those with a high level of interdepend-
ence. These findings revealed that age differ-
ences in the number of close and peripheral
social partners depended on values such as
interdependence.
Longitudinal findings provide further evi-
dence for the moderating role of values. We
(Zhang, Yeung, Fung, & Lang, 2011) examined
the relationships between age, changes in the
number of peripheral partners, and changes in
loneliness over 2 years, among Chinese aged
18–91 years. We also tested the moderating role
of individual differences in interdependence.
Results showed that the well-documented neg-
ative association between age and number of
peripheral partners over time was only signifi-
cant for individuals with low or medium lev-
els of interdependence, but not for those with
high interdependence. Moreover, having more
peripheral social partners was associated with
decreased loneliness in the 2-year interval, only
among older and middle-aged adults high in
interdependence.
Country-level individualism also moderated
age differences in trust. We (Li & Fung, 2013)
examined the associations between age and
generalized trust, and trust toward family mem-
bers, friends, neighbors, and strangers across 38
countries, including Australia, China, and the
United States, using data from the World Value
Survey. The age range differed by country, but
usually ranged from the late teens to the 80s or
90s. We found that age was positively related
to all the five types of trust across the coun-
tries. However, countries with lower levels of
individualism, as indexed by Hofstede (2001),
showed weaker associations between age and
trust toward friends and strangers. We interpret
these findings as suggesting that people in less
individualistic countries are less selective about
these peripheral partners with age.
Age-Related Cognition
Even age differences in basic cognitive pro-
cesses, such as attention and memory, show
differences across cultures. In recent years, an
age-related phenomenon called the “positivity
effect” (Carstensen & Mikels, 2005) has been
identified. This effect involves preferential cog-
nitive processing of positively valenced, rela-
tive to negatively valenced or neutral, stimuli
with age. Isaacowitz and colleagues, for exam-
ple, found the positivity effect in American
samples using eyetracking techniques
(Issacowitz, Wadlinger, Goren, & Wilson,
2006a,b).
However, information from the external
environment, whether positive or negative,
may carry important social cues. In particular,
negatively valenced information, such as angry
facial expressions, may be at least as useful as,
if not more useful than, positively valenced
information, such as happy facial expressions,
in maintaining social harmony (Kitayama &
Karasawa, 1995). As a result, Asian cultures
that value interpersonal relationships and inter-
dependence (Markus & Kitayama, 1991) may
not show a bias for positive information. For
example, in describing the construct “happi-
ness,” Americans only describe the positive
features, whereas Japanese describe both posi-
tive and negative (e.g., social disruption) fea-
tures (Uchida, 2007). In another study, Markus,
Uchida, Omregie, Townsend, and Kitayama
(2006) found that while American athletes
explained Olympic performance primarily in
terms of positive attributes, Japanese athletes
did so in terms of both positive and negative
(e.g., their family have made a lot of sacrifice)
attributes.
In addition, while optimism or even posi-
tive illusion were found to be beneficial to
well-being in the mainstream (i.e., Western)
psychological literature (see Carver & Scheier,
2002, for a review), we (Cheng, Fung, & Chan,
2009) found that older Chinese who foresaw

17. CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY OF AGING
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330
more negative future selves had higher well-
being 12 months later. Likewise, despite the
well-established finding in the mainstream
literature that negative social exchanges had
adverse effects (Rook, 1984), we (Fung, Yeung,
Li, & Lang, 2009) found among Chinese, aged
18–91 years, that more negative exchanges were
positively associated with increases in emo-
tional closeness over a 2-year period.
Given the above, we predicted that to the
extent that people in East Asian cultures found
negative information as useful as positive
information, they might either not show the
positivity effect or show it to a lesser extent
with age. To test this prediction, Fung et al.
(2008) compared attention among younger and
older Chinese, using eyetracking techniques
in exactly the same way, with the exact same
stimuli, as Issacowitz etal. (2006a,b). In contrast
to the aforementioned positivity effect reliably
found among Americans, older Chinese actu-
ally looked away from positive stimuli (in this
case, happy faces).
Similar cross-cultural differences were also
noted in memory. In a study that compared
memory for positive, negative and neutral stim-
uli among younger and older Chinese (Fung &
Tang, 2005), a negativity bias was found among
older adults. In the study, the background
music of a government TV announcement on
health promotion was varied such that it con-
veyed positive, negative or neutral valence.
The only difference in recognition memory was
found between the negative and neutral ver-
sions, with older adults showing better recogni-
tion memory for information presented in the
negative version of the announcement than the
neutral version.
To further test whether the positivity effect
existed in memory among older Chinese, Fung,
Isaacowitz, Lu, and Li (2010) examined age dif-
ferences in free recall for positive, negative and
neutral images, with the exact same stimuli and
methodology as those employed in a previous
study that has found the strongest positivity
effect among Americans (Charles, Mather, &
Carstensen, 2003, Experiment 1). Their find-
ings revealed that older Chinese showed better
memory for positive than for neutral images
(i.e., the positivity enhancement effect), but
they showed the same level of memory for neg-
ative images as they did for neutral images (i.e.,
an absence of the negativity reduction effect).
In the aforementioned studies, Chinese who
were more interdependent as a group (Markus
& Kitayama, 1991) did not show the age-
related positivity effect to the same extent as
did Americans in prior studies, who as a group
were less interdependent. Fung et al. (2010)
directly tested whether individual differences
in interdependence moderated these age dif-
ferences in memory. Older Chinese with lower
levels of interdependence showed both the
positivity enhancement effect and the negativ-
ity reduction effect, as their American counter-
parts did in earlier studies (Charles etal., 2003).
However, older Chinese with higher levels
of interdependence only showed the positiv-
ity enhancement effect, but not the negativity
reduction effect. Younger Chinese showed a
memory bias for negative images over posi-
tive and neutral images throughout the study,
regardless of levels of interdependence.
Individual differences in interdependence
also moderated the age-related positivity effect
in attention among younger, middle-aged, and
older Chinese. Fung etal. (2010) presented par-
ticipants with a real-life video clip that showed
positive images on one side of the screen and
negative images on the other side of the screen.
They found that among Chinese who were
lower in interdependence, older Chinese looked
at the negative images, relative to the positive
images, significantly less than did their mid-
dle-aged and younger counterparts. However,
no such age differences were found among
Chinese who were higher in interdependence.
Taken together, the above findings suggest that
the age-related positivity effect is not universal.
Chinese, being more interdependent as a group,

OTHER APPROACHES
IV. COMPLEX PROCESSES
331
are more likely to value negative stimuli as
much as positive stimuli in their social envi-
ronment. They are thus less likely to show
preferential processing of positive stimuli over
negative stimuli with age.
OTHER APPROACHES
Using Aging as a Context to Test
Cultural Differences
Other than examining how adult develop-
ment differs across cultures, some researchers
focus on cultural differences and investigate
how cultural differences may differ by age.
Park et al. (1999) proposed that cross-cultural
differences in basic processes, such as speed
and working memory, diminished with age
because of the universally decreased neu-
robiological function associated with aging.
However, cultural differences in cognitive prag-
matics, such as categorization and background
processing that people acquired through the
learning process, magnified with age, because
these processes were influenced by culture-spe-
cific learning and practice. This argument has
received some empirical support.
For example, Chee, Zheng, Goh, and Park
(2010) found that cultural differences in think-
ing style—Americans being more likely to
use analytical thinking and East Asians being
more likely to use holistic thinking—could be
partially explained by the fact that younger
Americans had higher cortical thickness in
frontal, parietal, and medial-temporal poly-
modal-associated brain areas than did younger
East Asians. These cultural differences in think-
ing style disappeared among older participants,
but interestingly, persisted among high-per-
forming older participants. Park and colleagues
interpreted these age differences as further
support for the fact that cultural differences
in thinking style were driven by neurologi-
cal differences. Age-related declines in cortical
thickness occurred for both Americans and East
Asians, eliminating cultural differences in neu-
rology and thus cultural differences in thinking
style. However, high-performing older adults
retained such cultural differences in neurology,
so cultural differences in thinking style per-
sisted. Similarly, Hedden, Park, Nisbett, and
Ji (2002) found that Chinese performed better
than did Americans in numeric tasks and such
cultural differences became less pronounced
with age. These decreased cultural differences
with age were accompanied by age-related
declines in visuospatial processing cross-cultur-
ally. Again, Hedden and colleagues interpreted
these findings as suggesting that declined brain
functions led to the attenuated cross-cultural
differences in performance on numeric tasks
with age, supporting the argument that cultural
differences in cognition were accounted for by
brain functions.
In contrast, other cultural differences in cog-
nitive processing magnify with age. This type
of cognitive processing usually requires prac-
tice across adulthood. For instance, Gutchess
etal. (2006) found that Westerners used catego-
rization more than East Asians did, and such
differences became more pronounced with
age. In this study, categorization was meas-
ured by a ratio of clustering, that is, the extent
to which the participants successfully recalled
relevant words together. Gutchess and col-
leagues interpreted the finding as reflecting
that categorization was a cognitive skill that
required practice. To the extent that a skill is
in use, an older person theoretically has prac-
ticed the skill for a longer period of time than
does a younger person. Westerners who use
the skill more improve it with practice whereas
East Asians who use the skill less do not enjoy
such benefits. As a result, cultural differences
in categorization magnify with age. A similar
explanation was also used to account for the
finding that younger Chinese performed better
in tasks on naming common objects—providing
more specific depiction and greater variance

17. CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY OF AGING
IV. COMPLEX PROCESSES
332
in depiction—than did younger Americans,
and such cultural differences were more pro-
nounced between older Chinese and older
Americans (Yoon, Feinberg, & Gutchess, 2006).
In addition, the differential rates of age-
related cognitive declines among people in dif-
ferent cultures can also magnify some cultural
differences. Goh etal. (2006) tested the neuro-
basis of object-focused versus background-
focused differences between Western and East
Asian cultures. They found that although the
functioning of the object-processing brain
regions decreased with age in both Western and
East Asian cultures, such functioning of East
Asians declined to a greater extent with age.
This led to a larger cross-cultural difference in
object processing between older Westerners and
East Asians (Goh etal., 2006).
In summary, researchers from this approach
dissert culture by age interactions by examining
whether particular cultural differences dimin-
ish or magnify with age. They then investi-
gate whether the factors that change with age,
for example, specific brain functioning, may
account for the decrease or increase in cultural
differences.
Cross-Cultural Aging as Tests of
Generalizability
Last but not least, the most common way of
studying the cross-cultural psychology of aging
is to construe culture as a context—as much as
gender, socioeconomic status, and rural versus
urban are contexts—to test the generalizabil-
ity of aging-related phenomena. For example,
Fredrickson and Carstensen (1990) found
among US citizens that older adults preferred
familiar social partners to novel social part-
ners, whereas younger adults did not show
this preference. This finding was offered as a
potential explanation for why the shrinkage
of social network size with age did not affect
the well-being of older adults. Using the same
paradigm, Fung, Carstensen, and Lutz (1999)
replicated these age differences in social pref-
erences among Hong Kong Chinese, and Fung
etal. (2001) further replicated these age differ-
ences among Taiwanese Chinese and Mainland
Chinese. These replications suggest that the
observed age-related pattern is reliable, and is
unlikely to be under the influence of other vari-
ables that differ between the cultures, such as
social structure or living arrangements. Some
may even conclude from these findings that
the age differences in social preferences are
universal.
Others go one step further and link individ-
ual-level age differences to country-level socio-
cultural variables. For instance, Löckenhoff
et al. (2009) examined perceptions of aging
across 26 cultures. They found cross-cultural
similarities in many aspects of perceptions
of aging, such as perceived declines in soci-
etal views of aging and perceived increases in
wisdom. However, when cross-cultural differ-
ences were found, they attempted to account
for the differences by examining their associa-
tions with country-level variables. For instance,
the proportion of older adults, aged 65 years
or older in the population was associated with
more negative perceptions of societal views
on aging. These attempts to link individual-
level variables across age with country-level
variables offer important opportunities for us
to study age-related changes in the context of
environmental affordances.
In order to compare across cultures, it
is necessary to compile cross-national data
sets. Several such data sets exist in the cross-
cultural psychology, including but not lim-
ited to the World Values Survey (World
Values Survey Association, 2009), the World
Health Organization Quality of Life network
(Molzahn, Kalfoss, Makaroff, & Skevington,
2011) and the Adolescent Personality Profiles of
Cultures Project (De Fruyt, De Bolle, McCrae,
Terracciano, & Costa, 2009; Löckenhoff,
Terracciano, Patriciu, Eaton, & Costa, 2009).
Moreover, there have been few, but important,

SUMMARY, CAVEATS, AND CONCLUSION
IV. COMPLEX PROCESSES
333
attempts to develop parallel data sets across
countries. For example, the national sur-
vey of Midlife Development in the United
States (MIDUS), which aimed at investigat-
ing the age-related changes in health status
and psychological well-being from mid-life
onward, was originally conducted among
Americans. In order to make cross-cultural
comparisons, a parallel study was carried out
in Japan (MIDJA). Using data from MIDUS
and MIDJA, several interesting findings have
been observed. For instance, Karasawa et al.
(2011) compared age differences in psychologi-
cal well-being among middle-aged and older
Japanese and Americans. They found that older
Japanese perceived a greater level of personal
growth than did their middle-aged counter-
parts, whereas a reversed pattern was found in
American samples.
In addition, many countries have their own
national survey on aging, including but not
limited to Australia (Cubit & Meyer, 2011),
Canada (Sheets & Gallagher, 2013), China
(Zhang, Guo, & Zheng, 2012) and Japan
(Muramatsu & Akiyama, 2011). All of these
surveys measured age, health status, socio-
economic status and psychological status, pro-
viding opportunities for comparisons across
these cultures. Regretfully, other measures
were not parallel. Nevertheless, they are efforts
in the right direction. As the importance of
cross-country surveys becomes better known,
hopefully more efforts will be made in future
to develop parallel surveys in aging across
cultures.
Although even less well known, there have
been attempts to combine behavioral data
with genetic data to examine the differences
in expression of genes (known as epigenetics)
across different environmental contexts. Such
gene–environment interaction may reveal the
contextual factors that can facilitate or inhibit
the behavioral expression of a particular genetic
predisposition. These studies have started to
gain popularity in cross-cultural psychology.
For instance, Cheon, Livingston, Hong, and
Chiao (in press) studied the moderating role
of 5-HTTLPR in the relationship between per-
ceived outgroup threat and intergroup bias.
Although this specific study only included col-
lege students, it is a promising future direction
for the field of cross-cultural aging. Despite
philosophical debates on whether genes dif-
fer by ethnicity and/or culture, it is plausible,
at least theoretically, to argue that cultures, as
prototypical examples of environmental con-
texts, may interact with age to determine the
expression of genes. In fact, in biological aging,
there have already been studies on how aging
may be associated with highly defined epige-
netic changes in the human epidermis (Raddatz
etal., 2013). It probably will not be long before
we start to examine how age-related epigenetic
changes may be moderated by culture-specific
environmental contexts.
SUMMARY, CAVEATS, AND
CONCLUSION
In this chapter, we first reviewed empiri-
cal findings suggesting that socioemotional
aging, at least in the areas of personality, social
relationships, and cognition, may not mani-
fest in exactly the same way across cultures.
Moreover, when cultural differences in aging
occur, they are usually consistent with known
cultural differences in values. These findings
inspire us to argue that socioemotional devel-
opment across adulthood may be part of a life-
long process: individuals in each culture learn
to be more culturally appropriate as they grow
older. Cultural differences in aging (i.e., age by
culture interactions) occur when people from
different cultural contexts learn different ways
to become culturally appropriate. Next, we
reviewed two other approaches of studying
cross-cultural aging. The first approach exam-
ines cultural differences across age and pays
particular attention to whether such cultural

17. CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY OF AGING
IV. COMPLEX PROCESSES
334
differences diminish or magnify with age. The
second approach tests the generalizability of
aging phenomena across cultures and examines
their associations with genetic predisposition or
country-level variables.
We acknowledge that due to the limited
number of studies on the intersection between
aging and culture, much empirical evidence
we have cited is based on cross-sectional stud-
ies, conducted in only a couple of cultures.
Longitudinal studies on a wider range of cul-
tures are needed. From the life course perspec-
tive (see Alwin, 2012, for a review), both place
(in this case, culture) and time (in this case, age
as well as cohort) contribute to human devel-
opment. The cross-sectional findings should
be interpreted with caution as age differences
can reflect cohort effects and/or developmen-
tal changes. Nevertheless, since cohort effects
tend to vary with culture, reviewing whether
the patterns of age differences are the same or
different across cultures can help to partially
isolate developmental changes from culture-
related cohort effects.
Moreover, despite the preliminary nature
of the evidence reviewed above, it suggests a
promising direction for future research: aging
does differ across cultures, particularly in terms
of personality, social relationships, and social
cognition. These cultural differences can be
predicted. It may be fruitful to look for cultural
differences in aging (i.e., culture by age inter-
actions) in areas where known cultural differ-
ences in values (i.e., culture main effects) exist.
In addition, drawing parallels between cultural
differences and age differences in areas such as
cognition may allow us to better understand
the mechanisms underlying both. It will also be
promising to compile cross-national data sets to
examine the associations between age-related
individual differences and macro-level differ-
ences across cultures. Last but not least, study-
ing cultures as environmental contexts that may
moderate the expression of genes with age is
likely to be a hot topic for future research.
Acknowledgments
This paper is supported by the Hong Kong Research Grants
Council General Research Fund CUHK442813, as well as a
Chinese University of Hong Kong Direct Grant.
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