US and Japanese adolescents’ emotions across time: variation by valence and arousal

Experiencing emotions is a complex process that varies across social contexts (e.g., culture) and over time. The current research examined the levels and trajectories of self-reported emotions among US (n = 321) and Japanese (n = 388) adolescents (age range: 11–14 at Time 1). Emotions were conceptualized as high arousal positive (HAP), low arousal positive (LAP), high arousal negative (HAN), and low arousal negative (LAN). At each time point, US adolescents (vs. Japanese) showed greater positive and lower negative emotions (both arousal levels). Positive and negative emotions were negatively associated in the US, but the associations were not present or were positive in Japan. While US adolescents’ HAP and LAN emotions remained stable, Japanese adolescents showed increases in HAP and LAN emotions over time. However, both groups showed increases at similar rates for HAN and no change in LAP emotions. Collectively, findings suggest that emotions are both pancultural and culture-specific a..., Adolescents in the US were recruited from four middle schools in one school district and one summer program from another school district. Adolescents in Japan were recruited from two middle schools., , # US and Japanese adolescents’ emotions across time: variation by valence and arousal File name: Emotion_Deidenfitied_rev.csv Authors: Yena Kyeong, Sarah E. Knapp, Yusuke Takahashi, Elizabeth L. Davis, & Cecilia Cheung Methodology: Adolescents in the US (n = 321) were recruited from four middle schools in one school district and one summer program from another school district. Adolescents in Japan (n = 388) were recruited from two middle schools. They self-reported their emotions at three time points over the course of 18 months. Participants indicated the extent to which they had experienced certain discrete emotions during the past week, using a 5-point Likert Scale (1 = never, 5 = very often). Dataset structure: This dataset contains row variables. Country and gender are binary variables, and emotions at each time point (a = Time1; b = Time2; c = Time3) appear from Columns C to AN. * Variables: * Country: 1 = US; 2 = Japan * Gender: 1 = Male; 2 = Female ...