The authors constructed the Analysis-Holism Scale (AHS) to measure analytic versus holistic thinking tendency. In Study 1, using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, a 24-item scale was developed. In Study 2, convergent and discriminant validities were tested. In Studies 3 and 4, the known-group difference validity was examined by comparing scores on the AHS of Americans and Koreans (Study 3) and of Korean students of Oriental medicine and Korean students of non-Oriental medicine majors (Study 4). Results of Studies 3 and 4 show that Koreans and Korean students of Oriental medicine scored higher on the AHS than did Americans and Korean students of non-Oriental medicine majors, respectively. Studies 5 and 6 tested predictive validity by examining associations of the AHS with performances on two cognitive tasks (categorization and causal reasoning). Data analysis shows that those with high scores on the AHS displayed the holistic pattern of performances on each task more than did those with low scores.

Attitudes, theorized as behavioral guides, have long been a central focus of research in the social sciences. However, this theorizing reflects primarily Western philosophical views and empirical findings emphasizing the centrality of personal preferences. As a result, the prevalent psychological model of attitudes is a person-centric one. We suggest that incorporating research insights from non-Western sociocultural contexts can significantly enhance attitude theorizing. To this end, we propose an additional model-a normative-contextual model of attitudes. The currently dominant person-centric model emphasizes the centrality of personal preferences, their stability and internal consistency, and their possible interaction with externally imposed norms. In contrast, the normative-contextual model emphasizes that attitudes are always context-contingent and incorporate the views of others and the norms of the situation. In this model, adjustment to norms does not involve an effortful struggle between the authentic self and exogenous forces. Rather, it is the ongoing and reassuring integration of others' views into one's attitudes. According to the normative-contextual model, likely to be a good fit in contexts that foster interdependence and holistic thinking, attitudes need not be personal or necessarily stable and internally consistent and are only functional to the extent that they help one to adjust automatically to different contexts. The fundamental shift in focus offered by the normative-contextual model generates novel hypotheses and highlights new measurement criteria for studying attitudes in non-Western sociocultural contexts. We discuss these theoretical and measurement implications as well as practical implications for health and well-being, habits and behavior change, and global marketing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

Why are American landscapes (e.g., housing developments, shopping malls) so uniform, despite the well-known American penchant for independence and uniqueness? We propose that this paradox can be explained by American mobility: Residential mobility fosters familiarity-seeking and familiarity-liking, while allowing individuals to pursue their personal goals and desires. We reason that people are drawn to familiar objects (e.g., familiar, national chain stores) when they move. We conducted 5 studies to test this idea at the levels of society, individuals, and situations. We found that (a) national chain stores do better in residentially mobile places than in residentially stable places (controlling for other economic and demographic factors; Study 1); (b) individuals who have moved a lot prefer familiar, national chain stores to unfamiliar stores (Studies 2a and 2b); and (c) a residential mobility mindset enhances the mere exposure and familiarity-liking effect (Studies 4 and 5). In Study 5, we demonstrated that the link between mobility and familiarity-liking was mediated by anxiety evoked by mobility.

The authors hypothesized that thinking about the absence of a positive event from one's life would improve affective states more than thinking about the presence of a positive event but that people would not predict this when making affective forecasts. In Studies 1 and 2, college students wrote about the ways in which a positive event might never have happened and was surprising or how it became part of their life and was unsurprising. As predicted, people in the former condition reported more positive affective states. In Study 3, college student forecasters failed to anticipate this effect. In Study 4, Internet respondents and university staff members who wrote about how they might never have met their romantic partner were more satisfied with their relationship than were those who wrote about how they did meet their partner. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for the literatures on gratitude induction and counterfactual reasoning. Keywords positive affect; counterfactual reasoning; gratitude; affective forecasting; adaptation In 1897, the Rev. Johnson Oatman, Jr. published a hymn called "Count Your Blessings" with the lyrics, "Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly/And you will be singing as the days go by" (Osbeck, 1982, p. 54). Philosophers, spiritual leaders, life coaches, therapists, and grandmothers have echoed these sentiments, namely that people would be happier if they simply paused to consider the many positive events that have happened in their lives.The scientific evidence for this hypothesis, however, is mixed. Emmons and McCullough (2003), in a seminal article, were the first to report experimental evidence in favor of the "count your blessings" hypothesis. In three experiments, participants were asked to list things for which they were grateful every day for 2 weeks, every day for 3 weeks, or once a week for 9 weeks. People in the various "count your blessings" conditions reported greater subjective Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Minkyung Koo, Department of Psychology, 102 Gilmer Hall, P.O. Box 400400, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4400. E-mail: mk4rn@virginia.edu. well-being than did people in control conditions, but the results were not entirely consistent across studies. In two of the three studies, for example, there were no significant differences in reported positive or negative emotions between the gratitude and control conditions. Attempts to replicate these findings have yielded inconsistent results. At least four studies found no effect of thinking about positive events on people's positive emotions, negative emotions, or subjective well-being (Burton & King, 2008;Froh, Sefick, & Emmons, 2008; Lyubomirsky, Sousa, & Dickerhoof, 2006, Study 2; Sheldon & Lyubomirsky, 2006, Study 2). 1 Two studies, on the other hand, found that thinking about positive events did improve people's affect or well-being (Burton & King, 2004;Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005). NIH Public AccessThis mixed bag of resul...

The authors examined cultural differences in interpersonal processes associated with happiness felt in social interactions. In a false feedback experiment (Study 1a), they found that European Americans felt happier when their interaction partner perceived their personal self accurately, whereas Asian Americans felt happier when their interaction partner perceived their collective self accurately. In Study 1b, the authors further demonstrated that the results from Study 1a were not because of cultural differences in desirability of the traits used in Study 1a. In Studies 2 and 3, they used a 2-week event sampling method and replicated Study 1. Unlike Asian Americans, African Americans were not significantly different from European Americans in the predictors of happiness in social interactions. Together, this research shows that interpersonal affirmation of important aspects of the self leads to happiness and that cultural differences are likely to emerge from the emphasis placed on different aspects of the self. Keywordsculture; happiness; positive affect; self Some social encounters leave one feeling pleasant, whereas others leave one feeling unpleasant. What predicts the affective outcome of social interactions? We report three studies that investigate this question in the context of culture and show that the predictors of affective outcome of social interactions vary systematically across cultures, depending on which aspects of the self are accurately perceived by an interaction partner. AFFECT IN INTERPERSONAL CONTEXTSSeveral theorists have proposed that affective outcomes of social interactions are predicted by the degree to which an individual feels understood by the interaction partner (e.g., Reis, Clark, & Holmes, 2004). This feeling, when it emerges as a result of the initial interaction, is in turn likely to shape the quality of future interactions. The importance of feeling understood is also widely recognized in the literature on psychotherapy, as a client who feels misunderstood at the first session is unlikely to continue the client-therapist relationship (Elliott & James, 1989). This suggests that the subjective feeling of being understood is an important factor in predicting affective outcomes of social interactions and in the formation of close relationships. Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to Shigehiro Oishi at Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, P.O. Box 400400, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4400; e-mail: soishi@virginia.edu.. NIH Public Access NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author ManuscriptWhat causes the subjective feeling of being understood? In dating and marital relationship contexts, Murray, Holmes, Bellavia, Griffin, and Dolderman (2002) found that perceived similarity in personality and values was associated with a greater degree of felt understanding by the romantic partner, which in turn predicted relationship satisfaction. Aside from perceived similarity in personality and values, Reis and Patrick (1996) posited ...