Unpacking Cultural Variations in Peak-Experiences: Cross-Cultural Comparisons of Early Childhood Recollection Between Hong Kong and Brazil

Abstract

In this cross-cultural study, 115 Hong Kong Chinese and 117 Brazilian college students described a childhood peak-experience (occurring before the age of 14) and provided a self-rating on its enduring impact. Among various categories of peak-experiences, both Hong Kong Chinese and Brazilians reported interpersonal joy most frequently; the second most frequently reported category was external achievement for the Hong Kong sample and developmental landmark for the Brazilian sample. Compared with Brazilians' narratives, those of Hong Kong Chinese were more social-focused, involving greater number of other people, but less specific. These characteristics of autobiographical memory, i.e., memory focus (self vs. social), memory specificity (specific vs. general), and the number of other people involved, significantly mediated the relation between culture and interpersonal joy. The present findings have extended research on peak-experiences to cross-cultural contexts and incorporated measures of autobiographical memory to unpack cultural variations in these two collectivist societies.

Review of Strong experiences with music: Music is much more than just music.

“…Although there have been some efforts to estimate the similarities of peak experiences across cultures (e.g., Ho et al, 2012), one first has to discover the issue itself before attempting to study its prevalence and form across cultures. The obvious one is that the accounts are fairly old; almost one-half of them are from the 1980s, an era when music consumption habits and the world itself was different from the contemporary world.…”

“…The whole project is based on a single culture (Sweden). Although there have been some efforts to estimate the similarities of peak experiences across cultures (e.g., Ho et al, 2012), one first has to discover the issue itself before attempting to study its prevalence and form across cultures. Gabrielsson is well aware of these limitations and discusses them eloquently, and ponders how the existing accounts could in fact track the change in musical culture in Sweden.…”