reading response essay 16 PDF

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Reading response #16 The authors of the article “Desired Emotions Across Cultures: A Value-Based Account” discuss culture as it relates to understanding human values and “suggest that across cultures people desire emotions that are consistent with their core values” (Tamir et al., 2016, 68). Each culture prioritizes certain goals. Furthermore, the emotions that individuals desire may depend on the extent to which they promote the goals prioritized by the culture(s) they associate with (Tamir et al., 2016, 68). The authors note that they conducted both of their studies on college-age individuals. Their decision to use college-age individuals surprised me. I thought to myself if I were conducting these studies I would use middle-aged individuals because they generally have more experience in both the personal and professional realms. Furthermore, I believe that using middle-aged individuals as the subjects may yield accurate results regarding “the associations between the endorsement of values and the desirability of emotions across the cultures” (Tamir et al., 2016, 79). Therefore, if I could ask the authors one question about their research I would ask them ‘why did you choose to use college-age individuals as subjects for the studies as opposed to middle-aged individuals?’. Overall, I agree with the author’s views and feel each of them are explained thoroughly throughout the article. It makes sense to me and I agree with the ideas that endorsement of selftranscending values is associated with a desire “to feel more empathy and compassion”, that endorsement of “values of openness to change” is associated with wanting to “feel more interest and excitement”, and that “people who endorsed values of conservation” desire “to feel more calmness and less fear” (Tamir et al., 2016, 67). However, it doesn’t completely make sense to me that those “who endorsed values of self-enhancement (e.g., self-direction) wanted to feel more anger and pride” (Tamir et al., 2016, 67). I’m aware that some individuals who value having power may feel increasingly angry and or prideful in the process of trying to obtain more

and more power. For example, Hitler became increasingly angry as he tried to obtain more power by controlling his country and others. However, I believe that this statement is an over speculation because not everyone who values having power desires “to feel more anger and pride” (Tamir et al., 2016, 67). For example, I’ve met nurses who value gaining leadership positions such as becoming ‘charge nurse’ not because they want to feel angrier or prideful. Instead, they desire such positions because they want to use their power for the better (e.g. to help patients gain access to high quality medical services). Additionally, I appreciate how the authors acknowledge that both of their studies focused on only one particular age group and that future studies should be conducted using individuals from other age groups. Therefore, I want to pose the following question: if researchers were to replicate both of the studies but instead use individuals from all different age groups (equal amounts from each age group), do you think that their results would disprove the idea that those who support self-enhancement values want “to feel more anger and pride”? (Tamir et al., 2016, 67)....