Japanese Psychological Research
2022, Volume 64, No. 2, 170–180
Special issue: Culture and Healthdoi: 10.1111/jpr.12390

Sharing and Non-sharing Happiness: Evidence from
Cross-Cultural Studies in the United States and Japan1
IGOR DE ALMEIDA*YUKIKO UCHIDA

Otemon Gakuin University
Kyoto University

PHOEBE C. ELLSWORTH

University of Michigan

Abstract: Two studies were conducted to analyze how individuals feel and express
their happiness in shared versus non-shared events. We hypothesized that theJapanese (interdependence-fostering culture), unlike Americans (independencefostering culture), would show higher levels of happiness in shared situations than in
non-shared situations. Study 1: participants were asked to describe two types of happy
events (shared and non-shared) they had experienced, and then indicate how strongly
they had felt and expressed happiness. Results suggest that the Japanese felt andexpressed higher degrees of happiness in shared situations than non-shared situations,while Americans did not report this difference. Study 2: participants read the descriptions generated in Study 1 and answered how they would feel and express happiness.
Japanese respondents scored higher in feeling and expressing happiness in shared situations than in non-shared situations. Americans showed the same pattern, but with asmaller difference. While the Japanese tend to experience more happiness in sharedsituations than in non-shared situations, Americans experience happiness similarly inboth situations. These results may be related to the function of emotions in each
culture.
Key words: happiness, shared emotion, culture.

Imagine that you are alone watching a funny
comedy show. Your thoughts might turn tosomeone, such as a romantic partner or a roommate, with wishes that he or she might also be
there. Would thinking about this person makeyou feel less happy? Some people experience
difﬁculty in enjoying such a situation without
the presence of others, while other people may

enjoy and laugh at the comedy show regardlessof their absence.
In the present research, we examine culturaldifferences between participants from Japanand the United States regarding the effects ofsharing a happy situation. Here we deﬁne ashared situation as when individuals experience
events with other people, usually individuals*Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to: Igor de Almeida, Institute of Liberal Arts, Otemon
Gakuin University, Nishiai, Ibaraki, Osaka 567-8502, Japan. (E-mail: igor.almeidab@gmail.com)
1
Data reported in this article forms part of Igor de Almeida’s doctoral dissertation, “Examining Emotions and Diversity in Cultural Psychology,” submitted to Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University(2019). https://doi.org/10.14989/doctor.k22083© 2021 Japanese Psychological Association. Published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

Sharing non-sharing happiness: US Japan

with whom they share some kind of relationship, such as friends or relatives. The interaction
usually happens in person, but it can occur
through a call or online communication, as well.
In these situations, people may share their emotions with others directly and simultaneously
when the event takes place (shared emotions).
In contrast, a non-shared situation would bedeﬁned as one when individuals experience
events by themselves, without the presence of,or interaction with, other people.
Culture and Positive Emotion in Shared
Situations
It has been shown that what people feel and how
they express what they feel can differ across cultures. Markus and Kitayama (1991) argued thatwhether self-construal is more independent orinterdependent has an inﬂuence on how people
feel and express emotions.
Some cultures are oriented towards the collective and interdependence with others, while others
are oriented towards the individual and autonomy;
this affects how people interact within the culture
as well as their own thoughts, behaviors, and emotions (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Uchida,
Townsend, Markus, & Bergsieker, 2009). In
interdependent cultural contexts, whether or not
an emotion is shared matters more than in independent cultural contexts. In the case of happiness,since Japanese culture is oriented towards
interdependence, it is expected that shared positive
situations are more likely to be related to happinessthan non-shared situations; on the other hand, inNorth American culture, the magnitude of theinﬂuence of shared and non-shared situations on
happiness is likely to be similar.
Similar to the importance of shared versus
non-shared situations for emotional experience,
Kitayama, Markus, and Kurokawa (2000) proposed a disengaging–engaging dimension ofemotions. Engaging emotions, such as friendly
feelings and respect, are deﬁned as emotions
focused on connectedness with others in social
relationships, whereas disengaging emotions,such as pride, relate to emotions focused on
individual agency and separation from others.
They found that Japanese participants weremore likely to associate good feelings with

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engagement and social relationships, placing ahigher value on these emotions and situations
than American participants (Kitayama, Mesquita, & Karasawa, 2006).
In another study, Uchida et al. (2009) foundthat emotion is experienced and understood as
an interpersonal or “between-people” concept
in the Japanese cultural context, while in North
American cultural contexts, emotion is understood as a primarily individualized or “withinpeople” concept. In a cross-cultural comparisonof television interviews with Olympic athletes,
Markus, Uchida, Omoregie, Townsend, andKitayama (2006) found that Japanese athletes
used signiﬁcantly more emotion-related words
than American athletes when replying to questions about their relationships. Also, after reading an athlete’s self-description, Japaneseparticipants inferred more emotions when theathlete mentioned relationships, whereas
American participants inferred more emotions
when the athletes focused only on themselves.
Lastly, it has been shown that Asian American participants were more likely to experienceand express emotion after thinking about aclose other than European American participants (Chentsova-Dutton & Tsai, 2010). In
Chentsova-Dutton and Tsai’s (2010) study, participants were shown emotion-evoking video
clips (e.g., amusing ﬁlms). Prior to seeing theﬁlms, half the participants were induced to be
self-focused, being asked to think about themselves and to write a few sentences describing
their personality and recent events in their lives.
The other participants were induced to be
family-focused, by being asked to think of theirfamily members and to describe their family,
as well as recent family events. The results
suggested that European Americans experienced and expressed more positive emotion in
response to the ﬁlm than Asian Americans,after they were self-focused, but Asian Americans experienced and expressed more positive
emotions than European Americans after they
were family-focused. Related to this ﬁnding, ina study with Japanese participants, Matsunaga
et al. (2017) showed that the presence of a friend
experiencing positive or negative feelings
inﬂuenced participants’ ratings of their own© Japanese Psychological Association 2022.

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I. De Almeida, Y. Uchida, and P. C. Ellsworth

positive or negative feelings. The same study
also suggested that this experience had someinﬂuence on their salivary serotonin levels.
The meaning and predictors of positive emotions, such as happiness, also differ across cultures. The Japanese tend to feel happy when
they are in harmonious relationships withothers, and the meaning of happiness is more
related to relationships in this culture; thus,
expressing personal emotions may hinder relationships and also jeopardize happiness. Conversely, North Americans may not necessarily
associate happiness with relationships; thus,
personal achievement, free choice and emotional expression are common themes in happy
events in this culture (Hitokoto &Uchida, 2015; Uchida, Norasakkunkit, &Kitayama, 2004). A study conducted by Oishi,
Scollon, Diener, and Biswas-Diener (2004)
showed that Japanese people tend to feel morepositive emotions, including happiness, whenwith friends or a romantic partner than whenalone, while Americans did not show such a
difference.
This effect can probably be explained by thefact that, in Japan, individuals are encouraged
to adjust their own needs and behavior to ﬁt into
their environment. To accomplish this, they subdue and regulate their emotions, so as not to disturb or harm the harmony in the group. On theother hand, individuals in North American contexts are encouraged to inﬂuence, change, andhave an impact on their environment to achieve
their needs and desires, and consequently, theytend to be assertive and expressive (Morling,
Kitayama, & Miyamoto, 2002). This tendency
also reﬂects the emotions that are idealized ineach culture. In East Asian cultures, affective
states, such as being calm and serene(e.g., low-arousal positive states), are valued
since these emotions facilitate paying attention
to others and do not interfere with harmony inthe group. On the other hand, in North American cultures, affective states, such as being
elated and excited (e.g., high-arousal positive
states), are valued because they facilitate standing out and inﬂuencing others (Tsai, 2007).
Matsumoto, Yoo, and Fontaine (2008)
showed that culture inﬂuences emotion© Japanese Psychological Association 2022.

regulation in terms of expression—not feelingitself—implying that cultural differences inemotion merely follow emotion-expression
norms and that internal emotional experiences
do not vary across cultures. However, some evidence has suggested that internal emotional
experience itself also varies across cultures
beyond culturally reinforced expressive norms(Murata, Moser, & Kitayama, 2013). In thispaper, we examine cultural differences, both infeeling and expression, to test this prediction.
Current Research
To date, there are no direct cross-cultural comparisons regarding the effects of shared versus
non-shared emotions on happiness. Therefore,
we conducted two studies comparing an East
Asian culture (Japan) and a Western culture(the United States).
Based on previous studies, indicated above,
we predicted that Japanese people would feeland express higher degrees of happiness inshared situations than in non-shared situations,since interdependence is prevalent in Japanesesociety. Americans, in contrast, would have highdegrees of happiness in non-shared situations(because their society fosters independence),
as well as in shared situations, as previous
research shows.
We expect this hypothesis to hold true forboth feeling and expressing emotions. In thestudies presented here, we analyze the differences between feeling and expression of happiness in shared versus non-shared situations inJapanese and American cultures.

Study 1In Study 1, we asked participants in the
United States and Japan to describe sharedand non-shared happy situations, and theninvestigated the intensity with which they felt
and expressed emotions in each situation.
MethodParticipants comprised 29 European Americans
in the United States (12 females and 17 males,
Mage = 19.1 years, SD = 0.9 years), and 31

Sharing non-sharing happiness: US Japan

Japanese in mainland Japan (10 females and 21
males, Mage = 18.6 years, SD = 0.8 years).2
They were recruited from the available subject
pool of a university psychology class and reimbursed with course credit. Data were collectedindividually in the laboratory. Participants wereasked to describe two happy events they had
experienced in the past: one in a shared and
one in a non-shared situation. The shared situation was a situation in which they felt happy
when they were with other(s). The non-sharedsituation was one in which they felt happy when
they were alone. Afterward, participants wererequested to indicate how strongly they had felt
and expressed happiness in each situation on a
7-point scale (1 = Just a little; 7 = Very strongly).
Two participants from the Japanese sample
were excluded from the analysis because they
did not follow the instructions regarding thetypes of situations to be described. Japanese(American) situations were translated into
English (Japanese) and back-translated in orderto check the consistency of the translation. Two
US coders and two Japanese coders coded thesame 10 situations (ﬁve US situations and ﬁve
Japanese situations). The reliability between
all coders was checked and established basedon these 10 situations. The two US coders thencoded the rest of the US situations, and theJapanese coders coded the rest of the Japanesesituations. Descriptions of events were classiﬁed
into situation type (i.e., shared or non-shared);type of event (i.e., “achievement,” “interaction
with other people,” “unexpected event,” and“ordinary things”); and company (i.e., “friend,”“group member,” “romantic partner,” “senior,”and “other”). We obtained over 85% consistency
between all coders. Inconsistent cases were discussed until both coders reached an agreement.

Results
There was no cultural difference in the type of
events in the shared situation χ2(3, N = 58) =2.18, p = .535, Cramer’s V = .18, the most common situations being “interaction with other2

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was not possible
to expand the sample of Study 1 and Study 2.

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people” (Japanese sample = 62.1%, US sample= 86.2%) and “achievement” (Japanese sample = 20.7%, US sample = 20.7%). There wasalso no signiﬁcant difference in the type of eventsin the non-shared situation χ2(6, N = 58) = 3.29,
p = .771, Cramer’s V = .23, the most common situations being “achievement” (Japanese sample = 41.4%, US sample = 48.3%) and“ordinary things (weather, food, etc.)” (Japanesesample = 27.6%, US sample = 20.7%).
The samples did not differ regarding whoshared the situations with the participants inshared situations χ2 (4, N = 58) = 5.76,
p = .218, Cramer’s V = .03, “friends”(Japan = 72.4%, US = 75.9%) being the mostmentioned, followed by “group member” (Japanese sample = 37.9%, US sample = 34.5%).
Shared feeling and shared expression weresigniﬁcantly correlated (r(56) = .56, p < .001)
and of different magnitudes (feeling M = 5.1,
SD = 1.0; expression M = 4.4, SD = 1.5, t(57) = 4.5, p < .001). Non-shared feeling andnon-shared expression were also correlated (r(56) = .75, p < .001) and of different magnitudes(feeling M = 4.9, SD = 1.5; expression M = 3.5,
SD = 2.2, t(57) = 6.96, p < .001).
In order to analyze each culture’s inﬂuenceon how individuals feel and how they express
emotions, we conducted a mixed model 2 (culture: European American and Japanese)  2(situation: shared and non-shared) ANOVA
for each dependent variable (intensity of feelingof happiness and intensity of expression of happiness). For intensity of feeling, the interaction
term was signiﬁcant (F(1, 56) = 4.19, p = .045,
ηp2 = .07). Bonferroni p-value-adjusted posthoc tests showed that Americans felt the same
intensity of happiness in both shared (M = 5.3,
SD = 1.1) and non-shared situations (M = 5.4,
SD = 1.3)—a non-signiﬁcant difference(p = .639). On the other hand, Japanese participants reported stronger intensity of happiness inthe shared situation (M = 4.9, SD = 1.0) than in
the non-shared situation (M = 4.3, SD = 1.5,
p = .034) (see Figure 1).
Additionally, we identiﬁed a main effect of culture (F(1, 56) = 7.82, p = .007, ηp2 = .12) showing
that, in general, American participants (M = 5.4,
SD = 1.2) reported feeling higher degrees of© Japanese Psychological Association 2022.

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I. De Almeida, Y. Uchida, and P. C. Ellsworth

happiness than Japanese participants (M = 4.6,
SD = 1.3). The main effect of situation was not signiﬁcant (F(1, 56) = 2.14, p = .149, ηp2 = .04).
For the intensity of expression of happiness,
we found a slightly different pattern. The interaction term was not signiﬁcant (F(1,56) = 1.54, p = .219, ηp2 = .03). However, there
was a main effect of culture (F(1, 56) = 8.77,
p = .004, ηp2 = .14), as American participants(M = 4.5, SD = 1.8) reported expressing higher
degrees of happiness than Japanese participants(M = 3.4, SD = 2.0); and of situation (F(1,56) = 7.37, p = .009, ηp2 = .12), as participants
reported expressing higher degrees of happiness in shared (M = 4.4, SD = 1.6) than nonshared situations (M = 3.5, SD = 2.2) (Figure 2).

Study 2
Study 2 was a follow-up study to examine
whether the ﬁndings of Study 1 were derived
from the differences in types of situations that
commonly occur or are socially desirable ineach culture, or from the differences in the cognition of people from each culture. It was possible to conﬁrm the results of Study 1 utilizing thesituation sampling method (see Kitayama, Markus, Matsumoto, & Norasakkunkit, 1997;
Morling et al., 2002), in which the generated situations obtained in Study 1 were shown to a
new group of participants. For example, when
asked to produce happy shared and non-shared

Figure 1 Intensity of feeling of happiness of Study 1.
Error bars indicate standard error of the mean.

© Japanese Psychological Association 2022.

situations, Japanese individuals might be biased
towards producing shared situations that elicit
higher degrees of happiness than non-sharedsituations, while Americans might be biased to
produce shared and non-shared situations thatelicit similar degrees of happiness. This method
is used to examine whether cultural differences
are inherently present in individuals’ psychological tendencies or also found in situations
reproduced within certain cultural contexts.

MethodParticipants comprised 62 European Americans(undergraduate students in the US, 15 males
and 47 females, Mage = 22.3 years and SD = 2.8
years) and 60 Japanese (undergraduate students
in Japan, originally from Japan, 34 males and 26
females, Mage = 19.2 years and SD = 1.1 years).
They were recruited from the available subject
pool of psychology classes and reimbursed with
$5 for Americans and 500 yen for Japanese.
Due to missing data, only 59 Americans were
included in the data analysis.
We presented situations obtained from Study
1 and asked participants to judge how strongly
they would feel and express happiness if they
were in each of the described situations. Data
were collected individually in the laboratory,
and the presentation order of each type of situation was counterbalanced and randomly
ordered.

Figure 2 Intensity of expression of happiness of
Study 1. Error bars indicate standard error of
the mean.

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Sharing non-sharing happiness: US Japan

Table 1 Examples of situation categories

SharedNon-shared

Japanese-made situations

American-made situations“I went out for a meal with other people.
During the meal, a person behaved in afriendly way towards me.”
“I received the result of the exam I had
taken a week ago. The score wasabove that required to pass.”“I went shopping for a friend’s birthdaywith my friend.”“When I went for a walk, the weather wasgorgeous and sunny.”

Note. The complete list of situations can be obtained upon request.

In order to maximize the number of situations
presented to each participant, without overloading them, 16 situations collected in Study
1 (see Table 1 for examples) were randomly
selected for this study. They consisted of fourshared situations generated by the Japanese;four non-shared situations generated by theJapanese; four shared situations generated byAmericans; and four non-shared situations generated by Americans. The shared/non-sharedsituations were conﬁrmed to be matched to thecategories by the coding employed in Study
1. During the selection, if two or more situations
were too similar to each other (e.g., all involving
parties), then another situation was selected to
avoid having similar kinds of situations in eachcategory.
The following instructions were given to theparticipants: “Below are situations that undergraduate students like you have experienced
and described. There are various kinds of situations, and all the descriptions were written byundergraduates about their actual experiences.
We would like you to tell us how you would feel
if you were to experience each situation. Please
read each situation carefully and imagine thatyou are in the situation. Some of the situations
are easy to imagine, whereas some others are
difﬁcult to imagine. In either case, try to imagine
as clearly as possible how you would feel if you
were in each situation.”
After this, the situations and instructions forthe items were presented. For each situation,
the following instruction was presented: “Pleaseindicate how much you agree or disagree withthe statement by circling a number below.”
Feeling and expressing happiness were eachmeasured with a 7-point scale (1 = Not at all,
7 = Strongly).
Participants read each situation andanswered according to their feelings. For eachparticipant, this procedure was repeated for
16 situations in total.
Results
For situations generated by Japanese participants, shared feeling and shared expression
were signiﬁcantly correlated (r(117) = .65,
p < .001) and of different magnitudes (feelingM = 5.8, SD = 0.8, expression M = 5.0,
SD = 0.9, t(118) = 12.44, p < .001), and so were
non-shared feeling and non-shared expression(r(117) = .59, p < .001; feeling M = 5.7,
SD = 0.9, expression M = 4.5, SD = 1.2, t(118) = 12.99, p < .001). The same pattern was
found for situations generated by Americans:shared feeling and shared expression (r(117) = .71, p < .001; feeling M = 5.7,
SD = 0.9, expression M = 5.1, SD = 0.9, t(118) = 9.19, p < .001), and non-shared feelingand non-shared expression (r(117) = .67,
p < .001; feeling M = 5.2, SD = 1.0, expression
M = 4.2, SD = 1.2, t(118) = 11.52, p < .001).
In order to investigate differences in culture,sharedness and origin of situations in their relationship to happiness, we performed a 2 (participants’ culture: Japanese and US; between
subjects)  2 (situation’s culture of origin:
Japanese-made vs. American-made; within subjects)  2 (situation sharedness: shared vs. nonshared; within subjects) mixed ANOVA for eachof the dependent variables, feeling of happinessand expression of happiness (see Figures 3 and
4 for mean comparisons).
© Japanese Psychological Association 2022.

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I. De Almeida, Y. Uchida, and P. C. Ellsworth

Feeling of Happiness
The main effect of the participants’ culture wassigniﬁcant (F(1, 117) = 11.11, p =. 001,
ηp2 = .09), as American participants reported
they would feel a higher degree of happiness(M = 5.8, SD = 0.7) than the Japanese(M = 5.4, SD = 1.0), corroborating Study 1.
The main effect of the origin of the situation
was also signiﬁcant (F(1,117) = 33.14, p < .001,
ηp2 = .22), as participants reported feelinghigher degrees of happiness in Japanese-madesituations (M = 5.7, SD = 0.9) than in American-made situations (M = 5.5, SD = 1.0). The
main effect of sharedness of the situation was
also signiﬁcant (F(1, 117) = 38.25, p < .001,
ηp2 = .25), as shared situations elicited greater
feelings of happiness (M = 5.8, SD = 0.8) thannon-shared situations (M = 5.4, SD = 1.0). In
addition, the interaction between the participants’ culture and the origin of the situation
was signiﬁcant (F(1,117) = 12.66, p < .001,
ηp2 = .10), as well as culture and sharedness(F(1,117) = 16.54, p < .001, ηp2 = .12), andsharedness and origin (F(1,117) = 14.72,
p < .001, ηp2 = 11). The three-way interaction
was signiﬁcant (F(1,117) = 11.44, p < .001,
ηp2 = .09). Bonferroni p-value-adjusted posthoc tests showed that Japanese participants rated
the Japanese-made shared situations the mosthappiness-inducing (M = 5.8, SD = 0.9), and
the American-made non-shared situations theleast (M = 4.9, SD = 1.1, p < .001), while
American participants rated the American-madeshared situations (M = 6.0, SD = 0.7) and theJapanese-made non-shared situations (M = 6.0,
SD = 0.7) the highest, and the American-madenon-shared situations the lowest (M = 5.5,
SD = 0.7, p < .001 and p < .001, respectively).
Considering only sharedness and the participants’ culture, results from Study 1 were partially replicated. Bonferroni p-value-adjusted
post-hoc tests showed that the Japanese rated
shared situations as more happiness-inducing(M = 5.6, SD = 0.9) than non-shared situations(M = 5.1, SD = 1.0, p < .001), as expected, andAmericans also showed a signiﬁcant difference
between shared (M = 5.9, SD = 0.7) and nonshared (M = 5.8, SD = 0.8, p = .025) situations.
Considering only sharedness and thecultural origin of the situations, Bonferroni
p-value-adjusted post-hoc tests showed that
there was no signiﬁcant difference between
Japanese-made (M = 5.8, SD = 0.8) and American-made shared situations (M = 5.7, SD = 0.9,
p = .370), but Japanese-made (M = 5.7,
SD = 0.9) non-shared situations were rated as
more happiness-inducing than American-madenon-sharedsituations
(M
=
5.2,
SD = 1.0, p < .001).
Japanese participants reported feeling higher
degrees of happiness in Japanese-made sharedsituations (M = 5.9, SD = 0.9) than in Japanese-made non-shared situations (M = 5.4,
SD = 0.9, p < .001), and presented the same pattern in American-made shared situations(M = 5.4, SD = 0.9) compared to American-

Figure 3 Intensity of feeling of happiness of Study
2. Error bars indicate standard error of the mean.

Figure 4 Intensity of expression of happiness of
Study 2. Error bars indicate standard error of
the mean.

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Sharing non-sharing happiness: US Japan

made non-shared situations (M = 4.9, SD = 1.1,
p < .001). Conversely, American participants
reported feeling higher degrees of happiness in
American-made shared situations (M = 6.0,
SD = 0.7) than in American-made non-sharedsituations (M = 5.5, SD = 0.7, p < .001), but did
not differ signiﬁcantly regarding Japanese-madeshared situations (M = 5.7, SD = 0.7) and Japanese-made non-shared situations (M = 6.0,
SD = 0.9, p = .335).
Expression of Happiness
The main effect of the participants’ culture wassigniﬁcant (F(1, 117) = 4.93, p = .028,
ηp2 = .04), as American participants reported agreater expression of happiness (M = 4.9,
SD = 1.0) than Japanese (M = 4.5, SD = 1.2).
The main effect of the origin of the situation
was not signiﬁcant (F(1,117) = 0.97, p = .326,
ηp2 = .01). However, the main effect ofsharedness was signiﬁcant (F(1,117) = 99.45,
p < .001, ηp2 = .46), as participants reported
expressing higher degrees of happiness inshared (M = 5.0, SD = 0.9) than in non-sharedsituations (M = 4.4, SD = 1.2).
The interaction between the participants’ culture and the origin of the situation was signiﬁcant (F(1,117) = 10.99, p = .001, ηp2 = .09), as
were those between culture and sharedness (F(1,117) = 21.00, p < .001, ηp2 = .15), andsharedness and origin (F(1,117) = 16.09,
p < .001, ηp2 = .12). The three-way interaction
was signiﬁcant (F(1,117) = 9.09, p = .003,
ηp2 = .07). Regarding the origin of the situation,
Bonferroni p-value-adjusted post-hoc tests
showed that Japanese participants rated theJapanese-made shared situations the highest(M = 5.1, SD = 0.9), and the American-madenon-shared situations the lowest (M = 3.9,
SD = 1.2, p < .001), while American participants rated the American-made shared situations (M = 5.3, SD = 0.9) the highest, and theAmerican-made non-shared situations the lowest (M = 4.6, SD = 1.1, p < .001).
Similarly to the feeling of happiness, considering only sharedness and participants’ culture,
results from Study 1 were, again, partially replicated. Bonferroni p-value-adjusted post-hoc
tests showed that Japanese rated sharedsituations
asmorehappiness-inducing(M = 5.0, SD = 0.9) than non-shared(M = 4.0, SD = 1.2, p < .001) situations, andAmericans also showed a signiﬁcant difference
between shared (M = 5.1, SD = 0.9) and nonshared (M = 4.7, SD = 1.1, p < .001) situations.
Considering only sharedness and the cultural
origin of the situations, Bonferroni p-valueadjusted post-hoc tests showed that there wasno signiﬁcant difference between Japanesemade (M = 5.0, SD = 0.9) and American-madeshared situations (M = 5.1, SD = 0.9, p = .131),but Japanese-made (M = 4.5, SD = 1.2) nonshared situations were rated as more happiness-inducing than American-made non-sharedsituations (M = 4.2, SD = 1.2, p = .009).
Japanese participants reported expressing
higher degrees of happiness in Japanese-madeshared situations (M = 5.1, SD = 0.9) than inJapanese-madenon-sharedsituations(M = 4.2, SD = 1.2, p < .001), and presented
the same pattern in American-made shared situations (M = 4.9, SD = 0.9) compared to American-made non-shared situations (M = 3.9,
SD = 1.2, p < .001). Meanwhile, American participants reported expressing higher degrees ofhappiness in American-made shared situations(M = 5.3, SD = 0.9) than in American-madenon-shared situations (M = 4.6, SD = 1.1,
p < .001), but did not differ signiﬁcantly regarding Japanese-made shared situations (M = 4.8,
SD = 0.9) and Japanese-made non-shared situations (M = 4.8, SD = 1.1, p = 1).

Discussion
Through the completion of two studies using asituation-sampling method, we found that forJapanese participants, whether the emotionalsituation was shared with others was highly
important for feeling and expressing happiness.
These ﬁndings are consistent with past studies
on cultural differences concerning happiness,
which suggest that in the Japanese culture, happiness is less individualized and more likely to
be connected with other people’s happiness(Hitokoto & Uchida, 2015; Uchida et al., 2004).
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I. De Almeida, Y. Uchida, and P. C. Ellsworth

American participants, on the other hand,showed a complex pattern. In Study 1 theyreported no signiﬁcant difference in intensity
between shared and non-shared situations ineither feeling or expressing happiness, albeit
scoring slightly higher in shared situations. In
Study 2, they scored higher in shared than in
non-shared situations. These results show that
Americans may experience a happiness boost
in shared situations just as much as (Study 1)
and sometimes more (Study 2) than in nonshared situations. On average, Americans
scored higher than the Japanese on both expression and feeling of happiness in each study assuggested in the previous literature. One possible explanation for Americans rating both
expressed and felt happiness higher than theJapanese is that during the random selection ofeight situations from each culture in Study
2, the more intense shared situations of theJapanese might be selected by chance, and as aconsequence, shared situations generated happiness even for the Americans. Other possibilities include cross-cultural differences in
response styles (see Heine, Lehman, Peng, &Greenholtz, 2002) and general attitudes to seeking positive emotions and happiness (Uchida
et al., 2004; Uchida & Kitayama, 2009). Furthermore, in East Asian cultures, even positive emotions can be suppressed when they are too
intense and could negatively affect others. In
this case, moderation, leaning towards neutral
emotions, is preferred. On the other hand, participants in the United States tend to prefer positive emotions even if they are highly intense
and this does not seem to affect their social relationships (Miyamoto & Ma, 2011). Anotherrelated example is the case of “capitalization,”
which refers to an individual telling others
about positive events they have experienced asa way to maximize their positive experience(see Gable, Reis, Impett, & Asher, 2004;
Langston, 1994). Koreans are less likely to capitalize than Americans because in East Asian
cultures individuals might be concerned about
the potential negative consequences of talking
about (sharing) a positive event one has experienced, while in Western cultures individuals
tend to be rewarded for talking about such
© Japanese Psychological Association 2022.

positive events (Choi, Oishi, Shin, &Suh, 2019). Future research could also explore
the relationship between suppressing positive
emotions and social consequences.
The feeling and the expression of emotions
were highly correlated in both studies, showingthat there is a direct connection between feelingand expressing happiness. However, scores offeeling were signiﬁcantly higher than scores of
expression, showing that participants did not
express emotions to the same extent that theyfelt them, which can indicate the operating ofanemotional
regulation
mechanism(Matsumoto et al., 2008). Future studies can further investigate the relationship between feelingand expression of emotions and how this relationship might be mediated by culture.
From the situation sampling method, we
could conﬁrm that there was a cultural difference regarding non-shared situations, asJapanese-made situations tended to elicit higher
degrees of happiness than American-made situations. However, there was no signiﬁcant difference regarding the origin of the situation forshared situations. Thus, the observed culturaldifference between the samples was not merely
the consequence of the cultural differences in
the nature of the situations that participants
described; rather, it might be related to how
emotions work in each of the studied cultures.
The results of Study 1 suggest that, in the twostudied cultures, there is little difference
between descriptions of happy situations, either
shared or non-shared. However, there was a difference in how people feel and express happiness in these situations across cultures. In
Study 2, from the situation sampling method,
we could conﬁrm the observed cultural difference between the samples was not merely theconsequence of the cultural differences in thenature of the situations that participants
described; rather, it might be related to how
emotions work in each of the studied cultures.
In other words, this result suggests that the emotions that a description of a situation elicits in aparticipant is inﬂuenced by the participant’s cultural background.
In Study 2, the Japanese participants showedstronger emotional reactions to shared

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Sharing non-sharing happiness: US Japansituations, which were generated by both
Japanese and American participants in Study
1, than they did to non-shared situations. However, Americans did not particularly differentiate between situations made by Japaneseparticipants, but they scored higher in bothexperiencing and expressing happiness in
American-made shared situations than in
American-made non-shared situations. For theJapanese sample, these results correspond tothe hypothesis and the theory discussed above:it is clear that shared situations elicit stronger
emotions than non-shared situations. In the second study there was possibly a culturally speciﬁccomponent of the Japanese-made situations,since they elicited stronger emotions than theAmerican-made situations. For the American
sample, the feeling of happiness in the experiments can be explained by the abovementioned hypothesis, but regarding theexpression of happiness, these participants
showed a higher score in response to
American-made shared situations than to othersituations, showing that here, too, there might
be some cultural component to these social
events. Finally, it is puzzling that, on average,
participants from both cultures rated Japanesemade situations as more happiness-inducing,which was expected for Japanese participants,
but not for American participants. Future
research could study how situations created in
one culture elicit higher levels of happiness inindividuals from that culture than from anotherculture.
A future study could use the same paradigm
with different emotional expressions, such asother positive emotions (e.g., calmness, awe),negative emotions (e.g., sadness, envy), or
ambiguous emotions (e.g., pride).
A major limitation of the studies presented
here is that the sample was composed of university students from each country, which can limit
the generalizability of the results (see Henrich,
Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010). For instance, thesituations generated by the participants may benotably different to situations experienced bypeople in other age groups, or those not attending university. Also, compared to other studiesin psychology, the samples studied here can beconsidered small. Future research can explore
situations created by samples from other age
groups and main occupations.
In the studies presented here, we assumed thatindependence/interdependence was the main factor that distinguished the cultures we compared.
Although it is well known that the social orientation of a culture inﬂuences how emotions aredeveloped, felt, and expressed in that context,
there are other factors underlying this issue. For
example, Latin Americans prefer high-arousal
positive affective states, while East Asians preferlow-arousal, positive emotions, despite both cultures being collectivist (Ruby, Falk, Heine,
Villa, & Silberstein, 2012). According to each culture’s speciﬁc environment, some emotions will
be fostered so individuals can ﬁt in and function
well, while other emotions will not be accepted.
Future research could address how other mechanisms inﬂuence people’s emotional experience inshared and non-shared situations in cultures withsimilar social orientations. Also, we assumed thesocial orientation of each studied culture basedon previous research; we did not measure independence or interdependence in the present
studies.
In conclusion, the current research presented
evidence suggesting that there are pertinent differences between how participants from different cultural backgrounds experience andexpress happiness in shared and non-sharedsituations.

Conﬂict of Interests
The authors declare no conﬂicts of interest associated with this manuscript.

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(Received February 8, 2021; accepted September
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