Development

Two student activities illustrate interdependence of emotion (IOE).  Activity 1: Imagine athletic success  Divide students into two groups. Show each group one of two comments by an Olympic athlete who was interviewed by a TV station after winning a gold medal for swimming:  [Self-focused] “I’m so happy—winning the gold has always been my dream! My personal race strategy was to save energy for the end, and it worked. I’ve spent countless hours in the pool. After the Olympics, I’ll take a few days off, but then start training for the next Olympics.”   [Relationship-focused] “I’m so happy—winning the gold has always been a dream for my family, my coach, and me! My coach’s race strategy was to save energy for the end, and it worked! Together we have spent countless hours training at the pool. After the Olympics, we’ll take a few days off, but then start training for the next Olympics.”   After reading, students should imagine themselves as the athlete whose comment they read and write 4–5 sentences about them in the first-person voice in as much detail as possible. They should write about their background, relationships, and psychological and emotional state.   Then have students count the emotion words (e.g., elated, anxious) they used in their passage and compare between groups. In Uchida et al.’s study (2009), Japanese participants used more emotion words in response to the relationship-focused paragraph, presumably because in Japan, lay theories emphasize that emotions are interpersonal—they happen between people. By contrast, North American participants used more emotion words in response to the self-focused paragraph. In the North American context, emotions are seen as coming from within a person.  Activity 2: Compare happiness scales  Present two happiness scales. One, developed by North American psychologists, is the Subjective Well Being (SWB) scale (Pavot & Diener, 1993). The other was developed from an interdependent perspective by Japanese psychologists (Hitokoto & Uchida, 2015).   Subjective Well Being scale:   In most ways my life is close to my ideal.  The conditions of my life are excellent.  I am satisfied with my life.  So far, I have gotten the important things I want in life.  If I could live my life over, I would change almost nothing.  Interdependent Happiness scale (selected items):  I believe that I and others around me are happy.  I make significant others happy.  I do not have any major concerns or anxieties.  I can do what I want without causing problems for other people.  I feel that I am being positively evaluated by others around me.   Students can reflect on the cultural models of happiness (self-focused vs. relationship-focused) expressed in each of these scales. Ask students, “Imagine you work at the Gallup organization and are planning to measure levels of happiness around the world. Which scale would you use, and why?”