What affective feelings do people want to feel? Compared with research on actual affect, there was scanty work conducted on ideal affect, the affective feelings that people want to feel. Two studies were conducted to investigate the structure of ideal affect and its relationship with cultural mindsets. In Study 1, ideal affect was examined in two large samples, one from Hong Kong (N = 386) and the other from the People’s Republic of China (N = 398). The Chinese Circumplex Model of Affect (CCMA; Yik, 2009) was found to be capable of mapping the structure of ideal affect and the participants from both samples were found to value pleasant feelings with a small degree of arousal (18° in the CCMA space). The CCMA also provides a systematic way of relating affect to other psychological varia...[ Read more ]

What affective feelings do people want to feel? Compared with research on actual affect, there was scanty work conducted on ideal affect, the affective feelings that people want to feel. Two studies were conducted to investigate the structure of ideal affect and its relationship with cultural mindsets. In Study 1, ideal affect was examined in two large samples, one from Hong Kong (N = 386) and the other from the People’s Republic of China (N = 398). The Chinese Circumplex Model of Affect (CCMA; Yik, 2009) was found to be capable of mapping the structure of ideal affect and the participants from both samples were found to value pleasant feelings with a small degree of arousal (18° in the CCMA space). The CCMA also provides a systematic way of relating affect to other psychological variables. The relationships between ideal affect and personality/subjective well-being varied between the two Chinese samples. In Study 2, two priming methods were used to examine the influence of cultural mindsets on ideal affect. First, cultural mindsets were primed by the collectivism and individualism cognitions (N = 295). Ideal affect was found to be similar in all three conditions: 20º for the group primed by the individualistic mindset, 18º for the group primed by the collectivistic mindset, and 20º for the control group. Second, cultural mindsets were primed by the Chinese/American cultural icons, each representing a culture as a whole (N = 317). Ideal affect was again found to be similar in all three conditions: 13º for the group primed by the American icon, 13º for the group primed by the Chinese icon, and 16º for the control group. Across both priming methods, the primed cultural mindsets did not influence the rating of ideal affect; these results challenge the conclusion that cultures dictate the feelings that people want to experience.