Empathy Versus Pride: The Influence of Emotional Appeals Across Cultures

This research examines the persuasive impact of different types of emotional appeals on members of collective versus individualist cultures. The results of two experiments demonstrated that ego-focused (e.g., pride, happiness) versus other-focused (e.g., empathy, peacefulness) emotional appeals led to more favorable attitudes for members of a collectivist culture, while other-focused versus ego-focused emotional appeals led to more favorable attitudes for members of an individualist culture. Experiment 2 was conducted to examine the psychological mechanism underlying these effects. The results indicated that the generation and elaboration on a relatively novel type of thought (individual thoughts for collectivists, collective thoughts for individualists) accounts for the persuasive effects found in this research. These results are interpreted within an Ability-Motivation framework, and theoretical implications involving cross-cultural persuasion effects are discussed.