Emotions and the Family: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Pakistani and European American Responses to Family Devaluation

Families from different cultures emphasize varying sets of values. For example, family honor is a collectivistic value that is more prominent in Pakistani culture than in European American culture. It refers to the family’s collective social identity, and is determined by the value and status of one’s family in the eyes of others. In the present study, we compared the meaning of one’s family devaluation (e.g., an insult) in these two cultures that vary in honor orientation. Particularly, we asked 113 Pakistani and 139 European American university students to provide an autobiographical narrative about a situation in which their family was devalued. We then took measures of their appraisals (cognitive evaluations), emotional feelings, and social consequences pertaining to the devaluation. Results showed that one’s family devaluation had more negative emotional and social consequences for the honor-oriented Pakistani than for the less honor-oriented European American participants.