Emotion Review

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Comment: Affect Control Theory and Cultural Priming: A Perspective from Cultural Neuroscience
Narun Pornpattananangkul and Joan Y. Chiao
Emotion Review 2014 6: 136
DOI: 10.1177/1754073913512001
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136 Emotion Review Vol. 6 No. 2

Comment: Affect Control Theory and Cultural Priming:

A Perspective from Cultural Neuroscience
Narun Pornpattananangkul

Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, USA

Joan Y. Chiao

Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, USA

Northwestern Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Northwestern University, USA

Abstract
Affect control theory posits that emotions are constructed by social and
cultural forces. Rogers, Schrder, and von Scheve (2014) introduce affect
control theory as a conceptual and methodological hub, linking theories
from different disciplines across levels of analysis. To illustrate this further,
we apply their framework to cultural priming, an experimental technique in
cultural psychology and neuroscience for testing how exposure to cultural
symbols (e.g., words and pictures) changes peoples behavior, cognition,
and emotion. Our analysis supports the use of affect control theory in
linking different levels of analysis while leaving some opening questions
for improving such a framework in future research.

Keywords
affect control theory, cultural neuroscience, cultural priming

To what extent and how sociocultural forces influence emotion

is an important inquiry for many fields of studies, ranging from
sociology, social psychology, and anthropology to cognitive
science, biology, and neuroscience. In order to tackle such
questions, we have been proposing the need for an interdisciplinary approach that employs multiple methodologies to
address social and cultural issues at multiple levels of analysis
(Chiao, Cheon, Pornpattananangkul, Mrazek, & Blizinsky,
2013). From our end, we have followed this interdisciplinary
approach mainly by synthesizing cultural psychology with cognitive neuroscience and molecular genetics in an emerging
field of cultural neuroscience (Chiao et al., 2013). The authors
of the target article, Rogers et al. (2014), on the other hand,
took an innovative approach by drawing on affect control theory from sociology and applying an elegant mathematically
driven theory to different levels of analysis across disciplines:
cultural, relational, individual, and neural. The authors impressively delineated how affect control theory fits with each of the
levels, linking its unique sociological methodology with theories from other disciplines, such as cultural models of self,
social exchange theory, appraisal theory, and psychological

constructionism. The authors are to be congratulated for their

effort in proposing cross-disciplinary connections and in initiating an integrative framework to better understand the social
and cultural constitution of emotion. Following the authors
proposed framework, we attempt to analyze the cultural priming phenomenon using affect control theory as a conceptual
hub as an example for how to apply an affect control
framework across different levels of analysis, based on our
understanding.
Cultural priming was developed for experimentally activating cultural-relevant mindsets (Hong, Morris, Chiu, &
Benet-Martinez, 2000; Oyserman & Lee, 2008) at the individual level. For instance, participants collectivist and individualist mindset is often conceptually primed by words (e.g.,
we vs. I, respectively) or iconic pictures (e.g., dragon
vs. Mickey Mouse, respectively) without being aware of
the researchers intent. As such, in terms of the affect control
framework, these priming objects have different fundamental
meanings, depending on the participants culture. In other
words, the perceptual dimensions of such priming objects,
including evaluation, potency, and activity, may be varied as
a function of culture, giving rise to different fundamental
meanings. At the cultural level, the cultural priming procedure seems to show an effect especially if the participants
cultural background is different from the cultural concepts of
the priming objects. For example, people in Hong Kong who
lived in a collectivist culture were more influenced by an
individualistic, compared to collectivistic, prime, while the
opposite pattern was found among Americans (Gardner,
Gabriel, & Lee, 1999). This discrepancy between priming
concepts and peoples own cultural mindset, according to the
affect control framework, may parallel an impression formation process that temporary (transient) affective meanings of
these primes are influenced by peoples fundamental meanings. At the neural level, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have been used to investigate the influence
of cultural priming on the brain (Chiao et al., 2010; Harada,
Li, & Chiao, 2010; Sui & Han, 2007). For instance, when

Corresponding author: Joan Chiao, Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, 2029 Sheridan Rd., Evanston, IL 60208, USA. Email: jchiao@northwestern.edu

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Comments 137

making a general self-judgment (e.g., in general, I am humble) compared to a contextual self-judgment (e.g., when
talking to my mother, I am modest), bicultural Asian
Americans primed with individualistic concepts showed
stronger activity in the midline regions of the brain that are
involved in processing self, including the medial prefrontal
cortex (MPFC) and the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC;
Chiao et al., 2010). The opposite effect was found when
bicultural Asian Americans were primed with collectivistic
concepts. Altogether, the affect control theory can, in many
senses, capture the cultural priming phenomenon that integrates across multiple levels of analysis.
Nonetheless, in applying the affect control framework to
analyze dynamic cultural phenomena, one may also come
across known unknowns that cannot be explained by current
research in affect control theory. For instance, does a transient
deflection of ones culturally-defined meaning as a result of
cultural priming elicit a negative location in affective space?
What distinct emotional states do different types of cultural
priming elicit? Which brain areas and neural cognitive processes underlie evaluation, potency, and activity of concepts?
Such questions, however, should not discourage future scholars
from adapting the affect control framework. Given the benefit
of having mathematical formulations as a main component,
affect control researchers should have well-defined predictions

in answering such questions. Hence, the possibility of developing such elegant, unifying theories is limitless.

References
Chiao, J. Y., Cheon, B. K., Pornpattananangkul, N., Mrazek, A. J., &
Blizinsky, K. D. (2013). Cultural neuroscience: Progress and promise.
Psychological Inquiry, 24(1), 119.
Chiao, J. Y., Harada, T., Komeda, H., Li, Z., Mano, Y., Saito, D., &
Iidaka, T. (2010). Dynamic cultural influences on neural representations of the self. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 22(1), 111.
Gardner, W. L., Gabriel, S., & Lee, A. Y. (1999). I value freedom, but
we value relationships: Self-construal priming mirrors cultural differences in judgment. Psychological Science, 10(4), 321326.
Harada, T., Li, Z., & Chiao, J. Y. (2010). Differential dorsal and ventral
medial prefrontal representations of the implicit self modulated by individualism and collectivism: An fMRI study. Social Neuroscience, 5(3),
257271.
Hong, Y.-y., Morris, M. W., Chiu, C.-y., & Benet-Martinez, V. (2000).
Multicultural minds: A dynamic constructivist approach to culture and
cognition. American Psychologist, 55(7), 709720.
Oyserman, D., & Lee, S. W. (2008). Does culture influence what and how
we think? Effects of priming individualism and collectivism. Psychological Bulletin, 134(2), 311342.
Rogers, K. B., Schrder, T., & von Scheve, C. (2014). Dissecting the sociality of emotion: A multilevel approach. Emotion Review, 6, 124133.
Sui, J., & Han, S. (2007). Self-construal priming modulates neural substrates of self-awareness. Psychological Science, 18(10), 861866.

Comment: Growing a Multilevel Science of Emotion

Dawn T. Robinson

Department of Sociology, University of Georgia, USA

Abstract
This comment identifies and elaborates three assumptions that underlie
the proposal made by the Rogers, Schrder, and von Scheve (2014) article.
First, our theories of emotion need to take into account, and be consistent
with, supported theories of social outcomes and processes. Second, a
thorough understanding of affective processes requires investigation at
multiple levels of analysis, which in turn requires multilevel theoriesor
single-level theories that interact well with theories at other levels. Third,
our broad understanding of emotion will be served best when we cultivate
a field of intersecting and interacting theories of emotion.

Keywords
affect control theory, sociology of emotion, theory building

Rogers et al. (2014) make a compelling case for the use of affect
control theory as an intellectual platform from which to reach

across disciplines and connect various theories of emotion. Three

interrelated claims underlie their argument. The first, and most
explicitly stated, is that satisfactory understanding of emotion will
come only with satisfactory understanding of social process. This
assertion seems not to require reinforcement. It does, however,
carry an important implicationthat theories of emotion should at
a minimum be compatible with empirically supported theories of
social life. Affect control theory offers a generative theory of
action at the interpersonal level, making specific and testable predictions about social behaviors and emotions during face-to-face
interaction. The theory does have a substantial amount of empirical support for its predictions about interpersonal behavior and
emotions. Moreover, affect control theory already links directly to
theories at other levels of analysis, including two new closely
related theoriesthe affect control theory of self and the affect
control theory of institutions (MacKinnon & Heise, 2010). These
linkages offer a model of how we can develop theories at different
levels of analysis which are compatible with one another.

Corresponding author: Dawn T. Robinson, Department of Sociology, University of Georgia, Baldwin Hall, Athens, GA 30602, USA. Email: sodawn@uga.edu

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