Abstract
This chapter deals with hierarchy-based emotions to show how the hierarchical structure of the Confucian society shapes emotions and allows for self-indulgence to be negotiated. A case in point is sajiao, which is an expression of intimacy and subordination, a privileged display of affect reserved primarily for children and can be extended to young women and lovers. The combination of self-indulgence and subordination in a relational context is a recipe for gratitude, which will be examined as an alternative route, instead of cold reason, to self-control.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Algoe, S. B. (2012). Find, remind, and bind: The functions of gratitude in everyday relationships. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6, 455–469.
Algoe, S. B., Gable, S. L., & Maisel, N. (2010). It’s the little things: Everyday gratitude as a booster shot for romantic relationships. Personal Relationships, 17, 217–233.
Algoe, S. B., Haidt, J., & Gable, S. L. (2008). Beyond reciprocity: Gratitude and relationships in everyday life. Emotion, 8, 425–429.
Baumeister, R. F., Vohs, K. D., & Tice, D. M. (2007). The strength model of self-control. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16, 351–355.
Bedford, O. (2011). Guanxi-building in the workplace: A dynamic process model of working and backdoor guanxi. Journal of Business Ethics, 104, 149–158.
Bedford, O., & Hwang, S. L. (2011). Flower Drinking and Masculinity in Taiwan. Journal of Sex Research, 48, 82–92.
Bedford, O., & Hwang, S.-L. (2013). Building relationships for business in Taiwanese hostess clubs: The psychological and social processes of guanxi development. Gender, Work & Organization, 20, 297–310. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0432.2011.00576.x.
Bianchi, E. C. (2014). Entering adulthood in a recession tempers later narcissism. Psychological Science, 25, 1429–1437.
Bolender, J. (2010). The self-organizing social mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bollas, C. (2013). China on the mind. New York: Routledge.
Bull, N. (1951). The attitude theory of emotion. Oxford, England: Nervous and Mental Disease Monograph.
Cheney, D. L., Moscovice, L. R., Heesen, M., Mundry, R., & Seyfarth, R. M. (2010). Contingent cooperation between wild female baboons. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107, 9562–9566.
Chiu, C.-Y. (1990). Distributive justice among Hong Kong Chinese college students. Journal of Social Psychology, 130, 649–656.
DeSteno, D., Bartlett, M. Y., Baumann, J., Williams, L. A., & Dickens, L. (2010). Gratitude as moral sentiment: Emotion-guided cooperation as economic exchange. Emotion, 10, 289–293.
DeSteno, D., Li, Y., Dickens, L., & Lerner, J. S. (2014). Gratitude: A Tool for Reducing Economic Impatience. Psychological Science, 25, 1262–1267.
Doi, T. (1981). The anatomy of dependence: The key analysis of Japanese behavior (Trans. John Bester) (2nd ed., first edition 1973). Tokyo: Kodansha International.
Durkheim, E. (1995). The elementary forms of religious life (Trans. K. E. Fields). New York: Free Press.
Emmons, R. A., & McCullough, M. E. (2003). Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 377–389.
Farris, C. S. (1994). A semeiotic analysis of sajiao as a gender marked communication style in Chinese. In M. Johnson & F. Y. L. Chiu (Eds.), Unbound Taiwan: Closeups from a distance (pp. 9–29). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Fiske, A. P. (1991). Structures of social life: The four elementary forms of human relations. New York: Free Press.
Heine, S. J., & Hamamura, T. (2007). In search of East Asian self-enhancement. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 11, 4–27.
Hwang, K. K. (2012). Foundations of Chinese psychology: Confucian social relations. New York: Springer SBM.
Job, V., Dweck, C. S., & Walton, G. M. (2010). Ego depletion—Is it all in your head? Implicit theories about willpower affect self-regulation. Psychological Science, 21, 1686–1693.
Katz, R., & Murphy-Shigematsu, S. (2012). Synergy, healing, and empowerment. Calgary, Alberta, Canada: Brush Education.
Kidd, C., Palmeri, H., & Aslin, R. N. (2013). Rational snacking: Young children’s decision-making on the marshmallow task is moderated by beliefs about environmental reliability. Cognition, 126, 109–114.
Leung, K., & Bond, M. (1984). The impact of cultural collectivism on reward allocation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 793–804.
Li, T. S. (1999). Construct and measure of marital intimacy (In Chinese). Formosa Journal of Mental Health, 12, 29–51.
Lin, N. (2001). Social capital: A theory of structure and action. London: Cambridge University Press.
McCullough, M. E., Kilpatrick, S. D., Emmons, R. A., & Larson, D. B. (2001). Is gratitude a moral affect? Psychological Bulletin, 127, 249–266.
McKeown, G. J. (2013). The analogical peacock hypothesis: The sexual selection of mind-reading and relational cognition in human communication. Review of General Psychology, 17, 267–287.
Metcalfe, J., & Mischel, W. (1999). A hot/cool-system analysis of delay of gratification: Dynamics of willpower. Psychological Review, 106, 3–19.
Mischel, W. (2014). The marshmallow test: Mastering self-control. New York: Little, Brown and Company.
Mullainathan, S., & Shafir, E. (2013). Scarcity: Why having too little means so much. New York: Macmillan.
Sedikides, C., Gaertner, L., & Toguchi, Y. (2003). Pancultural self-enhancement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 60–79.
Trivers, R. L. (1971). The evolution of reciprocal altruism. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 46, 35–57.
Van Doesum, N. J., Van Lange, D. A. W., & Van Lange, P. A. M. (2013). Social mindfulness: Skill and will to navigate the social world. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105, 86–103.
Vohs, K. D., Baumeister, R. F., Schmeichel, B. J., Twenge, J. M., Nelson, N. M., & Tice, D. M. (2008). Making choices impairs subsequent self-control: A limited-resource account of decision making, self-regulation, and active initiative. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 883–898.
Zhou, N. (2012). The dilemma between money and life: A message from the Dao De Jing (in Chinese). Beijing, China: Peking University Press.
Online Resources
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sundararajan, L. (2015). Being Spoiled Rotten (Sajiao 撒嬌): Lessons in Gratitude. In: Understanding Emotion in Chinese Culture. International and Cultural Psychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18221-6_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18221-6_8
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-18220-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-18221-6
eBook Packages: Behavioral ScienceBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)