Curriculum Vitae | Google Scholar

Michelle’s research centers on human emotion, personality, and culture/language. Her current scope of research surrounds three crucial areas of human experience: the architecture of emotion, personality and language, and the experience of love in cultural contexts.

Her first line of research concerns the development of a 12-point circumplex model in the English and Chinese languages to describe emotion. More recently, I collaborated with researchers from 33 communities covering 25 languages to examine the architecture of emotion and its relationship with personality and psychological well-being. Using this network, I am initiating an experience-sampling project examining how people in Eastern (Western) culture can (cannot) feel happy and sad at the same time.

Her second line of research concerns the role of language in personality. Do bilinguals have two personalities? My initial findings show that when responding in Chinese (vs. English), the Chinese bilinguals saw themselves more neurotic, more agreeable, and more conscientious. What is primed by the test language? Why does the Chinese language make one perceive herself more neurotic? Both cultural values and reference group are possible candidates accounting for the language effect. She is currently designing studies to test their effects.

Her third line of research is a spin-off from her teaching on the topic of romantic love. It concerns how people of different cultures understand (romantic) love, while engendering diversified understanding by stretching the investigation beyond the Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic (WEIRD) societies to include communities on six different continents.

      Selected Publications

  • Yik, M. (2024). Hello, Neihou: Anchoring and adjustment in personality assessment. Personality Science, 5. [pdf]
  • Yik, M., & Siu, N. Y.-F. (2024). Extraverts suffer from social distancing: A 30-day diary study. Personality and Individual Differences, 218, 112433. [pdf]
  • Yik, M., Sze, I. N. L., Kwok, F. H. C., & Lin S. (2023). Mapping Chinese personality: An assessment of the psychometric properties of the NEO-PI-3 in monolingual and bilingual studies. Assessment, 30(7), 2031–2049. [pdf]
  • Yik, M., & Chen, C. Z. (2023). Unravelling Chinese talk about emotion. Frontiers in Psychology, 14:1157863. [pdf]
  • Yik, M., et al. (2023). On the relationship between valence and arousal in samples across the globe. Emotion, 23, 332-344. [pdf]
  • Chen, X., & Yik, M. (2022). The emotional anatomy of the Wuhan lockdown: Sentiment analysis using Weibo data. JMIR Formative Research, 6(11): e37698. [pdf]
  • Yik, M., Russell, J. A., & Steiger, J. H. (2011). A 12-point circumplex structure of core affect. Emotion, 11, 705-731. [pdf]
  • Yik, M., (2010). How unique is Chinese emotion? In M. H. Bond (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of Chinese psychology (2nd ed., pp. 205-220). Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. [pdf]
  • Yik, M. (2009). Studying affect among the Chinese: The circular way. Journal of Personality Assessment, 91, 416-428. [pdf]

(1) The Oxford Handbook of Emotion and Culture Project


About the Project

The general goal of this handbook is to bring together contemporary and comparative research in the interplay between emotion and culture, from across the fields of psychology, neuroscience, biology, anthropology, philosophy, and linguistics, forming a comprehensive and exhaustive handbook. The intended readership of this handbook will be inclusive, ranging from researchers and scholars in the academic community, through coaches and trainers in the professional community, to students in the tertiary market.

Our 35 chapters are contributed by 89 authors (56% female) from 15 countries:
01 – Appraisal theories and culture
02 – The biocultural history of emotions
03 – Culture and emotion: An anthropological view
04 – The emergence of kama muta: Over millions of years, months, and milliseconds
05 – Emotion and the language-culture nexus
06 – Evolutionary and cultural aspects of emotion-based stories in fictional literature, films, and graphic media
07 – The interplay of evolution and culture in emotion: A basic emotion perspective
08 – Emotion in voice and language across cultures: A modern perspective
09 – Emotions as events: Cultural contributions to emotion inference
10 – Nonverbal behavior and emotion
11 – The development of children’s understanding of emotions: Variation and stability across cultures
12 – Emotion socialization in the cultural context: The impact on emotional development
13 – Emotional development in different cultural contexts
14 – Motivational mechanisms behind emotional preferences across adulthood and cultures
15 – Culture and intergroup emotions
16 – Culture and well-being: Five empirical approaches
17 – Cultural variation in ideal affect: Daily manifestations and real-world applications
18 – Emotion and culture in the human-nature relationship
19 – Gendering emotion across cultures and throughout history
20 – Mapping emotion across the world: Similarities and differences
21 – Social and emotion norms: Features and cultural variation
22 – Social functions of emotion: A cultural perspective
23 – Culture, emotion, and cognitive aging
24 – Culture and emotional memory: Existing evidence and future directions
25 – Emotional intelligence through a cultural lens
26 – Making risky decisions: The role of emotion and culture
27 – Origins and consequences of cultural variability in emotion language
28 – LeDoux, J. E. (2020). Thoughtful feelings. Current Biology, 30(11), R619-R623.
29 – Culture, emotion regulation, and its implications for health
30 – Culture and subjective well-being: Current trends and advances
31 – The cultural shaping of emotional disorders: Somatization vs. psychologization
32 – Considering the role of culture in anger
33 – Culturally specific emotions
34 – Face and emotional regulation in Chinese societies
35 – Respect through an emotion lens: Admiration, pride, and fear

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(2) Happy Biking Project


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(3) Diary Study


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(4) Valence and Arousal Project


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