Psychological Bulletin, Vol 151(12), Dec 2025, 1486-1524; doi:10.1037/bul0000499
What affective states do people ideally want to feel and why? In Affect Valuation Theory, Tsai et al. (2006) proposed and observed that (a) how people would ideally like to feel (their “ideal affect”) differs from how they actually feel (their “actual affect”), and (b) cultural factors shape people’s ideal affect even more than their actual affect. In this individual participant data meta-analysis, we reexamined these two premises in a combined data file of over 31,000 participants from 124 data sets collected by different research teams across the world. Consistent with Tsai et al., we observed that (a) actual affect and ideal affect are empirically distinct constructs, and (b) cultural differences in ideal affect are larger in magnitude than cultural differences in actual affect. These findings held across research teams, participant populations, and publication status. Importantly, most cultural differences in ideal affect endured over time, including European Americans’ greater valuation of high arousal positive states compared to East Asian Americans and East Asians. New patterns also emerged: European Americans valued low arousal positive states more over time; differences in ideal affect emerged among specific East Asian cultural groups; and socioeconomic status, gender, and age were also associated with differences in ideal affect. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)