The effects of induced yearning on attentional breadth of bereaved individuals: A cross-cultural study between China and Switzerland.

Bereaved individuals may experience persistent yearning for the deceased, marked by intense desire, mixed feelings, and recurring mental images of their loved one. Although the Attentional Scope Model links repetitive thinking to attentional breadth (i.e., the range of contextual information attended to at a given moment), how yearning influences attentional breadth across cultures remains unclear. We examined whether induced yearning would alter attentional breadth, whether this pattern differed for self- and other-related information, and whether these effects varied across cultural contexts and levels of grief-related vulnerability. In an online experiment, 398 bereaved adults from China (n = 236) and Switzerland (n = 162) completed baseline questionnaires and were randomly assigned to a loss-focused yearning condition or a separation-focused control condition in a yearning induction task. They then completed an attentional breadth task requiring them to detect targets presented either close to or far from a central self- or other-related word. More accurate detection of distant targets indicated broader attention. Results showed that attentional breadth differed by the interaction among cultural context, induction condition, word type, and target distance. Among Chinese participants in the yearning condition, higher trait yearning was associated with relatively broader attention around self-related than other-related information. In contrast, greater PGD symptom severity was associated with stronger attentional narrowing across cultures, but only in the control condition. These findings suggest that the effects of induced yearning on attentional breadth are context dependent. They offer insights into the underlying attentional processes involved and may inform culturally responsive interventions.