Different cultures have different valance preferences ("Ideal Affect") and there is evidence that emotional reactions vary between cultures. A good place to start can be Kitayama & Markus (1994), The cultural shaping of emotion: A conceptual framework. In: S. Kitayama & H.R. Markus (Eds). Emotion and culture: Empirical studies of mutual
influence (pp.339-351). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.
Jeanne Tsai had also wrote extensively on the subject. A good intro to her work is in :Tsai, J.L. (2007). Ideal affect: Cultural causes and behavioral consequences. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2, 242-259.