Earlier we discussed that Emotions are composed of 1. Neurological factors, 2. Physiological changes 3. Subjective feeling 4. Emotional expression 5. Action tendency. Functionalists suggest that emotion serve a purpose for adaptation. Emotions organize and regulate how we react – attention, cognition, social function, health effects.
If facial expression is seen as a component of emotion, and a valid representation of the internal state, are those facial expressions universal? If they are, does culture affect how closely those two are connected, or whether they are masked in certain cultures? Also, are there clearly delineated bodily conditions or brain activity that signify emotional states? Not everyone agrees. The “universal view” is the idea that regardless of time and location emotional states are universal. But the “relative view” is that emotional states vary from culture to culture and differ depending on the circumstances that cause them. Universalists take a biological view that, for example, when your progress toward a goal is blocked everyone feels frustration and anger. But it might be that these events – the experience of frustration and certainly the resulting anger - might be culturally defined. Attachment theorists, like universalists, would say that there are some events like loss of mom or primary caregiver that are universally experienced. Also, whether emotional experience is seen as internal is more culturally influenced. So, since the self-conscious emotions are not necessarily tied to specific environmental events, they are more influenced by culture and family. “Simply stated, we do not have a good theoretical basis to connect cultural values, goals, or standards to specific socialization practices. Because of this, we do not know where to look nor do we have a good sense of when these socialization practices are likely to have these effects. When we add to this dilemma the problem of understanding what features of emotion we should focus on, we realize the enormity of the undertaking” (Lewis, 2006).
Views of self in relation to emotion
Independent and interdependent cultures view “self” differently. A culture’s views of self influence the appraisal, experience, expression, regulation and developmental pathways of emotion. In independent cultures, authentic expressions of emotion are valued, whereas in interdependent cultures emotions are seen as ways to maintain social harmony.
Pride is undoubtedly a positive and disengaged emotion indicating congruence between self and goal in individualistic cultures. In collectivistic ones, pride is undesirable unless it is in relation to increasing others’ or collective goals, and success is attributed to the group.
Shame on the other hand is seen as positive in interdependent contexts because it indicates social engagement, relatedness, striving for social conformity and motivation to future better performance and self-critical continuous effort.
Similarly, in the US anger is seen as self assertion, whereas in Asian cultures it is seen as disrupting harmony. In Nepal, Brahman children refrain from communicating anger and Tamang children appraise situations in such a way so that they don’t even feel anger.
In the cultural frame of reference, rather than talking about positive and negative emotions, it might be useful to talk about “engaging” (other-focused) and “disengaging” (self-focused) emotions. Similarly, parenting practices use praise in line with values of independence or interdependence also.
Another US assumption is that open expression of emotions and early family emotional discourse fosters children’s emotional competence. But in interdependent cultures open expression is inhibited in favor of concern for others. Emotions are inner states versus interpersonal experience in different cultures. In US families, children are taught to regulate emotions using an autonomous sense of self. In Chinese families, regulation of emotion is based on relatedness and acceptance of social norms. In Japanese attachments, moms anticipate negativity with proactive sensitivity, whereas German moms show more reactive sensitivity. “The development of emotion regulation in these cultures is a process of (internalized) interpersonal co-regulation based on empathy and anticipation as part of the interdependent self-construal.” (Trommsdorff, 2006).
Classifying culture
It is also difficult to measure what culture means. For example, there are many studies that separate individuals into groups like “Latinx,” and they are certainly ignoring class, regional (and possibly even language) differences within this large heterogenous group that are all intertwined, and likely influence parenting and emotional socialization in different ways. Some studies compare immigrants to their natal and host cultures, but those classifications again might be too broad.
Similarly, another dimension that is often used to define/measure culture is collectivism v. individualism. These contrasting poles are epitomized in the different parenting expectations and practices of individualistic versus collectivistic cultures. For example, we do see that Asian children are often socialized to reduce emotional displays as compared to Western European kids. However, emotional restraint is achieved by Chinese mothers in the interest of Confucian interdependence through stern shaming; whereas Japanese mothers achieve it by coddling to promote “amae.” Even what is considered the prototype of sensitive mothering in Germany when mothers have face to face positive reciprocal exchanges, would be considered inadequate and far too cold by Cameroonian Nso moms who believe children should be held in close physical contact to show them love and affection.
What parts of culture are important and how they influence emotional socialization are varied, entangled and multidirectional. Even when studying two subgroups - the Tamang and the Brahmin – in a small country like Nepal, it is clear that the differences between the two groups might be the result of religious, historical, political, geographical and social factors. From the lens of the Western outsider the practices and values of the two might look exactly the same. However there are differences that need to be situated and different outcomes between the subgroups can be best explained by looking at both subgroups’ practices/routines, as well as values and norms. (Cole & Tan, 2006)
Knowledge of emotions
In Asian cultures in contrast to the US, children are not encouraged to talk about and develop emotion knowledge. Rather they are taught to emphasize psychological discipline and behavioral standards. In keeping with Confucian teachings of moderation, children are to restrain their emotions from an early age to show good manners and promote social harmony. When talking to 3-year olds about their past positive and negative emotions, both Chinese and US moms focused on a social theme for positive emotions, but many more Chinese (86% social) than US moms (75% personal) focused on social versus a personal theme that elicited a negative emotion. US moms took a more cognitive approach and explored the causes of the child’s emotions and were more accepting of these. Chinese moms focused on the outcomes, the behaviors and “teaching the child lessons” about social harmony. Disagreements about emotions are extended and tolerated in US child-parent dyad conversations. In longitudinal and other studies, US preschoolers are shown to have higher emotional knowledge as judged by story emotion responses and picking pictures of emotions. Emotion knowledge has been found to mediate the relation between culture and autobiographical memory also, because those adults and children who have higher emotion knowledge remember more details of those memories. For US moms, emotions are an important part of the child’s self, whereas for Chinese mothers, emotions are social acts and are instrumental for helping the child control negative feelings and impulses and staying connected to others (Wang, 2006).
Original studies showed that there are temperamental differences between Asian and US children and in fact in empirical research it has been found that both crying and Duchenne smiles are seen most in US children, second in Japanese children and least in Chinese kids, in both intensity and frequency. Empirical studies with Chinese children adopted into US families as compared with non adopted US and Chinese children showed that cultural environment led to these individual differences in reactivity and expressivity, not genetic ethnic differences.
Emotional Expression
Before making these sorts of generalizations, it is also important to note that using Western measures may not pick up the emotional expressivity of Chinese children so maybe Chinese mothers need to code the videos and also specify what cues they are using to do so. Similarly, the scales that are used to measure the environmental influences (like maternal warmth) are designed by and for Western samples so they may not mean the same thing (may not translate or may not sufficiently capture what is intended) in Chinese families. Use of Likert scales might also be culturally influenced, and then there are a ton of other bias issues that should be considered. Also instead of lab studies, it would be good to see if those same results are obtained in naturalistic settings (with no obvious stranger present) (Camras & Fatani, 2006).
More emotional knowledge can vary by culture – for example, cultures differ on many dimensions:
- the ability to identify others’ emotions through facial expression, gestures and vocal tone,
- the ability to identify one’s own emotional states, knowledge of what situations are associated with what emotions,
- how to resolve discrepancy between emotional expression and situational cues,
- understanding how personality, experience and other factors influence individual emotions in same context,
- knowledge about suppression, neutralization and faking emotional expression,
- cultural beliefs regarding uses of emotions, whether trying to understand others’ emotion is considered useful or acceptable,
- knowledge of ways to regulate emotions, and which is most useful in what context and whether regulation is good at all.
Children need to acquire this knowledge and also develop the skills to act on that. So those kids who have the most valued skills will be the most socially accepted and psychologically adjusted in that culture.
In Indonesia any extreme emotional expression – positive or negative – is believed to disrupt human relations and cause health problems. So, mothers' positive emotional expression was not related to better child psychological adjustment. Because emotion related regulation is necessary to act in accordance with social norms in all cultures, so it might predict positive development in all cultures (Eisenberg, 2006).
Should we have a new field of psychology based on the interests here? Trommsdorff suggested that whether emotions are positive/negative is defined by culture. Wang suggests that cultural differences in adult/child conversations result in differences in emotion knowledge. Camras and Fatani found clear evidence for cultural factors in emotional expression using adopted children as participants. Cole and Tan point out that culture can mean so many different things. “Cultural differences [affect] the experience of, expression of, knowledge of, memory of, bodily manifestations of, and regulation of – emotion. So while the cultural framing of issues is certainly important, the question that remains is - Is emotion even a separate entity from its causes, consequences, manifestations and other processes?
References:
Camras, L.A. & Fatani, S.S. (2006). The development of emotional expressivity and the influence of culture. ISBBD Newsletter, Number 1, Serial No 49.
Cole, P.M. & Tan, P.Z. (2006). Capturing the culture in the cultural socialization of emotionISBBD Newsletter, Number 1, Serial No 49.
Eisenberg, N. (2006). Commentary: cultural influences on emotional development: so much to do, so little time. ISBBD Newsletter, Number 1, Serial No 49.
Lewis, M. (2006). Commentary: Universals and cultural influences on emotional life, ISBBD newsletter) ISBBD Newsletter, Number 1, Serial No 49.
Russell, J. A. (2006). Commentary: Emotion studied in cultural-developmental psychology. ISBBD Newsletter, Number 1, Serial No 49.
Trommsdorff, G. (2006). Development of Emotions as organized by culture, ISBBD Newsletter, Number 1, Serial No 49.
Wang, Q. (2006). Developing emotion knowledge in cultural contexts, ISBBD Newsletter, Number 1, Serial No 49.
Attributions:
Original by Bhadha (2023) licensed CC-BY 4.0
