Culture and emotional development: introduction to the special issue,

Emotion talk during mother–child reminiscing and book sharing and children’s socioemotional competence: evidence from Costa Rica and Germany Abstract This paper examined cross-cultural differences in emotion talk during reminiscing and book sharing and its link with children’s social problem-solving skills. Twenty-six Costa Rican mothers, representing the cultural model of autonomy-relatedness, and 26 German mothers, representing the cultural model of autonomy, discussed a negative past event and read a book with their 4-year-old children. Children’s social problem-solving skills were also assessed. Results indicated that cultural contexts did not differ in complexity of emotion talk but Costa Rican dyads talked overall more about emotions than German dyads. Costa Rican dyads marked others as the agents of emotions more often than German dyads, but groups did not differ in the frequency of emotions referring to the child as the agent. Across cultural contexts, mother–child dyads provided significantly more emotional attributions than emotion explanations during book sharing, but not during reminiscing. Emotion talk was related to children’s social problem-solving skills for the Costa Rican group, but not for the German group. The higher the amount of emotion talk in Costa Rican dyads during reminiscing, the lower the child’s social problem-solving skills. Results are discussed in light of the culture-specific nature of emotion socialization and its relation to children’s socioemotional development.

Savoring or dampening? Maternal reactions to children’s positive emotions in cultural contexts Abstract This study examined in cultural contexts maternal reactions to children’s positive emotions and the relations to children’s socio-emotional outcomes. European American (EA) and Chinese immigrant (CI) mothers reported their reactions to children’s (N = 117, M = 7.14 years) positive emotions. Children were interviewed for emotion knowledge and mothers rated children’s psychological adjustment. CI mothers reported to use emotion dampening reactions more than did EA mothers. Whereas maternal savoring reactions were associated with better adaptive adjustment across cultures, maternal dampening reactions were negatively associated with children’s emotion knowledge at marginal significance for EA but not for CI children. The findings shed critical light on the functional meaning of parental emotion socialization practices for shaping developmental outcomes in specific cultural contexts.

Cultural variations in maternal regulatory responses during a waiting task Abstract The goal of the present cross-cultural study was to investigate mothers’ pattern of responses in a delay of gratification situation for their toddler and its effect on toddlers’ emotions by using a person-centered approach. We also tested whether this effect was mediated by toddlers’ own regulation strategies. Fifty-one European American, 30 Israeli-Jewish, 52 Turkish, and 40 Romanian mothers of 2-year-old children were videotaped while the child was asked to wait for a reward until mother finished paperwork. Mothers’ regulatory responses, children’s emotions (anger and sadness), their emotion regulation strategies, and task-compliance were coded. Four profiles of maternal responses could be identified, which mostly varied in quantity across the countries. Country differences in toddlers’ anger and sadness were explained by maternal profiles. Profiles with emphasis on distraction were related to lower levels of toddler anger and sadness. This effect was partly due to the fact that toddlers applied strategies like distraction and self-soothing in concordance with mothers’ effort to regulate in a similar way. Overall, the person-centered approach gave an interesting insight into dyadic dynamics in such a demanding situation for toddlers. The distribution of profiles across these four countries point to cultural variations in emotion socialization and development beyond dichotomous perspectives of cultural norms like individualism and collectivism.

Ethnic-racial discrimination, family ethnic socialization and Latinx children’s emotion competence Abstract Emotion competence is vital for success in a wide range of domains. Although a large body of research has demonstrated that universal socialization processes, such as parenting, influence children’s emotion competence, few studies have identified risk and protective factors that may also contribute to the development of emotion competence, particularly among children of Latin descent. This study evaluated hypothesized negative relations between Latinx children’s perceived experiences of ethnic-racial discrimination (ERD) and later emotion competence as indexed by children’s emotion knowledge and coping skills. Further, we explored both direct and interactive effects of family ethnic-racial socialization (FES) on Latinx children’s emotion competence in the wake of ERD. Latinx children (N = 100, 44% female) reported on their perceived experiences of ERD at age 7 and parents reported on FES at age 8. Emotion competence was assessed at age 8 using a laboratory assessment of the child’s emotion recognition and labeling skills to index emotion knowledge. Parents reported on children’s positive and maladaptive coping. Latinx children’s perceived experiences of ERD were related to lower levels of emotion knowledge and higher levels of maladaptive coping 1 year later. FES was also associated with higher levels of positive coping. Importantly, FES moderated the effect of ERD on children’s maladaptive coping, but not on children’s emotion knowledge or positive coping. The relation between ERD and maladaptive coping was significant at high FES levels, but not at low FES levels. These findings document the incidence and negative impact of young, Latinx children’s experiences of ERD on their emotion competence and highlight the influence of FES on Latinx children’s emotional development in contexts of ERD.

Japanese children’s emotion talk: relations to cultural values and their prosocial and aggressive behaviors Abstract Cultural values influence people’s views and behaviors and are reflected in their language. Interdependent cultures’ emphasis on group harmony and Japanese culture’s focus on social connection may shape how Japanese children interpret and describe emotions, which could contribute to how they interact with others. In this study, 63 Japanese 7-year-olds read a wordless picture book containing various emotional scenes to their parents. Children’s utterances were transcribed, and then emotion words were coded into categories. The parents rated their children’s prosocial and aggressive behaviors on a 24-item questionnaire. The results show that (1) the children talked more about negative emotions than positive emotions presented in the picture book, and (2) in positive emotional scenes, many children described the characters’ harmonious relationship status rather than the characters’ emotions, suggesting that their emotional perceptions may be shaped by interdependent and Japanese cultural values. Also, their emotion word usage predicted their prosocial and aggressive behaviors. Implications of the findings are discussed in relation to cultural context and parental socialization.

Respect and fear: Socialization of children’s fear among the Mapuche people of Chile Abstract Classic theories of emotion describe fear as evolutionary based, rooted in survival needs, and universally experienced. As such, fear has been thought to be less socially constructed than most emotions. It may be, however, that cultural beliefs have more influence than previously considered. To understand cultural beliefs in general, we interviewed 22 of the Mapuche people, one of the native people of southern Chile. Today, despite the War of “pacification” and subsequent Westernized schooling and religion, the Mapuche people maintain cultural knowledge and connection with the land. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 17 adults (5 elders, 12 mothers) and, using grounded theory practices, coded for themes. We found substantial evidence regarding the cultural causes of fear, perceptions of utility of fear, and the transformation of fear through socialization. We then crosschecked emergent themes, including the importance of respect as a foundational principle and goal, with five new participants. Our findings suggest a deep, abiding respect for the land, spirits of nature, and people; a devaluing of the emotion of fear; a gentle socialization process away from fear; and the transformative role of respect in attenuating fear. Given the novelty of these findings, confirmation of results via additional sampling or triangulating of methodologies is warranted.

Emotional reactions to self-inconsistency and self-conflict in Japan and the U.S. Abstract This research compared Japanese and American individuals’ reactions to experiencing inconsistency or conflict between two roles (i.e., identities, relationships, self-aspects). Past research has established that trait-level well-being and role inconsistency are negatively related in the U.S. but unrelated in Japan. We extended on past work by (1) experimentally manipulating an experience of inconsistency in both countries to establish causality, and (2) identifying if the previously-observed cultural differences in role inconsistency are distinct from cultural differences in role conflict. Participants from universities in Japan and the U.S. were randomly assigned to write about how their behavior differs in two roles or relationships (inconsistency condition), interference between two roles or relationships (conflict condition), or descriptions of two roles or relationships (control condition). Inconsistency decreased moral self-regard in the U.S. but not in Japan, whereas conflict decreased moral self-regard in both cultures. Americans had a more globally negative reaction to role conflict, but only inconsistency reduced their feelings of authenticity. In other words, the negative relationship between inconsistent roles and well-being observed in the U.S. appears both causal in nature and distinct from the effect of conflict within the self-concept. In addition, although inconsistency does not elicit negative reactions in Japan, role conflict does reduce positive feelings about the self.

Does cultural background predict the spatial distribution of attention? Abstract The current study aimed to explore cultural differences in the covert spatial distribution of attention. In particular, we tested whether those born in an East Asian country adopted a different distribution of attention compared to individuals born in a Western country. Previous work suggests that Western individuals tend to distribute attention narrowly and that East Asian individuals distribute attention broadly. However, these studies have used indirect methods to infer spatial attention scale. In particular, they have not measured changes in attention across space, nor have they controlled for differences eye movements patterns, which can differ across cultures. To address this, in the current study, we used an inhibition of return (IOR) paradigm which directly measured changes in attention across space, while controlling for eye movements. The use of the IOR task was a significant advancement, as it allowed for a highly sensitive measure of attention distribution compared to past research. Critically, using this new measure, we failed to observe a cultural difference in the distribution of covert spatial attention. Instead, individuals from East Asian countries and Western countries adopted a similar attention spread. However, we did observe a cultural difference in response speed, whereby Western participants were relatively faster to detect targets in the IOR task. This relationship persisted, even after controlling for individual variation in attention slope, indicating that factors other than attention distribution might account for cultural differences in response speed. Therefore, this study provides robust, converging evidence that group differences in covert spatial attentional distribution do not necessarily drive cultural variation in response speed.

The role of culture and language in moral decision-making Abstract The present study aimed to investigate the effect of cultural and language factors in moral decision-making in Hindi–English bilinguals in comparison with English monolinguals living in Australia. The study included 166 Hindi–English bilingual participants who completed the survey in either their first or second language, and a comparison group of 127 English monolingual participants. Participants were presented with six hypothetical moral dilemmas (original trolley/footbridge), Waterpark (impersonal/personal), Family Game Show (impersonal/personal) requiring them to either save the lives or winnings of five people by sacrificing the lives or winnings of one person or not and to make moral judgments about these decisions. A cultural effect was found in moral decision-making as individuals from a Western background were more likely to engage in utilitarian decision-making, and rate it as more appropriate, than those from an Indian background to the monetary-loss Waterpark and Family Game Show dilemmas. In addition, similarities were found in decision-making choices to the trolley and footbridge dilemmas in the two cultural groups. Overall, no significant foreign language effect was found in the Hindi–English bilinguals. The foreign language effect may not extend to more proficient second language learners or acculturated bilingual speakers.