Emerging Trends in The Social and Behavioral Sciences

Cultural Differences in Emotions

Item

Title

Cultural Differences in Emotions

Author

De Leersnyder, Jozefien

Boiger, Michael

Mesquita, Batja

Research Area

Cognition and Emotions

Topic

Emotions ‐ Types and Varieties

Abstract

Do emotions differ across cultures? This essay reviews the markedly different ways in which psychologists have approached this question in the past and discusses directions for the future. We first show how past research has often failed to find cultural differences in emotion by focusing on what emotions people from different cultures can have hypothetically, rather than investigating the emotions they actually have in daily life. Taking a sociocultural perspective, we demonstrate that cultural differences in people's actual emotional practices not only exist but are also meaningful and predictable: Accumulating evidence suggests that people experience more of those emotions that fit their culture's relationship goals and values. We review evidence for two mechanisms that may be behind these cultural differences in emotion—different situational ecologies and different tendencies to interpret (or appraise) emotional events. Finally, we discuss a road map for what lies ahead in the psychological study of cultural differences in emotion. We propose that future research will benefit from a dynamic approach to culture and emotion—an approach that explicitly captures how cultural differences in emotion emerge as a function of people's ongoing social interactions and relationships.

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Identifier

etrds0060

extracted text

Cultural Differences in Emotions
JOZEFIEN DE LEERSNYDER, MICHAEL BOIGER, and BATJA MESQUITA

Abstract
Do emotions differ across cultures? This essay reviews the markedly different ways
in which psychologists have approached this question in the past and discusses directions for the future. We first show how past research has often failed to find cultural differences in emotion by focusing on what emotions people from different
cultures can have hypothetically, rather than investigating the emotions they actually have in daily life. Taking a sociocultural perspective, we demonstrate that cultural differences in people’s actual emotional practices not only exist but are also
meaningful and predictable: Accumulating evidence suggests that people experience more of those emotions that fit their culture’s relationship goals and values. We
review evidence for two mechanisms that may be behind these cultural differences
in emotion—different situational ecologies and different tendencies to interpret (or
appraise) emotional events. Finally, we discuss a road map for what lies ahead in
the psychological study of cultural differences in emotion. We propose that future
research will benefit from a dynamic approach to culture and emotion—an approach
that explicitly captures how cultural differences in emotion emerge as a function of
people’s ongoing social interactions and relationships.

INTRODUCTION
Are there cultural differences in emotions? This question is both timely and
relevant as our societies become increasingly culturally diverse. For instance,
we are confronted with the need to interpret our intercultural business partner’s emotional expressions or to infer why our East Asian friends did not
retaliate but reacted with shame when we got angry with them.
We show how psychologists have approached this question of “cultural
differences in emotions” in markedly different ways. First, we discuss how
much of the research focused on the emotions people can have, thereby
mainly discovering cross-cultural similarities. Next, we review more recent
studies that focused on the emotions people actually have in their daily lives.
The latter research revealed more cross-cultural differences than previously
assumed, suggesting that culture shapes emotions. Finally, we suggest that
future research may benefit from taking a sociodynamic approach to culture
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

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and emotion, by explicitly investigating how cultural differences in emotion
emerge as a function of people’s ongoing social interactions.
Before outlining the different approaches to cultural differences in emotion, let us look at a real-life example, to which we return throughout our
review. Imagine that a colleague at work claims a prestigious task for herself, although this task had initially been assigned to both of you. Both Ay¸se,
a Turkish girl, and Ann, a Belgian girl, encountered such a situation. How
will each of the girls respond emotionally? Will they have similar or different
emotions, given their different cultural backgrounds?
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH: “BASIC EMOTION” AND “APPRAISAL”
PERSPECTIVES ON CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN EMOTIONS
BASIC EMOTION APPROACH
The earliest scientific attempts to address cultural differences in emotion
were undertaken by the psychologist Paul Ekman and his colleagues in
the 1970s. Ekman showed pictures of posed anger, fear, surprise, sadness,
disgust, or happiness faces to both Western and non-Western participants,
and asked them to identify these faces by selecting one emotion out of a list
of six (the six emotions posed). Across cultures, people correctly identified
emotional expressions above chance level (Ekman, Sorenson, & Friesen,
1969). Subsequent studies used a slightly different design: In one study
among members of an isolated group in New Guinea, participants picked
the picture of the face that best fitted a story (Ekman & Friesen, 1971). So, for
example, if people had just listened to a story similar to the one earlier in this
essay on Ann and Ay¸se and their colleague, they would be likely to select
a picture of an angry face. On the basis of the results from these different
studies, Ekman and colleagues concluded that emotions are universal.
In addition, Ekman and colleagues also drew conclusions about the nature
of emotions: If emotions were universal, then they should originate from
some innate, hard-wired systems in the brain/body, which they called affect
programs. Cross-cultural similarities in the recognition of faces were taken as
an indication that the emotions were similar in other respects as well (e.g.,
physiology, behavior, subjective experience). The idea was born that there
are six discrete “basic emotions” that are universal and hard-wired (Ekman,
1992; Levenson, 2011).
Even if Anne and Ay¸se may both experience anger when their colleague
claims the task for herself, they may not show their feelings in the same way.
It is possible that Anne expresses her anger, whereas Ay¸se keeps quiet and
just hopes the situation will be over soon. Basic emotions scholars explained

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3

differences in emotional expression by cultural “display rules”—that is, culturally specific rules that indicate whether and when it is appropriate or not
to express “true feelings” (Ekman & Friesen, 1969; Matsumoto, 1990). The
concept of “display rules” served to account for observed cultural differences
in emotions, despite the universality in the emotions themselves (Ay¸se and
Anne both experience anger even if they express it differently).
Many psychology textbooks still introduce their readers to the six basic
emotions. Unfortunately, these textbooks often fail to mention that the
finding of universality is dependent on the specific paradigm that has been
most commonly used in facial recognition studies (e.g., posed pictures,
forced choices from the list of six emotion words). When this paradigm
is abandoned, and the tasks are made more representative of emotion
identification in real-life, the “recognition” rates of emotions drop significantly (e.g., Gendron, Roberson, van der Vyver, & Barrett, 2014; Russell,
1994). For instance, recognition levels drop when spontaneous, rather than
posed emotional expressions are used, or when respondents freely label the
expression, rather than choosing one emotion out of a list of six.
It is also possible that the emotional expressions of Anne and Ay¸se differ
because they have different feelings. Ay¸se’s angry feelings may be accompanied by feelings of shame, whereas Anne’s anger may not be. If Ann vents
her anger and Ay¸se does not, this may be because Ay¸se shame stops her from
venting her anger.
APPRAISAL APPROACH
Appraisal theories that grew popular in the 1980s emphasize the central role
of people’s interpretation of the situation to their experienced emotions, and
thus readily account for the finding that people have different emotional
experiences in the same situation (Arnold, 1960; Frijda, 1986, Lazarus, 1991).
Thus, according to this view, Ann and Ay¸se would experience different emotions in response to their colleague’s behavior, because they ascribe different
meanings to the situation (i.e., they “appraise” the situation differently).
The appraisal approach led to a new way of investigating cultural similarities and differences in emotion. Researchers set out to test universality in the
link between emotions and the corresponding appraisals of a situation. For
example, respondents from different cultures would describe a situation in
which they felt a particular emotion—say, anger—and then rate that situation
on a number of appraisal dimensions, such as novelty, intrinsic pleasantness
or goal-conduciveness, responsibility, coping ability, and norm-consistency.
These studies revealed few cultural differences in the appraisals associated
with specific emotions, which was again taken as support for a universalist

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view on emotions (e.g., Roseman, Dhawan, Rettek, Naidu, & Thapa, 1995;
Scherer, 1997; Scherer & Wallbott, 1994).
Arguably, these studies were not designed to yield cultural variation in
appraisals (e.g., Mesquita, 2001a). In most of these studies, the appraisal
dimensions were selected by (Western) researchers, without considering the
possibility that other appraisal dimensions might be relevant in the cultures
of comparison. In fact, in one study participants from two collectivistic
cultures—Turkish and Surinamese—rated their emotions higher on the
appraisals of respect and social worth than participants from an individualistic Dutch group (Mesquita, 2001b). Similarly, an interview study on offense
situations with (individualistic) American and (collectivistic) Japanese
participants revealed that 56% of the Japanese compared to only 5% of the
Americans tried to understand or sympathize with the offender (Mesquita
et al., 2006). Thus, both studies revealed that, as compared to people from
individualist cultures, people from collectivist cultures are more likely to
take the perspective of the “other” when appraising an event, suggesting
that different cultural contexts may encourage the use of different appraisals.
Applying this perspective to our example of Ann and Ay¸se, we would interpret the differences in the girls’ pattern of emotions in terms of their take on
the event. While Ann may focus on the way her colleague blocks her goals
(experiencing primarily anger), Ay¸se may also take the perspective of her colleague and be equally concerned with how she herself may have contributed
to the situation and how that affects her social worth (experiencing shame in
addition to anger).
SUMMARY
In sum, traditional research on culture and emotion—whether it was
approached from basic emotion theory or appraisal theory—has focused on
universals in emotion. Much of this research set out to discover the potential
for emotion: the emotions people can identify, and the appraisals people will
make, given a particular emotion. In the next section, we review research
from a sociocultural approach to emotion. This research has moved the field
forward in two different ways: (i) it has shifted focus from the potential for
emotion to emotion practices—the everyday emotional experiences of people
in different cultures, and (ii) it has tried to understand cultural differences
in emotions from the respective cultural meanings and practices.
A SOCIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE ON CULTURE AND EMOTION
Cultural contexts differ with respect to their relationship goals (e.g., Markus
& Kitayama, 1991; Rothbaum, Pott, Azuma, Miyake, & Weisz, 2000). For

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example, in most individualistic cultural contexts, as in the United States
or Belgium, relationship partners remain autonomous and support each
other’s independence, among others by helping each other to maintain
self-esteem (Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999; Kim & Markus,
1999; Rothbaum et al., 2000). In these relationships, it is important that
partners assert themselves. Emotions such as pride and anger are valued,
because they reflect individual self-worth and personal autonomy, whereas
emotions such as shame and guilt may threaten a positive self-view, and
therefore be less functional in these relationships.
In contrast, the relationship goals in most collectivistic cultures such as
Japan or Turkey are to be interdependent and to adjust to each other’s expectations (Heine et al., 1999; Lebra, 1992). Being aware of one’s shortcomings is
important, because this will help a person adjust behavior, and accommodate
the relationship partner (Kitayama, Matsumoto, Markus, & Norasakkunkit,
1997). Emotions such as shame promote a person’s alignment with others
and will thus fit, whereas emotions such as anger might be seen to threaten
relational harmony, and therefore be less conducive to interdependent relationship goals.
According to a sociocultural perspective on emotions, the emotions that are
conducive to culturally valued relationships are experienced more frequently
and intensely than emotions that can disrupt the desired types of relationships. As such, the emotions we actually experience or express in our everyday lives differ from the emotions we can experience or express. To illustrate
this, we refer to an example from a well-known ethnography about the emotional lives of Utku Inuits (Briggs, 1970): This group of Inuits certainly knows
anger—it is a topic of much conversation—but hardly ever experiences it; in
fact, they avoid this emotion by all means, because it is thought to disrupt the
groups’ social harmony. Similarly, the emotions experienced by Anne and
Ay¸se may differ because of the culturally distinct relationship goals; their
emotional practices can probably be understood from their functionality to
achieve their culture’s common and desirable relationship goals.
EMOTIONS FIT CULTURAL CONTEXTS
There are cultural differences in the emotion norms and ideal emotions that can
be understood from each culture’s valued ways of relating. For instance,
with regard to explicit emotion norms, Eid and Diener (2001) found cultural differences in the desirability of several emotions, both positive and
negative: Whereas people from independent cultures (European American
and Australian) valued feelings of “pride” more positively than people from
interdependent cultures (China and Taiwan), the opposite was true for feelings of “guilt.” Similarly, there are systematic differences in people’s ideal

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

emotions—that is, the emotions people “ideally would like to feel” (Tsai,
Knutson, & Fung, 2006). In several studies, Tsai and her colleagues found
that European Americans ideally want to feel high-activation positive states,
such as excitement and elation, whereas East Asians prefer low-activation
positive states, such as peaceful and serene feelings (e.g., Tsai et al., 2006).
Follow-up research revealed that the culture’s most ideal emotions prepared
the people to act in culturally consistent ways: High-activation positive emotions prepare individuals for influencing others, which is valued in European
American contexts; low-activation positive emotions facilitate social adjustment, which is valued in East Asian contexts (Tsai, Miao, Seppala, Fung, &
Yeung, 2007).
Along the same lines, systematic differences have been found in how frequent or intense people actually (and not only ideally) experience emotions.
For instance, Kitayama and colleagues investigated the frequency and intensity of different types of emotions in European American and Japanese students using a retrospective self-report study and a diary study (Kitayama &
Markus, 2000; Kitayama, Mesquita, & Karasawa, 2006). Socially disengaging
emotions—such as pride, anger, or irritation—were found to be more frequent and intense in European American than in Japanese cultural contexts,
which is consistent with the European American emphasis on autonomy and
independence. In contrast, socially engaging emotions—such as feeling close,
ashamed, guilty or indebted—were found to be more frequent and intense
in Japanese than in European American cultural contexts, which is in line
with the East Asian emphasis on relatedness and interdependence. Thus, in
each cultural context, the emotions that are consistent with relationship ideals tend to be experienced frequently and intensely, while emotions that are
inconsistent tend to be experienced rather rarely.
Recent research from our own laboratory has revealed that people’s patterns of simultaneously experienced emotions tend to align with how most
other people feel in their culture—probably as a result of shared relationship
goals (De Leersnyder, Mesquita, & Kim, 2013). In a series of studies, we
compared individuals’ emotional patterns to average patterns of their own
versus another culture, and consistently found a better emotional fit with
the own culture (De Leersnyder, Kim, & Mesquita, 2014). In addition, immigrants were more similar to their host culture’s emotional patterns to the
extent that they had been exposed to relationships in that culture (De Leersnyder, Mesquita, & Kim, 2011, 2013). Thus, if Ay¸se immigrated to Belgium
and became exposed to Belgian culture, her pattern of emotional experiences
(of both anger and shame) would likely come to resemble the emotional
pattern of Anne (of experiencing primarily anger). This phenomenon of
emotional acculturation provides support for the idea that people’s daily
emotional lives are intertwined with their current cultural environments.

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HOW EMOTIONS MAY COME TO FIT CULTURAL CONTEXTS
But what are the mechanisms underlying these cultural differences in people’s emotional lives? Do people in different cultures experience different
types of situations? Or do they have different emotions in response to the
same situations because they have different appraisals and concerns in these
situations? In the following section, we review evidence for cultural differences at these two levels: different situations as well as different appraisals
or concerns. We show that at each level emotional practices are shaped in
accordance with the cultural goals (Mesquita, 2003; Mesquita & Leu, 2007).
Of course—and as touched upon earlier—there may also be additional differences in the ways in which people regulate their emotions; yet, we limit our
discussion to emotional experiences only (but see De Leersnyder, Boiger, &
Mesquita, 2013; Mesquita, De Leersnyder, & Albert, 2014).
DIFFERENT SITUATIONAL ECOLOGIES
One way in which people’s daily emotional lives may come to differ is
through systematic differences in the types of (emotional) situations they
encounter. For instance, the social lives of European Americans are replete
with practices that make individuals feel special and unique, which likely
affords happiness and good feelings about one’s (independent) self (Nisbett,
2003, Kitayama et al., 1997). In comparison, many Japanese cultural practices
promote self-reflection or self-criticism (e.g., hansei—a scheduled time to
think about areas of self-improvement in school; Lewis, 1995)—practices
that rather gives rise to feelings of shame.
Recently, we systematically investigated how the situations that people
commonly encounter in their culture may contribute to cultural differences in the experience of anger and shame (Boiger, Mesquita, Uchida, &
Barrett, 2013; Boiger, Güngör, Karasawa, & Mesquita, 2014). In these studies,
we found that situations that elicit culturally desirable emotions occur
frequently—and are thus culturally promoted—and that situations that
elicit culturally undesirable emotions occur rarely—and are thus culturally
avoided. In one study, American and Japanese students indicated for a
number of situations derived from both cultures, how frequently most
students they know would encounter these situations, and to what extent
they would feel either anger or shame in that situation (Boiger et al., 2013).
In line with our expectations, we found that situations were perceived as
more likely to occur by European American students, and less likely to
occur by Japanese students, to the extent they elicited anger. The opposite
picture emerged for shame: Japanese students rated the situations that
elicited stronger feelings of shame to be more likely to occur than American
students, who perceived them as rather uncommon.

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To return to our example of Ann and Ay¸se: It is conceivable that Ann’s
workplace organizes monthly awards for the “most productive employee of
the month,” increasing employees’ level of competition and thus giving Ann
more opportunities to feel disappointed, frustrated, or angry when she loses
a prestigious task to her colleague. In contrast, it is conceivable that Ay¸se’s
workplace centers around conformity toward the bosses and, therefore,
leaves less room for individual competition, making the event that occurred
rather rare. Thus, the cultural organization of daily life may play a role in
affording the emotions that people experience.
DIFFERENT APPRAISALS OR CONCERNS
Another way in which people may come to experience different emotions
is through the appraisals they commonly experience and associate with an
emotion. In a recent study, we attempted to combine the bottom-up approach
of previous, qualitative research (see preceding text; Mesquita et al., 2006)
with rigorous statistical testing of a large number of participants (Boiger, De
Leersnyder, et al., 2014). We first selected culturally relevant anger and shame
situations, appraisals, and action readiness items. Next, we asked students
from the United States, Japan, and Belgium to tell us for each situation how
they would appraise the situation and react if it happened to them. To put the
question of cultural variation in appraisals to the test, we used an inductive
statistical technique that identified patterns in participants’ responses. Much
like a very skilled research assistant who is entirely blind to the hypotheses, the CLASSI model (classification model for individual differences in
sequential processes; Ceulemans & Van Mechelen, 2008), identifies types of
participants who show a similar response pattern. We then compared these
inductively derived types against the cultural origin of the participants.
We found that, across cultures, the most common types were different. For
instance, for anger we found the different types of persons that occurred in
each culture, but to different extents. One type of person that did not express
anger and ruminated about the anger situation, was the most common variety in the Japanese group but not in the other two; another type of anger,
which was associated with blaming and aggressive tendencies, described the
largest proportion of Americans; yet another type of anger best characterized
the Belgian sample. In each culture, the type of person that was most commonly found appeared to fit best with the relationship goals: nonexpressed
anger in Japan helps to maintain relational harmony, and assertive anger in
the United States serves independence.
Differences in the most important cultural values may underlie some of the
differences in appraisals: People will appraise emotional situations according
to their meaning with regard to important values. Several studies from our

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own laboratory are suggestive in this regard. In two retrospective self-report
studies, we asked Belgian students to report recent emotional situations and
to indicate if and to what extent the situation had been relevant to a number of
different values. In a next step, we compared the reported relevance of each
value during emotional situations with the extent to which it was reported to
be a “guiding principle” in the lives of a representative sample of young Belgians in a large survey research (ESS round 5; Norwegian social Science Data
Services, 2012). We found that the hierarchy of values during emotional situations was mirrored in the hierarchy of values in daily life (De Leersnyder,
Kim, et al., 2014).
Moreover, within emotional situations, each type of values predicted different emotions. When self-focused values (personal success, ambition) were
most relevant in a situation, socially disengaging emotions (e.g., pride, anger)
were more intense than socially engaging emotions (e.g., closeness, shame);
when other-focused values (e.g., being loyal, helping others) were most relevant, the reverse pattern of emotions was yielded (De Leersnyder, Koval,
Kuppens, & Mesquita, 2014). Taken together, these findings suggest that emotional experiences tend to be about the most important cultural values: (i)
culturally salient values are more readily available as standard of appraisal
in emotional situations, and (ii) the different types of values—self-focused
versus other-focused—translate into different patterns of emotional experience (more disengaging versus engaging, respectively). Thus, returning to
Ann and Ay¸se, Ann would be particularly concerned with maintaining her
personal autonomy and realizing her potential during the conflict with her
colleague, and this might lead her to experience anger, whereas Ay¸se would
be more concerned with her loyalty toward her colleague, increasing the
likelihood of her experiencing shame. In both cases, the different values or
concerns are associated with the emotions that are most conducive to the
central values (and relationship goals) in the girls’ cultural contexts.
SUMMARY
A focus on emotional practices reveals variation in emotions that can be
understood from the culture’s prevalent relationship goals and values:
People’s actual emotional experiences thus seem to differ in systematic and
predictable ways which previous research failed to grasp.
ROAD MAP: A SOCIOCULTURAL DYNAMIC SYSTEMS APPROACH
TO CULTURE AND EMOTIONS
Research to date has failed to study the processes by which emotions come
to fit culturally valued relationship goals. This is a limitation that future

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research should address. Over the past few years, we have developed a
sociodynamic perspective that conceives of emotions as dynamic processes
that unfold over time, and as a function of the interactions and relationships
in which they take place (Boiger & Mesquita, 2012; Mesquita & Boiger,
2014; Mesquita, 2010). We propose that, in each culture, these interactions
and relationships are (imperfectly) aligned with the cultural relationship
goals, which set the constraints (meanings, habits, etc.) for any ongoing
interaction. Because emotions unfold during interactions and relationships
(see also Butler, 2011), the typical emotional processes will differ between
cultures. The complexity of emotional processes can be appreciated from
our example. Ann’s anger may trigger a different emotional response in the
colleague than Ayse’s expression of both anger and shame. In turn, whether
the colleague will get snappy or will react with empathy will be part of
the culturally different ways in which interactions unfold, and is likely to
impact the unfolding of emotions.
A sociodynamic approach focuses on the typical ways in which emotions
unfold during real-life interactions between people in ongoing relationships
(such as couples or mother–child relationships). Cultural differences in emotions would be described as differences in the trajectories of emotional interaction. The approach moves away from treating culture as the independent
variable and emotion as the dependent variable. Rather, emotion is seen as a
process emerging over many interactions.
Some past research has ventured in this direction. For example, Trommsdorff and Kornadt (2003) compared German and Japanese mother–child
interactions after a transgression by the child. Japanese mothers initially
remained friendly, and responded to disobedience with empathy; in contrast,
German mothers attributed ill intentions to their children, and insisted on
compliance. When children stuck to their disobedient behaviors, Japanese
mothers responded with disappointment, after which both the children
and mothers would compromise. Conversely, German mother–child dyads
escalated into more angry interactions. In both cases, these different emotional trajectories reflected the culturally valued relationship goals: Japanese
dyads prioritized relational harmony over individual desires, whereas the
partners of German dyads each asserted their individual needs. Furthermore, the emotional trajectories may have contributed to shape children’s
future interactions, thereby affording the reproduction of culturally valued
relationships.
This research clearly shows how a sociodynamic perspective both documents the role of culture in the shaping of daily emotional experiences, and
illuminates how emotional interactions themselves are constitutive of culture. Culture is not only at the heart of emotions; emotions may also be at the
heart of culture.

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Kitayama, S., & Markus, H. R. (2000). The pursuit of happiness and the realization of
sympathy: Cultural patterns of self, social relations, and well-being. In E. Diener
& E. Suh (Eds.), Subjective well-being across cultures (pp. 113–161). Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press.
Kitayama, S., Matsumoto, D., Markus, H. R., & Norasakkunkit, V. (1997). Individual
and collective processes in the construction of the self: Self-enhancement in the
US and self-criticism in Japan. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72(6),
1245–1267.
Kitayama, S., Mesquita, B., & Karasawa, M. (2006). The emotional basis of independent and interdependent selves: Socially disengaging and engaging emotions in
the US and Japan. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91(5), 890–903.
Lazarus, R. S. (1991). Emotion and adaptation. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Lebra, T. S. (1992). Self in Japanese culture. In N. E. Rosenberger (Ed.), Japanese sense
of self . New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Levenson, R. (2011). Basic emotion questions. Emotion Review, 3(4), 1–8.
Lewis, C. (1995). Educating hearts and minds: Reflections on Japanese preschool and elementary education. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and self: Implications for cognition,
emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98(2), 224–253.
Matsumoto, D. (1990). Cultural similarities and differences in display rules. Motivation and Emotion, 14(3), 195–214.
Mesquita, B. (2001a). Culture and emotions: Different approaches to the question. In
T. Mayne and G. Bonanno (Eds.), Emotion: Current issues and future directions (pp.
214–250). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Mesquita, B. (2001b). Emotions in individualist and collectivist contexts. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 80(1), 68–74.
Mesquita, B. (2003). Emotions as dynamic cultural phenomena. In R. Davidson, H.
Goldsmith & K. R. Scherer (Eds.), The handbook of the affective sciences (pp. 871–890).
New York, NY: Oxford Univeristy Press.
Mesquita, B. (2010). Emoting: A contextualized process. In B. Mesquita, L. F. Barrett
& E. Smith (Eds.), The mind in context (pp. 83–104). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Mesquita, B., & Boiger, M. (2014). Emotions in context: A sociodynamic model of
emotions. Emotion Review, 6, 298–302.
Mesquita, B., De Leersnyder, J., & Albert, D. (2014). The cultural regulation of emotions. In J. Gross (Ed.), The handbook of emotion regulation, (2nd edn, Chapter 18). New
York, NY: The Guilford Press.

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Mesquita, B., Karasawa, M., Haire, A., Izumi, S., Hayashi, A., Idzelis, M., … Kashiwag, K., (2006). What do I feel? The role of cultural models in emotion representations.
Unpublished manuscript.
Mesquita, B., & Leu, J. (2007). The cultural psychology of emotion. In S. Kitayama &
D. Cohen (Eds.), Handbook of cultural psychology. New York, NY: Guilford.
Nisbett, R. E. (2003). The geography of thought. How Asians and Westerners think differently … and why. New York, NY: Free Press.
Roseman, I., Dhawan, N., Rettek, S., Naidu, R. K., & Thapa, K. (1995). Cultural differences and cross-cultural similarities in appraisals and emotional responses. Journal
of Cross Cultural Psychology, 26(1), 23–48.
Rothbaum, F. M., Pott, M., Azuma, H., Miyake, K., & Weisz, J. R. (2000). The development of close relationships in Japan and the United States: Paths of symbiotic
harmony and generative tension. Child Development, 71(5), 1121–1142.
Russell, J. A. (1994). Is there universal recognition of emotion from facial expression?
A review of cross-cultural studies. Psychological Bulletin, 115, 102–141.
Scherer, K. R. (1997). The role of culture in emotion antecedent appraisal. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 902–922.
Scherer, K. R., & Wallbott, H. G. (1994). Evidence for universality and cultural variation of differential emotion response patterning. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 66(2), 310–328.
Trommsdorff, G., & Kornadt, H. (2003). Parent–child relations in cross-cultural perspective. In L. Kuczynski (Ed.), Handbook of dynamics in parent–child relations (pp.
271–305). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Tsai, J. L., Knutson, B., & Fung, H. H. (2006). Cultural variation in affect valuation.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 288–307.
Tsai, J. L., Miao, F., Seppala, E., Fung, H. H., & Yeung, D. (2007). Influence and adjustment goals: Mediators of cultural differences in ideal affect. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 92(6), 1102–1117.

FURTHER READING
Levy, R. I. (1978). Tahitian gentleness and redundant controls. In A. Montagu (Ed.),
Learning non-aggression: The experience of non-literate societies (pp. 222–235). New
York, NY: Oxford University Press.

JOZEFIEN DE LEERSNYDER SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Jozefien De Leersnyder is a Post-doctoral researcher at the Center for Social
and Cultural Psychology at the University of Leuven, where she obtained
both her Master’s and doctoral degree. Her dissertation focuses on emotional acculturation and its consequences for migrants’ well-being. In addition, she studies the role of cultural values and concerns in aligning people’s
emotional lives with the cultural context they engage in. By making use of

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retrospective self-reports, field studies, social experiments, experience sampling, and observational methods, she aims to capture the interplay between
culture and emotions in real-life settings. In the spring of 2012, she visited
the Culture and Emotion laboratory at Stanford University, and her research
got recently awarded at the inaugural conference of the Society for Affective
Sciences.
http://ppw.kuleuven.be/cscp/jozefien-deleersnyder
MICHAEL BOIGER SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Michael Boiger received his Master’s degree in Psychology from the University of Konstanz, Germany, in 2009 and his doctoral degree in Psychology
from the University of Leuven, Belgium, in 2013. He conducted his doctoral
research on the cultural shaping of anger and shame in the United States,
Japan, Belgium, and Turkey and is the recipient of the 2013/2014 Harry and
Pola Triandis Dissertation Award (IACCP). Since fall 2013, he is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Social and Cultural Psychology at the University of Leuven, where he currently investigates the role of interpersonal
regulatory processes for cultural differences in emotion. In his research, he
uses a range of qualitative and quantitative methods to study people’s emotions as they unfold in the context of interactions, relationships, and cultures.
http://ppw.kuleuven.be/cscp/michael-boiger
BATJA MESQUITA SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Batja Mesquita is professor and chair of the Center for Social and Cultural
Psychology at the University of Leuven (Belgium). Most of her research
focuses on the dynamic relationship between culture and emotions. She has
coedited two books: “The Mind in Context” (Guilford Press) and Changing
Emotions (Psychology Press). She is an Associate Editor for Psychological
Science and currently serves at the Editorial Boards of Emotion and the
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Mesquita is a fellow of the
Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences, the American Psychological Society, the
American Psychological Association, and the Society for Personality and
Social Psychology.
http://ppw.kuleuven.be/cscp/batja-mesquita

RELATED ESSAYS
Positive Emotion Disturbance (Psychology), June Gruber and John Purcell
Emotion and Decision Making (Psychology), Jeff R. Huntsinger and Cara Ray

Cultural Differences in Emotions

15

The Neurobiology and Physiology of Emotions: A Developmental Perspective (Psychology), Sarah S. Kahle and Paul D. Hastings
Cultural Neuroscience: Connecting Culture, Brain, and Genes (Psychology),
Shinobu Kitayama and Sarah Huff
Emotion and Intergroup Relations (Psychology), Diane M. Mackie et al.
Emerging Trends in Culture and Concepts (Psychology), Bethany Ojalehto and
Douglas Medin
Culture as Situated Cognition (Psychology), Daphna Oyserman
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Culture and Globalization (Sociology), Frederick F. Wherry
Emotion Regulation (Psychology), Paree Zarolia et al.



Cultural Differences in Emotions
JOZEFIEN DE LEERSNYDER, MICHAEL BOIGER, and BATJA MESQUITA

Abstract
Do emotions differ across cultures? This essay reviews the markedly different ways
in which psychologists have approached this question in the past and discusses directions for the future. We first show how past research has often failed to find cultural differences in emotion by focusing on what emotions people from different
cultures can have hypothetically, rather than investigating the emotions they actually have in daily life. Taking a sociocultural perspective, we demonstrate that cultural differences in people’s actual emotional practices not only exist but are also
meaningful and predictable: Accumulating evidence suggests that people experience more of those emotions that fit their culture’s relationship goals and values. We
review evidence for two mechanisms that may be behind these cultural differences
in emotion—different situational ecologies and different tendencies to interpret (or
appraise) emotional events. Finally, we discuss a road map for what lies ahead in
the psychological study of cultural differences in emotion. We propose that future
research will benefit from a dynamic approach to culture and emotion—an approach
that explicitly captures how cultural differences in emotion emerge as a function of
people’s ongoing social interactions and relationships.

INTRODUCTION
Are there cultural differences in emotions? This question is both timely and
relevant as our societies become increasingly culturally diverse. For instance,
we are confronted with the need to interpret our intercultural business partner’s emotional expressions or to infer why our East Asian friends did not
retaliate but reacted with shame when we got angry with them.
We show how psychologists have approached this question of “cultural
differences in emotions” in markedly different ways. First, we discuss how
much of the research focused on the emotions people can have, thereby
mainly discovering cross-cultural similarities. Next, we review more recent
studies that focused on the emotions people actually have in their daily lives.
The latter research revealed more cross-cultural differences than previously
assumed, suggesting that culture shapes emotions. Finally, we suggest that
future research may benefit from taking a sociodynamic approach to culture
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

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and emotion, by explicitly investigating how cultural differences in emotion
emerge as a function of people’s ongoing social interactions.
Before outlining the different approaches to cultural differences in emotion, let us look at a real-life example, to which we return throughout our
review. Imagine that a colleague at work claims a prestigious task for herself, although this task had initially been assigned to both of you. Both Ay¸se,
a Turkish girl, and Ann, a Belgian girl, encountered such a situation. How
will each of the girls respond emotionally? Will they have similar or different
emotions, given their different cultural backgrounds?
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH: “BASIC EMOTION” AND “APPRAISAL”
PERSPECTIVES ON CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN EMOTIONS
BASIC EMOTION APPROACH
The earliest scientific attempts to address cultural differences in emotion
were undertaken by the psychologist Paul Ekman and his colleagues in
the 1970s. Ekman showed pictures of posed anger, fear, surprise, sadness,
disgust, or happiness faces to both Western and non-Western participants,
and asked them to identify these faces by selecting one emotion out of a list
of six (the six emotions posed). Across cultures, people correctly identified
emotional expressions above chance level (Ekman, Sorenson, & Friesen,
1969). Subsequent studies used a slightly different design: In one study
among members of an isolated group in New Guinea, participants picked
the picture of the face that best fitted a story (Ekman & Friesen, 1971). So, for
example, if people had just listened to a story similar to the one earlier in this
essay on Ann and Ay¸se and their colleague, they would be likely to select
a picture of an angry face. On the basis of the results from these different
studies, Ekman and colleagues concluded that emotions are universal.
In addition, Ekman and colleagues also drew conclusions about the nature
of emotions: If emotions were universal, then they should originate from
some innate, hard-wired systems in the brain/body, which they called affect
programs. Cross-cultural similarities in the recognition of faces were taken as
an indication that the emotions were similar in other respects as well (e.g.,
physiology, behavior, subjective experience). The idea was born that there
are six discrete “basic emotions” that are universal and hard-wired (Ekman,
1992; Levenson, 2011).
Even if Anne and Ay¸se may both experience anger when their colleague
claims the task for herself, they may not show their feelings in the same way.
It is possible that Anne expresses her anger, whereas Ay¸se keeps quiet and
just hopes the situation will be over soon. Basic emotions scholars explained

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3

differences in emotional expression by cultural “display rules”—that is, culturally specific rules that indicate whether and when it is appropriate or not
to express “true feelings” (Ekman & Friesen, 1969; Matsumoto, 1990). The
concept of “display rules” served to account for observed cultural differences
in emotions, despite the universality in the emotions themselves (Ay¸se and
Anne both experience anger even if they express it differently).
Many psychology textbooks still introduce their readers to the six basic
emotions. Unfortunately, these textbooks often fail to mention that the
finding of universality is dependent on the specific paradigm that has been
most commonly used in facial recognition studies (e.g., posed pictures,
forced choices from the list of six emotion words). When this paradigm
is abandoned, and the tasks are made more representative of emotion
identification in real-life, the “recognition” rates of emotions drop significantly (e.g., Gendron, Roberson, van der Vyver, & Barrett, 2014; Russell,
1994). For instance, recognition levels drop when spontaneous, rather than
posed emotional expressions are used, or when respondents freely label the
expression, rather than choosing one emotion out of a list of six.
It is also possible that the emotional expressions of Anne and Ay¸se differ
because they have different feelings. Ay¸se’s angry feelings may be accompanied by feelings of shame, whereas Anne’s anger may not be. If Ann vents
her anger and Ay¸se does not, this may be because Ay¸se shame stops her from
venting her anger.
APPRAISAL APPROACH
Appraisal theories that grew popular in the 1980s emphasize the central role
of people’s interpretation of the situation to their experienced emotions, and
thus readily account for the finding that people have different emotional
experiences in the same situation (Arnold, 1960; Frijda, 1986, Lazarus, 1991).
Thus, according to this view, Ann and Ay¸se would experience different emotions in response to their colleague’s behavior, because they ascribe different
meanings to the situation (i.e., they “appraise” the situation differently).
The appraisal approach led to a new way of investigating cultural similarities and differences in emotion. Researchers set out to test universality in the
link between emotions and the corresponding appraisals of a situation. For
example, respondents from different cultures would describe a situation in
which they felt a particular emotion—say, anger—and then rate that situation
on a number of appraisal dimensions, such as novelty, intrinsic pleasantness
or goal-conduciveness, responsibility, coping ability, and norm-consistency.
These studies revealed few cultural differences in the appraisals associated
with specific emotions, which was again taken as support for a universalist

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view on emotions (e.g., Roseman, Dhawan, Rettek, Naidu, & Thapa, 1995;
Scherer, 1997; Scherer & Wallbott, 1994).
Arguably, these studies were not designed to yield cultural variation in
appraisals (e.g., Mesquita, 2001a). In most of these studies, the appraisal
dimensions were selected by (Western) researchers, without considering the
possibility that other appraisal dimensions might be relevant in the cultures
of comparison. In fact, in one study participants from two collectivistic
cultures—Turkish and Surinamese—rated their emotions higher on the
appraisals of respect and social worth than participants from an individualistic Dutch group (Mesquita, 2001b). Similarly, an interview study on offense
situations with (individualistic) American and (collectivistic) Japanese
participants revealed that 56% of the Japanese compared to only 5% of the
Americans tried to understand or sympathize with the offender (Mesquita
et al., 2006). Thus, both studies revealed that, as compared to people from
individualist cultures, people from collectivist cultures are more likely to
take the perspective of the “other” when appraising an event, suggesting
that different cultural contexts may encourage the use of different appraisals.
Applying this perspective to our example of Ann and Ay¸se, we would interpret the differences in the girls’ pattern of emotions in terms of their take on
the event. While Ann may focus on the way her colleague blocks her goals
(experiencing primarily anger), Ay¸se may also take the perspective of her colleague and be equally concerned with how she herself may have contributed
to the situation and how that affects her social worth (experiencing shame in
addition to anger).
SUMMARY
In sum, traditional research on culture and emotion—whether it was
approached from basic emotion theory or appraisal theory—has focused on
universals in emotion. Much of this research set out to discover the potential
for emotion: the emotions people can identify, and the appraisals people will
make, given a particular emotion. In the next section, we review research
from a sociocultural approach to emotion. This research has moved the field
forward in two different ways: (i) it has shifted focus from the potential for
emotion to emotion practices—the everyday emotional experiences of people
in different cultures, and (ii) it has tried to understand cultural differences
in emotions from the respective cultural meanings and practices.
A SOCIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE ON CULTURE AND EMOTION
Cultural contexts differ with respect to their relationship goals (e.g., Markus
& Kitayama, 1991; Rothbaum, Pott, Azuma, Miyake, & Weisz, 2000). For

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5

example, in most individualistic cultural contexts, as in the United States
or Belgium, relationship partners remain autonomous and support each
other’s independence, among others by helping each other to maintain
self-esteem (Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999; Kim & Markus,
1999; Rothbaum et al., 2000). In these relationships, it is important that
partners assert themselves. Emotions such as pride and anger are valued,
because they reflect individual self-worth and personal autonomy, whereas
emotions such as shame and guilt may threaten a positive self-view, and
therefore be less functional in these relationships.
In contrast, the relationship goals in most collectivistic cultures such as
Japan or Turkey are to be interdependent and to adjust to each other’s expectations (Heine et al., 1999; Lebra, 1992). Being aware of one’s shortcomings is
important, because this will help a person adjust behavior, and accommodate
the relationship partner (Kitayama, Matsumoto, Markus, & Norasakkunkit,
1997). Emotions such as shame promote a person’s alignment with others
and will thus fit, whereas emotions such as anger might be seen to threaten
relational harmony, and therefore be less conducive to interdependent relationship goals.
According to a sociocultural perspective on emotions, the emotions that are
conducive to culturally valued relationships are experienced more frequently
and intensely than emotions that can disrupt the desired types of relationships. As such, the emotions we actually experience or express in our everyday lives differ from the emotions we can experience or express. To illustrate
this, we refer to an example from a well-known ethnography about the emotional lives of Utku Inuits (Briggs, 1970): This group of Inuits certainly knows
anger—it is a topic of much conversation—but hardly ever experiences it; in
fact, they avoid this emotion by all means, because it is thought to disrupt the
groups’ social harmony. Similarly, the emotions experienced by Anne and
Ay¸se may differ because of the culturally distinct relationship goals; their
emotional practices can probably be understood from their functionality to
achieve their culture’s common and desirable relationship goals.
EMOTIONS FIT CULTURAL CONTEXTS
There are cultural differences in the emotion norms and ideal emotions that can
be understood from each culture’s valued ways of relating. For instance,
with regard to explicit emotion norms, Eid and Diener (2001) found cultural differences in the desirability of several emotions, both positive and
negative: Whereas people from independent cultures (European American
and Australian) valued feelings of “pride” more positively than people from
interdependent cultures (China and Taiwan), the opposite was true for feelings of “guilt.” Similarly, there are systematic differences in people’s ideal

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emotions—that is, the emotions people “ideally would like to feel” (Tsai,
Knutson, & Fung, 2006). In several studies, Tsai and her colleagues found
that European Americans ideally want to feel high-activation positive states,
such as excitement and elation, whereas East Asians prefer low-activation
positive states, such as peaceful and serene feelings (e.g., Tsai et al., 2006).
Follow-up research revealed that the culture’s most ideal emotions prepared
the people to act in culturally consistent ways: High-activation positive emotions prepare individuals for influencing others, which is valued in European
American contexts; low-activation positive emotions facilitate social adjustment, which is valued in East Asian contexts (Tsai, Miao, Seppala, Fung, &
Yeung, 2007).
Along the same lines, systematic differences have been found in how frequent or intense people actually (and not only ideally) experience emotions.
For instance, Kitayama and colleagues investigated the frequency and intensity of different types of emotions in European American and Japanese students using a retrospective self-report study and a diary study (Kitayama &
Markus, 2000; Kitayama, Mesquita, & Karasawa, 2006). Socially disengaging
emotions—such as pride, anger, or irritation—were found to be more frequent and intense in European American than in Japanese cultural contexts,
which is consistent with the European American emphasis on autonomy and
independence. In contrast, socially engaging emotions—such as feeling close,
ashamed, guilty or indebted—were found to be more frequent and intense
in Japanese than in European American cultural contexts, which is in line
with the East Asian emphasis on relatedness and interdependence. Thus, in
each cultural context, the emotions that are consistent with relationship ideals tend to be experienced frequently and intensely, while emotions that are
inconsistent tend to be experienced rather rarely.
Recent research from our own laboratory has revealed that people’s patterns of simultaneously experienced emotions tend to align with how most
other people feel in their culture—probably as a result of shared relationship
goals (De Leersnyder, Mesquita, & Kim, 2013). In a series of studies, we
compared individuals’ emotional patterns to average patterns of their own
versus another culture, and consistently found a better emotional fit with
the own culture (De Leersnyder, Kim, & Mesquita, 2014). In addition, immigrants were more similar to their host culture’s emotional patterns to the
extent that they had been exposed to relationships in that culture (De Leersnyder, Mesquita, & Kim, 2011, 2013). Thus, if Ay¸se immigrated to Belgium
and became exposed to Belgian culture, her pattern of emotional experiences
(of both anger and shame) would likely come to resemble the emotional
pattern of Anne (of experiencing primarily anger). This phenomenon of
emotional acculturation provides support for the idea that people’s daily
emotional lives are intertwined with their current cultural environments.

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HOW EMOTIONS MAY COME TO FIT CULTURAL CONTEXTS
But what are the mechanisms underlying these cultural differences in people’s emotional lives? Do people in different cultures experience different
types of situations? Or do they have different emotions in response to the
same situations because they have different appraisals and concerns in these
situations? In the following section, we review evidence for cultural differences at these two levels: different situations as well as different appraisals
or concerns. We show that at each level emotional practices are shaped in
accordance with the cultural goals (Mesquita, 2003; Mesquita & Leu, 2007).
Of course—and as touched upon earlier—there may also be additional differences in the ways in which people regulate their emotions; yet, we limit our
discussion to emotional experiences only (but see De Leersnyder, Boiger, &
Mesquita, 2013; Mesquita, De Leersnyder, & Albert, 2014).
DIFFERENT SITUATIONAL ECOLOGIES
One way in which people’s daily emotional lives may come to differ is
through systematic differences in the types of (emotional) situations they
encounter. For instance, the social lives of European Americans are replete
with practices that make individuals feel special and unique, which likely
affords happiness and good feelings about one’s (independent) self (Nisbett,
2003, Kitayama et al., 1997). In comparison, many Japanese cultural practices
promote self-reflection or self-criticism (e.g., hansei—a scheduled time to
think about areas of self-improvement in school; Lewis, 1995)—practices
that rather gives rise to feelings of shame.
Recently, we systematically investigated how the situations that people
commonly encounter in their culture may contribute to cultural differences in the experience of anger and shame (Boiger, Mesquita, Uchida, &
Barrett, 2013; Boiger, Güngör, Karasawa, & Mesquita, 2014). In these studies,
we found that situations that elicit culturally desirable emotions occur
frequently—and are thus culturally promoted—and that situations that
elicit culturally undesirable emotions occur rarely—and are thus culturally
avoided. In one study, American and Japanese students indicated for a
number of situations derived from both cultures, how frequently most
students they know would encounter these situations, and to what extent
they would feel either anger or shame in that situation (Boiger et al., 2013).
In line with our expectations, we found that situations were perceived as
more likely to occur by European American students, and less likely to
occur by Japanese students, to the extent they elicited anger. The opposite
picture emerged for shame: Japanese students rated the situations that
elicited stronger feelings of shame to be more likely to occur than American
students, who perceived them as rather uncommon.

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To return to our example of Ann and Ay¸se: It is conceivable that Ann’s
workplace organizes monthly awards for the “most productive employee of
the month,” increasing employees’ level of competition and thus giving Ann
more opportunities to feel disappointed, frustrated, or angry when she loses
a prestigious task to her colleague. In contrast, it is conceivable that Ay¸se’s
workplace centers around conformity toward the bosses and, therefore,
leaves less room for individual competition, making the event that occurred
rather rare. Thus, the cultural organization of daily life may play a role in
affording the emotions that people experience.
DIFFERENT APPRAISALS OR CONCERNS
Another way in which people may come to experience different emotions
is through the appraisals they commonly experience and associate with an
emotion. In a recent study, we attempted to combine the bottom-up approach
of previous, qualitative research (see preceding text; Mesquita et al., 2006)
with rigorous statistical testing of a large number of participants (Boiger, De
Leersnyder, et al., 2014). We first selected culturally relevant anger and shame
situations, appraisals, and action readiness items. Next, we asked students
from the United States, Japan, and Belgium to tell us for each situation how
they would appraise the situation and react if it happened to them. To put the
question of cultural variation in appraisals to the test, we used an inductive
statistical technique that identified patterns in participants’ responses. Much
like a very skilled research assistant who is entirely blind to the hypotheses, the CLASSI model (classification model for individual differences in
sequential processes; Ceulemans & Van Mechelen, 2008), identifies types of
participants who show a similar response pattern. We then compared these
inductively derived types against the cultural origin of the participants.
We found that, across cultures, the most common types were different. For
instance, for anger we found the different types of persons that occurred in
each culture, but to different extents. One type of person that did not express
anger and ruminated about the anger situation, was the most common variety in the Japanese group but not in the other two; another type of anger,
which was associated with blaming and aggressive tendencies, described the
largest proportion of Americans; yet another type of anger best characterized
the Belgian sample. In each culture, the type of person that was most commonly found appeared to fit best with the relationship goals: nonexpressed
anger in Japan helps to maintain relational harmony, and assertive anger in
the United States serves independence.
Differences in the most important cultural values may underlie some of the
differences in appraisals: People will appraise emotional situations according
to their meaning with regard to important values. Several studies from our

Cultural Differences in Emotions

9

own laboratory are suggestive in this regard. In two retrospective self-report
studies, we asked Belgian students to report recent emotional situations and
to indicate if and to what extent the situation had been relevant to a number of
different values. In a next step, we compared the reported relevance of each
value during emotional situations with the extent to which it was reported to
be a “guiding principle” in the lives of a representative sample of young Belgians in a large survey research (ESS round 5; Norwegian social Science Data
Services, 2012). We found that the hierarchy of values during emotional situations was mirrored in the hierarchy of values in daily life (De Leersnyder,
Kim, et al., 2014).
Moreover, within emotional situations, each type of values predicted different emotions. When self-focused values (personal success, ambition) were
most relevant in a situation, socially disengaging emotions (e.g., pride, anger)
were more intense than socially engaging emotions (e.g., closeness, shame);
when other-focused values (e.g., being loyal, helping others) were most relevant, the reverse pattern of emotions was yielded (De Leersnyder, Koval,
Kuppens, & Mesquita, 2014). Taken together, these findings suggest that emotional experiences tend to be about the most important cultural values: (i)
culturally salient values are more readily available as standard of appraisal
in emotional situations, and (ii) the different types of values—self-focused
versus other-focused—translate into different patterns of emotional experience (more disengaging versus engaging, respectively). Thus, returning to
Ann and Ay¸se, Ann would be particularly concerned with maintaining her
personal autonomy and realizing her potential during the conflict with her
colleague, and this might lead her to experience anger, whereas Ay¸se would
be more concerned with her loyalty toward her colleague, increasing the
likelihood of her experiencing shame. In both cases, the different values or
concerns are associated with the emotions that are most conducive to the
central values (and relationship goals) in the girls’ cultural contexts.
SUMMARY
A focus on emotional practices reveals variation in emotions that can be
understood from the culture’s prevalent relationship goals and values:
People’s actual emotional experiences thus seem to differ in systematic and
predictable ways which previous research failed to grasp.
ROAD MAP: A SOCIOCULTURAL DYNAMIC SYSTEMS APPROACH
TO CULTURE AND EMOTIONS
Research to date has failed to study the processes by which emotions come
to fit culturally valued relationship goals. This is a limitation that future

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research should address. Over the past few years, we have developed a
sociodynamic perspective that conceives of emotions as dynamic processes
that unfold over time, and as a function of the interactions and relationships
in which they take place (Boiger & Mesquita, 2012; Mesquita & Boiger,
2014; Mesquita, 2010). We propose that, in each culture, these interactions
and relationships are (imperfectly) aligned with the cultural relationship
goals, which set the constraints (meanings, habits, etc.) for any ongoing
interaction. Because emotions unfold during interactions and relationships
(see also Butler, 2011), the typical emotional processes will differ between
cultures. The complexity of emotional processes can be appreciated from
our example. Ann’s anger may trigger a different emotional response in the
colleague than Ayse’s expression of both anger and shame. In turn, whether
the colleague will get snappy or will react with empathy will be part of
the culturally different ways in which interactions unfold, and is likely to
impact the unfolding of emotions.
A sociodynamic approach focuses on the typical ways in which emotions
unfold during real-life interactions between people in ongoing relationships
(such as couples or mother–child relationships). Cultural differences in emotions would be described as differences in the trajectories of emotional interaction. The approach moves away from treating culture as the independent
variable and emotion as the dependent variable. Rather, emotion is seen as a
process emerging over many interactions.
Some past research has ventured in this direction. For example, Trommsdorff and Kornadt (2003) compared German and Japanese mother–child
interactions after a transgression by the child. Japanese mothers initially
remained friendly, and responded to disobedience with empathy; in contrast,
German mothers attributed ill intentions to their children, and insisted on
compliance. When children stuck to their disobedient behaviors, Japanese
mothers responded with disappointment, after which both the children
and mothers would compromise. Conversely, German mother–child dyads
escalated into more angry interactions. In both cases, these different emotional trajectories reflected the culturally valued relationship goals: Japanese
dyads prioritized relational harmony over individual desires, whereas the
partners of German dyads each asserted their individual needs. Furthermore, the emotional trajectories may have contributed to shape children’s
future interactions, thereby affording the reproduction of culturally valued
relationships.
This research clearly shows how a sociodynamic perspective both documents the role of culture in the shaping of daily emotional experiences, and
illuminates how emotional interactions themselves are constitutive of culture. Culture is not only at the heart of emotions; emotions may also be at the
heart of culture.

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11

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Mesquita, B., Karasawa, M., Haire, A., Izumi, S., Hayashi, A., Idzelis, M., … Kashiwag, K., (2006). What do I feel? The role of cultural models in emotion representations.
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D. Cohen (Eds.), Handbook of cultural psychology. New York, NY: Guilford.
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271–305). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Tsai, J. L., Knutson, B., & Fung, H. H. (2006). Cultural variation in affect valuation.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 288–307.
Tsai, J. L., Miao, F., Seppala, E., Fung, H. H., & Yeung, D. (2007). Influence and adjustment goals: Mediators of cultural differences in ideal affect. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 92(6), 1102–1117.

FURTHER READING
Levy, R. I. (1978). Tahitian gentleness and redundant controls. In A. Montagu (Ed.),
Learning non-aggression: The experience of non-literate societies (pp. 222–235). New
York, NY: Oxford University Press.

JOZEFIEN DE LEERSNYDER SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Jozefien De Leersnyder is a Post-doctoral researcher at the Center for Social
and Cultural Psychology at the University of Leuven, where she obtained
both her Master’s and doctoral degree. Her dissertation focuses on emotional acculturation and its consequences for migrants’ well-being. In addition, she studies the role of cultural values and concerns in aligning people’s
emotional lives with the cultural context they engage in. By making use of

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retrospective self-reports, field studies, social experiments, experience sampling, and observational methods, she aims to capture the interplay between
culture and emotions in real-life settings. In the spring of 2012, she visited
the Culture and Emotion laboratory at Stanford University, and her research
got recently awarded at the inaugural conference of the Society for Affective
Sciences.
http://ppw.kuleuven.be/cscp/jozefien-deleersnyder
MICHAEL BOIGER SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Michael Boiger received his Master’s degree in Psychology from the University of Konstanz, Germany, in 2009 and his doctoral degree in Psychology
from the University of Leuven, Belgium, in 2013. He conducted his doctoral
research on the cultural shaping of anger and shame in the United States,
Japan, Belgium, and Turkey and is the recipient of the 2013/2014 Harry and
Pola Triandis Dissertation Award (IACCP). Since fall 2013, he is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Social and Cultural Psychology at the University of Leuven, where he currently investigates the role of interpersonal
regulatory processes for cultural differences in emotion. In his research, he
uses a range of qualitative and quantitative methods to study people’s emotions as they unfold in the context of interactions, relationships, and cultures.
http://ppw.kuleuven.be/cscp/michael-boiger
BATJA MESQUITA SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Batja Mesquita is professor and chair of the Center for Social and Cultural
Psychology at the University of Leuven (Belgium). Most of her research
focuses on the dynamic relationship between culture and emotions. She has
coedited two books: “The Mind in Context” (Guilford Press) and Changing
Emotions (Psychology Press). She is an Associate Editor for Psychological
Science and currently serves at the Editorial Boards of Emotion and the
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Mesquita is a fellow of the
Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences, the American Psychological Society, the
American Psychological Association, and the Society for Personality and
Social Psychology.
http://ppw.kuleuven.be/cscp/batja-mesquita

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Cultural Differences in Emotions

15

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Cultural Differences in Emotions
JOZEFIEN DE LEERSNYDER, MICHAEL BOIGER, and BATJA MESQUITA

Abstract
Do emotions differ across cultures? This essay reviews the markedly different ways
in which psychologists have approached this question in the past and discusses directions for the future. We first show how past research has often failed to find cultural differences in emotion by focusing on what emotions people from different
cultures can have hypothetically, rather than investigating the emotions they actually have in daily life. Taking a sociocultural perspective, we demonstrate that cultural differences in people’s actual emotional practices not only exist but are also
meaningful and predictable: Accumulating evidence suggests that people experience more of those emotions that fit their culture’s relationship goals and values. We
review evidence for two mechanisms that may be behind these cultural differences
in emotion—different situational ecologies and different tendencies to interpret (or
appraise) emotional events. Finally, we discuss a road map for what lies ahead in
the psychological study of cultural differences in emotion. We propose that future
research will benefit from a dynamic approach to culture and emotion—an approach
that explicitly captures how cultural differences in emotion emerge as a function of
people’s ongoing social interactions and relationships.

INTRODUCTION
Are there cultural differences in emotions? This question is both timely and
relevant as our societies become increasingly culturally diverse. For instance,
we are confronted with the need to interpret our intercultural business partner’s emotional expressions or to infer why our East Asian friends did not
retaliate but reacted with shame when we got angry with them.
We show how psychologists have approached this question of “cultural
differences in emotions” in markedly different ways. First, we discuss how
much of the research focused on the emotions people can have, thereby
mainly discovering cross-cultural similarities. Next, we review more recent
studies that focused on the emotions people actually have in their daily lives.
The latter research revealed more cross-cultural differences than previously
assumed, suggesting that culture shapes emotions. Finally, we suggest that
future research may benefit from taking a sociodynamic approach to culture
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

1

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and emotion, by explicitly investigating how cultural differences in emotion
emerge as a function of people’s ongoing social interactions.
Before outlining the different approaches to cultural differences in emotion, let us look at a real-life example, to which we return throughout our
review. Imagine that a colleague at work claims a prestigious task for herself, although this task had initially been assigned to both of you. Both Ayşe,
a Turkish girl, and Ann, a Belgian girl, encountered such a situation. How
will each of the girls respond emotionally? Will they have similar or different
emotions, given their different cultural backgrounds?
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH: “BASIC EMOTION” AND “APPRAISAL”
PERSPECTIVES ON CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN EMOTIONS
BASIC EMOTION APPROACH
The earliest scientific attempts to address cultural differences in emotion
were undertaken by the psychologist Paul Ekman and his colleagues in
the 1970s. Ekman showed pictures of posed anger, fear, surprise, sadness,
disgust, or happiness faces to both Western and non-Western participants,
and asked them to identify these faces by selecting one emotion out of a list
of six (the six emotions posed). Across cultures, people correctly identified
emotional expressions above chance level (Ekman, Sorenson, & Friesen,
1969). Subsequent studies used a slightly different design: In one study
among members of an isolated group in New Guinea, participants picked
the picture of the face that best fitted a story (Ekman & Friesen, 1971). So, for
example, if people had just listened to a story similar to the one earlier in this
essay on Ann and Ayşe and their colleague, they would be likely to select
a picture of an angry face. On the basis of the results from these different
studies, Ekman and colleagues concluded that emotions are universal.
In addition, Ekman and colleagues also drew conclusions about the nature
of emotions: If emotions were universal, then they should originate from
some innate, hard-wired systems in the brain/body, which they called affect
programs. Cross-cultural similarities in the recognition of faces were taken as
an indication that the emotions were similar in other respects as well (e.g.,
physiology, behavior, subjective experience). The idea was born that there
are six discrete “basic emotions” that are universal and hard-wired (Ekman,
1992; Levenson, 2011).
Even if Anne and Ayşe may both experience anger when their colleague
claims the task for herself, they may not show their feelings in the same way.
It is possible that Anne expresses her anger, whereas Ayşe keeps quiet and
just hopes the situation will be over soon. Basic emotions scholars explained

Cultural Differences in Emotions

3

differences in emotional expression by cultural “display rules”—that is, culturally specific rules that indicate whether and when it is appropriate or not
to express “true feelings” (Ekman & Friesen, 1969; Matsumoto, 1990). The
concept of “display rules” served to account for observed cultural differences
in emotions, despite the universality in the emotions themselves (Ayşe and
Anne both experience anger even if they express it differently).
Many psychology textbooks still introduce their readers to the six basic
emotions. Unfortunately, these textbooks often fail to mention that the
finding of universality is dependent on the specific paradigm that has been
most commonly used in facial recognition studies (e.g., posed pictures,
forced choices from the list of six emotion words). When this paradigm
is abandoned, and the tasks are made more representative of emotion
identification in real-life, the “recognition” rates of emotions drop significantly (e.g., Gendron, Roberson, van der Vyver, & Barrett, 2014; Russell,
1994). For instance, recognition levels drop when spontaneous, rather than
posed emotional expressions are used, or when respondents freely label the
expression, rather than choosing one emotion out of a list of six.
It is also possible that the emotional expressions of Anne and Ayşe differ
because they have different feelings. Ayşe’s angry feelings may be accompanied by feelings of shame, whereas Anne’s anger may not be. If Ann vents
her anger and Ayşe does not, this may be because Ayşe shame stops her from
venting her anger.
APPRAISAL APPROACH
Appraisal theories that grew popular in the 1980s emphasize the central role
of people’s interpretation of the situation to their experienced emotions, and
thus readily account for the finding that people have different emotional
experiences in the same situation (Arnold, 1960; Frijda, 1986, Lazarus, 1991).
Thus, according to this view, Ann and Ayşe would experience different emotions in response to their colleague’s behavior, because they ascribe different
meanings to the situation (i.e., they “appraise” the situation differently).
The appraisal approach led to a new way of investigating cultural similarities and differences in emotion. Researchers set out to test universality in the
link between emotions and the corresponding appraisals of a situation. For
example, respondents from different cultures would describe a situation in
which they felt a particular emotion—say, anger—and then rate that situation
on a number of appraisal dimensions, such as novelty, intrinsic pleasantness
or goal-conduciveness, responsibility, coping ability, and norm-consistency.
These studies revealed few cultural differences in the appraisals associated
with specific emotions, which was again taken as support for a universalist

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view on emotions (e.g., Roseman, Dhawan, Rettek, Naidu, & Thapa, 1995;
Scherer, 1997; Scherer & Wallbott, 1994).
Arguably, these studies were not designed to yield cultural variation in
appraisals (e.g., Mesquita, 2001a). In most of these studies, the appraisal
dimensions were selected by (Western) researchers, without considering the
possibility that other appraisal dimensions might be relevant in the cultures
of comparison. In fact, in one study participants from two collectivistic
cultures—Turkish and Surinamese—rated their emotions higher on the
appraisals of respect and social worth than participants from an individualistic Dutch group (Mesquita, 2001b). Similarly, an interview study on offense
situations with (individualistic) American and (collectivistic) Japanese
participants revealed that 56% of the Japanese compared to only 5% of the
Americans tried to understand or sympathize with the offender (Mesquita
et al., 2006). Thus, both studies revealed that, as compared to people from
individualist cultures, people from collectivist cultures are more likely to
take the perspective of the “other” when appraising an event, suggesting
that different cultural contexts may encourage the use of different appraisals.
Applying this perspective to our example of Ann and Ayşe, we would interpret the differences in the girls’ pattern of emotions in terms of their take on
the event. While Ann may focus on the way her colleague blocks her goals
(experiencing primarily anger), Ayşe may also take the perspective of her colleague and be equally concerned with how she herself may have contributed
to the situation and how that affects her social worth (experiencing shame in
addition to anger).
SUMMARY
In sum, traditional research on culture and emotion—whether it was
approached from basic emotion theory or appraisal theory—has focused on
universals in emotion. Much of this research set out to discover the potential
for emotion: the emotions people can identify, and the appraisals people will
make, given a particular emotion. In the next section, we review research
from a sociocultural approach to emotion. This research has moved the field
forward in two different ways: (i) it has shifted focus from the potential for
emotion to emotion practices—the everyday emotional experiences of people
in different cultures, and (ii) it has tried to understand cultural differences
in emotions from the respective cultural meanings and practices.
A SOCIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE ON CULTURE AND EMOTION
Cultural contexts differ with respect to their relationship goals (e.g., Markus
& Kitayama, 1991; Rothbaum, Pott, Azuma, Miyake, & Weisz, 2000). For

Cultural Differences in Emotions

5

example, in most individualistic cultural contexts, as in the United States
or Belgium, relationship partners remain autonomous and support each
other’s independence, among others by helping each other to maintain
self-esteem (Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999; Kim & Markus,
1999; Rothbaum et al., 2000). In these relationships, it is important that
partners assert themselves. Emotions such as pride and anger are valued,
because they reflect individual self-worth and personal autonomy, whereas
emotions such as shame and guilt may threaten a positive self-view, and
therefore be less functional in these relationships.
In contrast, the relationship goals in most collectivistic cultures such as
Japan or Turkey are to be interdependent and to adjust to each other’s expectations (Heine et al., 1999; Lebra, 1992). Being aware of one’s shortcomings is
important, because this will help a person adjust behavior, and accommodate
the relationship partner (Kitayama, Matsumoto, Markus, & Norasakkunkit,
1997). Emotions such as shame promote a person’s alignment with others
and will thus fit, whereas emotions such as anger might be seen to threaten
relational harmony, and therefore be less conducive to interdependent relationship goals.
According to a sociocultural perspective on emotions, the emotions that are
conducive to culturally valued relationships are experienced more frequently
and intensely than emotions that can disrupt the desired types of relationships. As such, the emotions we actually experience or express in our everyday lives differ from the emotions we can experience or express. To illustrate
this, we refer to an example from a well-known ethnography about the emotional lives of Utku Inuits (Briggs, 1970): This group of Inuits certainly knows
anger—it is a topic of much conversation—but hardly ever experiences it; in
fact, they avoid this emotion by all means, because it is thought to disrupt the
groups’ social harmony. Similarly, the emotions experienced by Anne and
Ayşe may differ because of the culturally distinct relationship goals; their
emotional practices can probably be understood from their functionality to
achieve their culture’s common and desirable relationship goals.
EMOTIONS FIT CULTURAL CONTEXTS
There are cultural differences in the emotion norms and ideal emotions that can
be understood from each culture’s valued ways of relating. For instance,
with regard to explicit emotion norms, Eid and Diener (2001) found cultural differences in the desirability of several emotions, both positive and
negative: Whereas people from independent cultures (European American
and Australian) valued feelings of “pride” more positively than people from
interdependent cultures (China and Taiwan), the opposite was true for feelings of “guilt.” Similarly, there are systematic differences in people’s ideal

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

emotions—that is, the emotions people “ideally would like to feel” (Tsai,
Knutson, & Fung, 2006). In several studies, Tsai and her colleagues found
that European Americans ideally want to feel high-activation positive states,
such as excitement and elation, whereas East Asians prefer low-activation
positive states, such as peaceful and serene feelings (e.g., Tsai et al., 2006).
Follow-up research revealed that the culture’s most ideal emotions prepared
the people to act in culturally consistent ways: High-activation positive emotions prepare individuals for influencing others, which is valued in European
American contexts; low-activation positive emotions facilitate social adjustment, which is valued in East Asian contexts (Tsai, Miao, Seppala, Fung, &
Yeung, 2007).
Along the same lines, systematic differences have been found in how frequent or intense people actually (and not only ideally) experience emotions.
For instance, Kitayama and colleagues investigated the frequency and intensity of different types of emotions in European American and Japanese students using a retrospective self-report study and a diary study (Kitayama &
Markus, 2000; Kitayama, Mesquita, & Karasawa, 2006). Socially disengaging
emotions—such as pride, anger, or irritation—were found to be more frequent and intense in European American than in Japanese cultural contexts,
which is consistent with the European American emphasis on autonomy and
independence. In contrast, socially engaging emotions—such as feeling close,
ashamed, guilty or indebted—were found to be more frequent and intense
in Japanese than in European American cultural contexts, which is in line
with the East Asian emphasis on relatedness and interdependence. Thus, in
each cultural context, the emotions that are consistent with relationship ideals tend to be experienced frequently and intensely, while emotions that are
inconsistent tend to be experienced rather rarely.
Recent research from our own laboratory has revealed that people’s patterns of simultaneously experienced emotions tend to align with how most
other people feel in their culture—probably as a result of shared relationship
goals (De Leersnyder, Mesquita, & Kim, 2013). In a series of studies, we
compared individuals’ emotional patterns to average patterns of their own
versus another culture, and consistently found a better emotional fit with
the own culture (De Leersnyder, Kim, & Mesquita, 2014). In addition, immigrants were more similar to their host culture’s emotional patterns to the
extent that they had been exposed to relationships in that culture (De Leersnyder, Mesquita, & Kim, 2011, 2013). Thus, if Ayşe immigrated to Belgium
and became exposed to Belgian culture, her pattern of emotional experiences
(of both anger and shame) would likely come to resemble the emotional
pattern of Anne (of experiencing primarily anger). This phenomenon of
emotional acculturation provides support for the idea that people’s daily
emotional lives are intertwined with their current cultural environments.

Cultural Differences in Emotions

7

HOW EMOTIONS MAY COME TO FIT CULTURAL CONTEXTS
But what are the mechanisms underlying these cultural differences in people’s emotional lives? Do people in different cultures experience different
types of situations? Or do they have different emotions in response to the
same situations because they have different appraisals and concerns in these
situations? In the following section, we review evidence for cultural differences at these two levels: different situations as well as different appraisals
or concerns. We show that at each level emotional practices are shaped in
accordance with the cultural goals (Mesquita, 2003; Mesquita & Leu, 2007).
Of course—and as touched upon earlier—there may also be additional differences in the ways in which people regulate their emotions; yet, we limit our
discussion to emotional experiences only (but see De Leersnyder, Boiger, &
Mesquita, 2013; Mesquita, De Leersnyder, & Albert, 2014).
DIFFERENT SITUATIONAL ECOLOGIES
One way in which people’s daily emotional lives may come to differ is
through systematic differences in the types of (emotional) situations they
encounter. For instance, the social lives of European Americans are replete
with practices that make individuals feel special and unique, which likely
affords happiness and good feelings about one’s (independent) self (Nisbett,
2003, Kitayama et al., 1997). In comparison, many Japanese cultural practices
promote self-reflection or self-criticism (e.g., hansei—a scheduled time to
think about areas of self-improvement in school; Lewis, 1995)—practices
that rather gives rise to feelings of shame.
Recently, we systematically investigated how the situations that people
commonly encounter in their culture may contribute to cultural differences in the experience of anger and shame (Boiger, Mesquita, Uchida, &
Barrett, 2013; Boiger, Güngör, Karasawa, & Mesquita, 2014). In these studies,
we found that situations that elicit culturally desirable emotions occur
frequently—and are thus culturally promoted—and that situations that
elicit culturally undesirable emotions occur rarely—and are thus culturally
avoided. In one study, American and Japanese students indicated for a
number of situations derived from both cultures, how frequently most
students they know would encounter these situations, and to what extent
they would feel either anger or shame in that situation (Boiger et al., 2013).
In line with our expectations, we found that situations were perceived as
more likely to occur by European American students, and less likely to
occur by Japanese students, to the extent they elicited anger. The opposite
picture emerged for shame: Japanese students rated the situations that
elicited stronger feelings of shame to be more likely to occur than American
students, who perceived them as rather uncommon.

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

To return to our example of Ann and Ayşe: It is conceivable that Ann’s
workplace organizes monthly awards for the “most productive employee of
the month,” increasing employees’ level of competition and thus giving Ann
more opportunities to feel disappointed, frustrated, or angry when she loses
a prestigious task to her colleague. In contrast, it is conceivable that Ayşe’s
workplace centers around conformity toward the bosses and, therefore,
leaves less room for individual competition, making the event that occurred
rather rare. Thus, the cultural organization of daily life may play a role in
affording the emotions that people experience.
DIFFERENT APPRAISALS OR CONCERNS
Another way in which people may come to experience different emotions
is through the appraisals they commonly experience and associate with an
emotion. In a recent study, we attempted to combine the bottom-up approach
of previous, qualitative research (see preceding text; Mesquita et al., 2006)
with rigorous statistical testing of a large number of participants (Boiger, De
Leersnyder, et al., 2014). We first selected culturally relevant anger and shame
situations, appraisals, and action readiness items. Next, we asked students
from the United States, Japan, and Belgium to tell us for each situation how
they would appraise the situation and react if it happened to them. To put the
question of cultural variation in appraisals to the test, we used an inductive
statistical technique that identified patterns in participants’ responses. Much
like a very skilled research assistant who is entirely blind to the hypotheses, the CLASSI model (classification model for individual differences in
sequential processes; Ceulemans & Van Mechelen, 2008), identifies types of
participants who show a similar response pattern. We then compared these
inductively derived types against the cultural origin of the participants.
We found that, across cultures, the most common types were different. For
instance, for anger we found the different types of persons that occurred in
each culture, but to different extents. One type of person that did not express
anger and ruminated about the anger situation, was the most common variety in the Japanese group but not in the other two; another type of anger,
which was associated with blaming and aggressive tendencies, described the
largest proportion of Americans; yet another type of anger best characterized
the Belgian sample. In each culture, the type of person that was most commonly found appeared to fit best with the relationship goals: nonexpressed
anger in Japan helps to maintain relational harmony, and assertive anger in
the United States serves independence.
Differences in the most important cultural values may underlie some of the
differences in appraisals: People will appraise emotional situations according
to their meaning with regard to important values. Several studies from our

Cultural Differences in Emotions

9

own laboratory are suggestive in this regard. In two retrospective self-report
studies, we asked Belgian students to report recent emotional situations and
to indicate if and to what extent the situation had been relevant to a number of
different values. In a next step, we compared the reported relevance of each
value during emotional situations with the extent to which it was reported to
be a “guiding principle” in the lives of a representative sample of young Belgians in a large survey research (ESS round 5; Norwegian social Science Data
Services, 2012). We found that the hierarchy of values during emotional situations was mirrored in the hierarchy of values in daily life (De Leersnyder,
Kim, et al., 2014).
Moreover, within emotional situations, each type of values predicted different emotions. When self-focused values (personal success, ambition) were
most relevant in a situation, socially disengaging emotions (e.g., pride, anger)
were more intense than socially engaging emotions (e.g., closeness, shame);
when other-focused values (e.g., being loyal, helping others) were most relevant, the reverse pattern of emotions was yielded (De Leersnyder, Koval,
Kuppens, & Mesquita, 2014). Taken together, these findings suggest that emotional experiences tend to be about the most important cultural values: (i)
culturally salient values are more readily available as standard of appraisal
in emotional situations, and (ii) the different types of values—self-focused
versus other-focused—translate into different patterns of emotional experience (more disengaging versus engaging, respectively). Thus, returning to
Ann and Ayşe, Ann would be particularly concerned with maintaining her
personal autonomy and realizing her potential during the conflict with her
colleague, and this might lead her to experience anger, whereas Ayşe would
be more concerned with her loyalty toward her colleague, increasing the
likelihood of her experiencing shame. In both cases, the different values or
concerns are associated with the emotions that are most conducive to the
central values (and relationship goals) in the girls’ cultural contexts.
SUMMARY
A focus on emotional practices reveals variation in emotions that can be
understood from the culture’s prevalent relationship goals and values:
People’s actual emotional experiences thus seem to differ in systematic and
predictable ways which previous research failed to grasp.
ROAD MAP: A SOCIOCULTURAL DYNAMIC SYSTEMS APPROACH
TO CULTURE AND EMOTIONS
Research to date has failed to study the processes by which emotions come
to fit culturally valued relationship goals. This is a limitation that future

10

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

research should address. Over the past few years, we have developed a
sociodynamic perspective that conceives of emotions as dynamic processes
that unfold over time, and as a function of the interactions and relationships
in which they take place (Boiger & Mesquita, 2012; Mesquita & Boiger,
2014; Mesquita, 2010). We propose that, in each culture, these interactions
and relationships are (imperfectly) aligned with the cultural relationship
goals, which set the constraints (meanings, habits, etc.) for any ongoing
interaction. Because emotions unfold during interactions and relationships
(see also Butler, 2011), the typical emotional processes will differ between
cultures. The complexity of emotional processes can be appreciated from
our example. Ann’s anger may trigger a different emotional response in the
colleague than Ayse’s expression of both anger and shame. In turn, whether
the colleague will get snappy or will react with empathy will be part of
the culturally different ways in which interactions unfold, and is likely to
impact the unfolding of emotions.
A sociodynamic approach focuses on the typical ways in which emotions
unfold during real-life interactions between people in ongoing relationships
(such as couples or mother–child relationships). Cultural differences in emotions would be described as differences in the trajectories of emotional interaction. The approach moves away from treating culture as the independent
variable and emotion as the dependent variable. Rather, emotion is seen as a
process emerging over many interactions.
Some past research has ventured in this direction. For example, Trommsdorff and Kornadt (2003) compared German and Japanese mother–child
interactions after a transgression by the child. Japanese mothers initially
remained friendly, and responded to disobedience with empathy; in contrast,
German mothers attributed ill intentions to their children, and insisted on
compliance. When children stuck to their disobedient behaviors, Japanese
mothers responded with disappointment, after which both the children
and mothers would compromise. Conversely, German mother–child dyads
escalated into more angry interactions. In both cases, these different emotional trajectories reflected the culturally valued relationship goals: Japanese
dyads prioritized relational harmony over individual desires, whereas the
partners of German dyads each asserted their individual needs. Furthermore, the emotional trajectories may have contributed to shape children’s
future interactions, thereby affording the reproduction of culturally valued
relationships.
This research clearly shows how a sociodynamic perspective both documents the role of culture in the shaping of daily emotional experiences, and
illuminates how emotional interactions themselves are constitutive of culture. Culture is not only at the heart of emotions; emotions may also be at the
heart of culture.

Cultural Differences in Emotions

11

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FURTHER READING
Levy, R. I. (1978). Tahitian gentleness and redundant controls. In A. Montagu (Ed.),
Learning non-aggression: The experience of non-literate societies (pp. 222–235). New
York, NY: Oxford University Press.

JOZEFIEN DE LEERSNYDER SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Jozefien De Leersnyder is a Post-doctoral researcher at the Center for Social
and Cultural Psychology at the University of Leuven, where she obtained
both her Master’s and doctoral degree. Her dissertation focuses on emotional acculturation and its consequences for migrants’ well-being. In addition, she studies the role of cultural values and concerns in aligning people’s
emotional lives with the cultural context they engage in. By making use of

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

retrospective self-reports, field studies, social experiments, experience sampling, and observational methods, she aims to capture the interplay between
culture and emotions in real-life settings. In the spring of 2012, she visited
the Culture and Emotion laboratory at Stanford University, and her research
got recently awarded at the inaugural conference of the Society for Affective
Sciences.
http://ppw.kuleuven.be/cscp/jozefien-deleersnyder
MICHAEL BOIGER SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Michael Boiger received his Master’s degree in Psychology from the University of Konstanz, Germany, in 2009 and his doctoral degree in Psychology
from the University of Leuven, Belgium, in 2013. He conducted his doctoral
research on the cultural shaping of anger and shame in the United States,
Japan, Belgium, and Turkey and is the recipient of the 2013/2014 Harry and
Pola Triandis Dissertation Award (IACCP). Since fall 2013, he is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Social and Cultural Psychology at the University of Leuven, where he currently investigates the role of interpersonal
regulatory processes for cultural differences in emotion. In his research, he
uses a range of qualitative and quantitative methods to study people’s emotions as they unfold in the context of interactions, relationships, and cultures.
http://ppw.kuleuven.be/cscp/michael-boiger
BATJA MESQUITA SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Batja Mesquita is professor and chair of the Center for Social and Cultural
Psychology at the University of Leuven (Belgium). Most of her research
focuses on the dynamic relationship between culture and emotions. She has
coedited two books: “The Mind in Context” (Guilford Press) and Changing
Emotions (Psychology Press). She is an Associate Editor for Psychological
Science and currently serves at the Editorial Boards of Emotion and the
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Mesquita is a fellow of the
Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences, the American Psychological Society, the
American Psychological Association, and the Society for Personality and
Social Psychology.
http://ppw.kuleuven.be/cscp/batja-mesquita

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