Latest / Professor Peterson’s Psychology Classroom / Behind the Smile: How Culture Shapes Emotional Responses

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Behind the Smile: How Culture Shapes Emotional Responses · Professor Peterson’s Psychology Classroom

0:08
Okay, so, uh, if you remember last
0:13
week, we separated this— these ideas of emotions, feelings,
0:16
mood, and motivation. So our topic
0:20
for today, we are going to use the foundations to ask
0:25
more difficult questions. How do people learn what
0:29
an emotion means and what they should
0:33
do with it? Okay, to do this, I want you to imagine 2
0:37
students receiving the same award. One celebrates loudly,
0:43
the other smiles briefly and thanks the people who helped.
0:47
We have observed different expressions. We still need to ask,
0:52
how each student feels, and what each response
0:56
means in that setting. So by the end of
1:00
this lecture, I hope that we'll be able to explain
1:04
how culture influences our appraisal,
1:08
expression, and regulation, and evaluate some evidence
1:13
for those explanations. We will work
1:17
through some kind of fictional type of situations
1:20
to kind of highlight some of these.
1:24
You're more than welcome to discuss any, any of
1:28
your private shared experience. Just remember that
1:33
if you want to share it while we lecture,
1:37
it is being recorded, but I will definitely leave time afterwards
1:41
for anyone who wants to express any thoughts.
1:45
Okay. So, To start,
1:51
uh, let's retrieve the 3 ideas from last week.
1:54
So remember, an emotion can involve changes in attention,
1:58
the body, and readiness to act. It is really that physiological
2:03
reaction. And remember, we defined a feeling as a conscious
2:08
experience of that response. And then finally,
2:11
our mood provides a more sustained background across
2:16
several situations. These distinctions are useful,
2:20
um, although researchers do not all use the terms
2:25
identically, and I'll clear that up as we go through.
2:29
So,
2:33
an example that I would encourage you to do is, is thinking about
2:38
giving a presentation in this class, for example. When we came
2:42
to class today, uh,
2:45
how would you feel if I called out your name and
2:50
asked you to, uh, give a
2:54
short, uh, presentation or review of
2:57
what we learned in the last class? Um,
3:02
and I would encourage you to kind of think of what your response would be.
3:08
If you're anything like me, I would argue that your
3:12
heartbeat went faster.
3:15
You might notice nervousness, describes the
3:19
feeling. If you had a morning of
3:23
irritability, it could describe a mood. Several processes
3:27
can be acting together. So for today,
3:31
we need to now look at the added component of culture.
3:35
And this asks, who taught you whether you should be nervous,
3:41
should be admitted, concealed, or joked about, or whether
3:46
you discuss with another person? We are already
3:50
moving beyond a definition into our social world
3:54
when we think about how we individually need to
3:58
respond to being called on the spot to do some
4:02
type of action. I would encourage
4:05
you to keep a distinction in mind, though. What a person
4:10
experiences and what an observer can see are
4:13
related, but observing one does not give complete access
4:18
to the other. And we also have to keep
4:22
in mind our own expectations for emotions and
4:26
feelings can bias or color our
4:33
observation of another person.
4:37
Okay, so let's
4:41
look at this, this slide here.
4:46
We will return to this one throughout the class.
4:50
So something happens that's We
4:57
interpret it as significant, we respond, and we receive
5:01
feedback from other people. The diagram is
5:04
kind of this teaching map. In real life, these processes can overlap,
5:09
influence one another. So we go
5:13
through situation, appraisal, response, and social
5:17
feedback. And it's important
5:21
to keep in mind that culture can shape each part
5:24
of the sequence. Families and institutions influence
5:29
which situations we encounter. Communities teach us what
5:34
counts as respectful, threatening, embarrassing,
5:37
or worthy of pride. They also provide
5:40
words and practices for responding.
5:44
Consider a professor praises, praises you
5:48
or another student in front of the class. One student
5:53
might interpret that as recognition of individual accomplishment,
5:57
but another student might feel pleased and also
6:01
uncomfortable about standing apart from their peers.
6:05
A third might worry that the praise creates pressure for
6:09
the next assignment. These possibilities
6:14
do not require 3 nationalities. They could describe,
6:21
they could describe 3 students in a— 3—
6:26
I lost my train of thought.
6:33
They could describe 3 students in this classroom.
6:36
Cultural experiences overlap with personal family
6:40
history and social position. And immediate relationships.
6:45
Notice that culture has entered before the visible expression
6:50
in each of these cases. It helps organize
6:53
what the event means. Later, other people's
6:57
responses can reinforce or challenge those meanings.
7:01
If a classmate rewards modesty,
7:05
students may learn one pattern. If classmates reward
7:09
enthusiastic self-promotion, they may
7:13
learn another.
7:18
The teacher could ask how students prefer feedback,
7:22
explain the purpose of recognition, or acknowledge
7:26
a shared effort. Different arrangements can create different emotional experiences.
7:32
That is the first explanation of a mechanism rather
7:36
than a claim that a group simply has a particular emotion.
7:40
Okay,
7:45
there are some theories. If we look at the
7:50
textbook from— that's
7:56
attached in our Canvas shell, can't remember what
8:00
it's called, but I kind of want to review these 3 theories.
8:05
Um, because they ask how bodily change
8:10
and emotional experience fits together.
8:14
For example, the James-Lange theory emphasizes the contribution
8:18
of bodily response to a felt emotion.
8:23
Cannon and Bard proposed a central process
8:26
can produce bodily arousal and emotional experience
8:30
together. Schouder and Singer emphasizes
8:34
arousal and interpretation of the arousal.
8:39
These, these kind of historical models of
8:43
emotions, uh, and contemporary
8:48
emotion science contains additional approaches and
8:52
disagreements to how we come about experiencing
8:56
emotions. We are using them to generate some questions
9:01
rather than declaring that one brief
9:05
classroom diagram explains all our emotions.
9:09
So these are going to be used as examples.
9:14
So, so, for example, suppose someone feels a
9:19
racing heart before meeting relatives they have never met.
9:23
Is that anxiety, excitement, anticipation,
9:27
or some combination of those? The physical sensation
9:31
alone leaves us with a question about the person's interpretation.
9:36
What expectations have been learned about this meeting?
9:40
Will they be welcomed, evaluated, asked to represent
9:44
the family? Those meanings can influence the response.
9:50
An appraisal is an evaluation of events'
9:53
significance for goals, relationships,
9:57
well-being. Appraisal does not always
10:00
require deliberate internal speech.
10:04
Some interpretations happen quickly and
10:08
feel obvious because we have learned them repeatedly,
10:12
time and time again.
10:21
And one thing we can think about is what additional information would
10:25
help us understand, for example, a racing heart.
10:29
We could ask about a person's expectations, prior experience,
10:33
the relationship, and what meets— meetings
10:37
mean to them. This gives us a way to connect biology
10:42
and culture without assigning separate emotion systems
10:46
to each culture. As we move
10:50
to some evidence distinguishing
10:54
these theories' proposed mechanism from a particular
10:58
task researchers use to test it,
11:01
a result on a photograph task cannot
11:05
settle every question about bodily responses.
11:09
And that is probably one of the most common types
11:13
of research that psychologists
11:17
do is looking at things like facial expressions
11:21
and response to different pictures. Okay,
11:25
and that's why I bring that point up right here.
11:35
So, going back to the textbook examples.
11:39
Uh, it presents evidence that people in different communities can
11:43
recognize some emotional signals,
11:47
and that matters. Human beings share bodily
11:51
capacities and social problems and communication
11:55
across communities. So there's some evidence
11:59
that there are certain emotions, for example,
12:03
that seem to be universal.
12:07
But the intensity and the interpretation can
12:11
shift from culture to culture.
12:16
Now consider how we know. If researchers show that opposed face
12:21
and ask someone to choose between 6
12:25
supplied labels, what has— what
12:29
exactly has participants demonstrated? They have selected
12:33
the best available answer under those instructions.
12:37
Okay, and so kind of think about
12:40
that. Those are kind of forced responses that
12:44
they're being asked about. The task differs from
12:48
seeing a moving face in an unfamiliar conversation with
12:52
no label. The actor's expression, the transition
12:56
of labels, and the response options can all shape their
13:00
performance. A shared response
13:04
on a test also cannot establish the participants experience
13:09
the same feeling and the same intensity.
13:12
So this— what I'm trying to make the point here is
13:17
this is the limitations of understanding universality
13:21
of emotions. By the tasks that are available.
13:28
So, because in our real life,
13:34
we look at other things like their
13:38
behaviors, voice, body movement,
13:42
and the situational context to really understand
13:46
their emotional expression. You can invite an
13:50
open description, work with local language experts,
13:54
and ask people about their own experience. And each of
13:58
these methods again answer a different part
14:01
of our complete question.
14:05
We also need humility about the category culture.
14:09
A sample of university students in one city represent
14:14
a particular population.
14:17
And a country contains many communities,
14:21
language, generations, and social positions.
14:26
So we could debate about universality
14:30
and variation and whether the
14:34
research really represents that there's these universalities.
14:40
But maybe a more useful question is, is what
14:44
component shows similarity under what
14:47
conditions using what measure? That question allows
14:52
for evidence for a community and evidence for variations
14:56
that contribute to the same explanation.
15:02
So, um,
15:06
so kind of to review a study, it was done
15:10
by Cohen and colleagues. They examined
15:14
45,231 facial
15:18
recognitions to video, largely from North
15:22
America, Europe, and Japan.
15:27
Researchers paired facial movement information with
15:31
reports of emotional experience, and they did find
15:35
substantial commonality amongst differences in expression
15:39
and intensities between those 3 national
15:44
samples.
15:51
And this combination complicates a simple universal
15:54
or cultural choice. Similarities in experience
15:59
can coexist with differences in expression.
16:03
The geo— this geographical coverage also limits
16:07
how broadly we should make generalizations.
16:12
Okay. What becomes
16:16
easier to examine is when we collect both expression
16:20
and self-report, which is missing out of this research,
16:25
and consider things like language sampling,
16:28
artificial viewing situation, and individual variation.
16:33
My point being is even though these come from
16:36
national samples, They do see some,
16:40
um, um,
16:45
what am I trying to say?
16:50
Commonality between the 3 national samples,
16:54
but we're still lacking what was the authentic
16:58
experience. So they may have, have an interpretation
17:02
in an artificial environment, that fits that environment
17:08
out of social demand or expression.
17:11
So my, my point to this time
17:16
is that we have to be careful of the research
17:19
that states there are universal emotions that are expressed
17:24
similarly, because this data is based
17:28
upon almost a forced response in an
17:32
artificial environment that participants
17:37
may be trying to figure out what the researcher wants them
17:41
to express. Okay,
17:46
so let's turn away from the public praise
17:50
idea and slow down our interpretation
17:54
a little bit. An appraisal concerns what an
17:58
event means for something that matters.
18:02
If I understand achievement as demonstrating personal talent,
18:07
public praise may affirm an important goal.
18:11
If I'm concerned about maintaining equal standing among my peers,
18:17
the praise that is received may feel more
18:21
complicated. Independence and interdependence
18:25
is a useful concept here. And independent emphasizes
18:29
foreground personal attributions,
18:32
preferences, and distinctness.
18:36
Interdependence emphasizes foreground relationships,
18:40
roles, and obligations. People can draw
18:45
on both, and their emphasis can change across
18:49
situations. But what I want to
18:53
kind of state here is independence and interdependence
18:57
tends to be largely influenced by an individual's
19:02
culture. So for example, in more Western culture,
19:06
the culture emphasizes more independence,
19:11
where when we go into the East Asian
19:14
countries and more collective-type countries,
19:19
they focus on interdependence.
19:23
But I would imagine that we've all been
19:27
in a situation where even though
19:30
our broader culture focuses on independence,
19:35
we can find ourselves in situations
19:39
where we realize that interdependence and
19:43
reliance on others and, and the social
19:48
connection is more important. So even
19:51
though our— the Western culture states one thing,
19:55
it doesn't mean that we'll use it in every situation.
19:59
So for example, a student might speak about personal career
20:04
goals in an interview and also emphasize shared
20:07
contribution at, for example, a family gathering.
20:12
We should investigate the setting and the person's own account
20:16
before signing an interpretation.
20:20
And we also have to remember that power also matters.
20:25
Praise from a trusted mentor may feel different than
20:29
praise by someone who has previously humiliated
20:33
a student. The words could
20:36
be identical while the relationship changes
20:40
the meaning. So I would kind of think about
20:44
that. What you could think about it in your instructor experience
20:48
or personalized experience. Someone you highly
20:52
respect compliments you.
20:56
But then let's say someone who maybe you don't have a good relationship
21:00
with, and they say something
21:04
nice or give you some type of praise.
21:08
And how you would emotionally
21:12
respond to both of those. Okay,
21:15
and this is the notion of power, meaning who is delivering
21:20
the information will determine our emotional
21:24
response. We also need
21:28
to avoid predicting that an independent orientation always
21:31
produces pride or an interdependent orientation
21:36
always produces things like embarrassment. These are
21:40
hypotheses about concerns that may matter,
21:44
not a list of required reactions.
21:49
So in this sense, our, our task as psychologists
21:53
is to identify relevant meaning and evidence,
21:56
and we're going to practice doing that before moving Uh,
22:00
to, uh, moving on. So I
22:06
would, I would encourage you to kind of do this,
22:09
uh, what we, we call thought experiment,
22:13
uh, and kind of think about your response to
22:18
it. Okay, so here we have kind of
22:21
a fictional scenario. An instructor announces an
22:25
award. The student looks down, gives a smile,
22:29
and thanks the group. A classmate later says they
22:34
clearly weren't happy about winning.
22:37
With a partner, well, what I want you to do is kind
22:41
of generate kind of 2 explanations for
22:46
that student's behavior.
22:50
You can use kind of the situation appraisal response and
22:54
social feedback. And kind of work through how
22:58
you would go about trying to figure out what their
23:02
real emotional experience, um,
23:06
uh, was like.
23:15
And I want you to think about a student could feel pleased
23:20
while practicing modesty. That could be one explanation.
23:24
They could feel anxiety about the attention,
23:28
and the award can carry complicated meanings too.
23:32
These possibilities— these are possibilities not finding
23:37
about this fictional person.
23:40
What question would help distinguish that explanation?
23:45
How did they receive the award feel, the public recognition?
23:51
Okay, a weaker, a weaker question would embed
23:55
our assumptions. Why were you unhappy?
23:59
So the idea behind this kind of thought
24:03
project is when we're trying to
24:07
understand someone else's emotional
24:11
state, we often go to someone
24:15
and say, why were you so mad? Why were
24:19
you so embarrassed? You look so happy
24:25
receiving that award. And I want you to think about
24:29
that line of questioning when we are really trying to
24:33
get to what the person has really emotionally
24:37
experienced and ask more neutral questions.
24:42
So in that same context,
24:45
Asking, how did you receive the award? How did receiving that award feel?
24:51
How is public recognition usually handled in
24:55
groups important to you?
24:58
And not embed what you think
25:02
they should have felt or what your interpretation of how
25:06
they felt. And I will tell you, by doing
25:10
this, you'll, you can create
25:14
much more richer conversations. And I would also say,
25:18
for the people in the class who want to do social
25:21
work or counseling, um,
25:26
and therapy, this is something I would encourage
25:30
you to practice. Because in the counseling session,
25:35
when we're trying to see if what
25:39
someone is or is experiencing, we don't
25:43
ask things like, you seem very unhappy
25:46
today, why? Or, it looks like
25:51
you had a really good week, why? Why?
25:54
Because now we have seeded an interpretation for their answers.
26:00
Instead, counselors and social workers ask
26:04
questions like, How did receiving that award
26:08
feel today? Or tell me how you
26:11
feel today instead of
26:16
providing the answer for them. Okay,
26:20
so a little thought project to
26:24
kind of think about. So let's
26:28
talk for a minute about display rules.
26:33
Because they are learned and they're situational.
26:38
Uh, so really there are learned expectations
26:41
about showing an emotion.
26:44
They concern which emotion to show,
26:48
its intensity, the audience, and the timing.
26:59
Yeah, sorry, I got distracted.
27:04
Uh, so a person may express disappointment
27:08
openly with a close friend but,
27:12
uh, refrain from showing that
27:16
same disappointment in a formal ceremony
27:20
or at a formal function. We should
27:24
distinguish feelings from the regulation
27:28
of its display. Someone who holds back tears
27:32
can still feel grief intensely. Someone who
27:36
smiles can be welcoming, nervous, polite, or embarrassed,
27:40
or pleased. Context helps us evaluate
27:45
the possibilities, and this starts
27:48
with children learning display rules through explicit
27:52
instruction and through feedback.
27:55
And for example, an adult might tell a
27:59
child, tell me what upset you,
28:03
or we will discuss that privately.
28:08
And so children also notice that anger receives attention and
28:12
anger receives punishment. So I want to go back to these
28:16
2, the 2 statements I just
28:20
stated. So a child, a parent goes to
28:24
a child who is visibly upset and
28:30
tells the child, or just sits there and
28:34
just says, tell me what upset you in that
28:37
context. Okay. Versus component
28:42
2, where the parent comes in and
28:46
looks at the child who is upset and says
28:49
something like, you'll be
28:54
okay, we'll talk about this in the car on
28:57
the way home.
29:00
And I want you to think about those 2 situations.
29:05
If a child is experiencing something like being
29:09
upset and sad,
29:13
the message being sent in Uh,
29:16
the first scenario is it's okay to be
29:20
upset and sad and express it.
29:25
The message they're receiving in the second scenario is
29:29
that when you're upset and sad, you need to hold
29:33
it in until you are alone or in a private
29:37
situation. All right, so this
29:42
is a good example of how children
29:46
then will start to use context and experience
29:51
in order to understand
29:54
how they are allowed to express emotions.
30:00
And as you can imagine, these practices can vary within households
30:04
and communities. Different generations may disagree,
30:08
and people can challenge the rules they inherit.
30:13
Okay, and this is another expression
30:16
when we look at generational cultural change,
30:20
right? So we're in a cultural shift
30:24
where— I will use my generation because I'm
30:27
that old— where for men
30:31
it was not okay for us to express,
30:36
um, a lot of emotions.
30:39
Uh, I, I will tell you, um, uh,
30:44
when I was, I think, around 11 or 12,
30:48
uh, before the age of 11 and 12, uh, I had
30:52
a very close emotional relationship with my dad. We were able
30:56
to hug, um, all of those things.
31:00
And one day we were walking, I think, in the mall And
31:05
I grabbed his hand just like I'd done for 11
31:09
years before then, and he released my hand and
31:13
he said, son, you're old enough now that
31:17
you need to understand that men don't do that,
31:21
and we need to start behaving like men.
31:25
Now, he didn't say it in those exact words,
31:28
but that is the communication he sent.
31:31
Is that in a public place it's
31:35
not acceptable for men to show affection.
31:39
Okay, and so my point behind this
31:43
is that was a very cultural script of that
31:47
time, but we're seeing now with the younger
31:51
generation that men are starting
31:55
to be allowed to express emotions and feelings.
32:00
And it's encouraged now. And so
32:04
my point behind this is,
32:08
one, culture is not fixed. Culture is constantly evolving,
32:14
and the expression of emotions
32:17
is a good example of that.
32:21
So this is the importance
32:26
of the expression, audience, and interpretation,
32:30
because they all provide us with the rules that
32:35
are allowed for emotional expression in
32:39
a given context.
32:47
We also would be remiss by not talking about
32:50
how language organizes our emotional concepts.
32:54
Remember last week we talked about how when
32:59
we start to developing language, we're then
33:03
provided a collabor— a label for
33:09
emotional experiences that we have been experiencing
33:13
since we were in mom's womb.
33:17
And now that we're developing language, we're now
33:21
being provided labels for the experiences we've
33:24
been having for 2 years,
33:28
and I would argue at least 5,
33:30
6 months. Okay?
33:34
And so language gives us the tools to distinguish and
33:39
communicating experience. For example,
33:43
the research on this slide from
33:47
Jackson and colleagues examines emotion concepts
33:52
that share words across 2,474
33:56
languages is what they studied.
34:01
And they found variation in those semantic
34:05
relationships and common organizations around
34:09
pleasantness and activation.
34:18
Now, one thing I should note is that their research did not directly
34:23
measure every— how every speaker's felt experience.
34:28
The language can express a distinction with a
34:32
phrase even when it lacks a single word of it.
34:36
Okay,
34:39
so with— within this, and, and I
34:43
have definitely learned, uh, this living in
34:46
a bilingual house Um,
34:50
uh, with my, with my wife, that there are certain
34:55
terms, whether it be in Spanish or
34:59
English, that based on our 2 cultural
35:03
experiences have different emotional
35:06
latency and somewhat different,
35:10
deeper emotional meaning and shallower
35:14
emotional meaning. And this is
35:17
why, um, when people try
35:21
to translate a language,
35:25
they will translate that language on them
35:29
from, let's say, from German to English,
35:33
or we could say from Tana'afam to English.
35:38
And then the proper way to then make sure that's appropriate
35:43
is to have someone else then translate that
35:46
in— that English interpretation back
35:50
into Tana'athum. And when we do
35:53
that type of translation studies,
35:57
we find that, um, you may notice,
36:01
for example, let me give this example,
36:05
that there are certain words in Tana'athum
36:10
that may not— the
36:15
English interpretation of it may only
36:19
get part of its complete meaning and
36:24
part of the especially emotional cognitive
36:28
translation. Um,
36:31
so, uh, this is the complication of language
36:35
and emotions. Is sometimes when we interpret different
36:40
languages, we might not get the depth
36:45
of what that word means to that actual
36:49
person. And so while
36:52
we see similarities, when we have studies
36:56
like this that show similarities,
36:59
it does not necessarily directly translate
37:03
to the deep emotional meaning,
37:07
even though the labels across cultures are the same
37:11
or can be the same, the deep meaning
37:16
of them can vary from culture to culture.
37:25
Now, we have also discussed experienced emotion and visibility,
37:30
visible expression.
37:33
Ideally, when we talk about affect,
37:36
this adds a different question. How does
37:39
a person want to feel?
37:43
So let's say someone's affect evaluations
37:47
work distinguishes desired feelings from
37:52
actual feelings and examine
37:56
some cultural patterns In, for example,
37:59
value, excitement, and calm,
38:02
like we talked about in the other slide.
38:07
Both can be positive. Someone can value energetic
38:11
celebration and also prefer calm conversation with healthy—
38:15
with a health profession. Preference depends
38:18
on the person and the task.
38:22
And so, When we look at this,
38:27
I feel it kind of gives a good summary of
38:30
what we talked about in the last slide
38:35
between actual affect, what someone currently
38:39
feels. Ideal affect
38:45
is how someone would like
38:49
to feel. Okay, and then there's 2 positive
38:53
possibilities, uh, that in one situation excitement
38:58
and enthusiasm, and in another requires calm and peacefulness.
39:03
So these are kind of examples that
39:07
our emotional affect does not always match
39:12
with our desired affect.
39:16
Okay,
39:21
we also should note that certain
39:25
types of emotion involve very
39:29
much social standards, and 3 that
39:33
we could talk about that are very much dependent upon the
39:38
social standards and the cultural standards are pride,
39:42
shame, and guilt.
39:45
So these self-conscious emotions
39:49
involve evaluating ourselves in relation to
39:53
some standards. Pride can arise when an
39:57
accomplishment meets a value standard. Shame often
40:01
involves a painful evaluation of the self,
40:06
while guilt often concerns an action and its consequences.
40:11
These distinctions are useful, although experience and
40:15
words overlap with each other. Culture helps
40:20
specific— specify the standard, but what
40:24
deserves recognition, who shares credit,
40:28
what counts as letting someone down, and achievements
40:33
may matter because it expresses personal mastery supports
40:38
relatives, strengthens communities,
40:42
or does several of those things altogether.
40:45
Okay, so let's, uh, give an example of maybe
40:50
a student who misses a group deadline.
40:53
This might— they might think,
40:57
I handled that badly, or everyone
41:01
will see me as unreliable. The appraisal
41:05
changes what the event means to the person.
41:09
They might also feel concerned for the group and
41:12
want to try and make some repair.
41:16
But I want you to think about that— this context
41:20
between the term I handled that badly versus
41:26
everyone will see me as unreliable.
41:31
And you'll notice that notion we talked about earlier
41:35
about independence versus interdependence comes
41:39
into play. All right, we should avoid
41:44
though dividing the world into shame cultures and guilt
41:47
cultures as though people in one group have
41:51
access to only one emotion, because in any culture
41:55
the same person can experience both depending upon
41:59
the situation and interpretation.
42:05
It could include, for example, acknowledging the impact,
42:09
explain the circumstances, and agreeing on a repair strategy.
42:14
Okay, so that continued social interaction,
42:19
and I'm going back to that example of the student
42:23
who messed up with the group. Right. Understanding emotions'
42:28
social functions also does not justify humiliating
42:32
people. We can examine how shared standards
42:36
operate and still ask whether its consequences
42:41
are harmful or unfair. Cultural explanations
42:45
can support that critical evaluation.
42:56
And so this, we're kind of going to go back to the
43:00
slide that we started with and kind of start thinking about
43:04
these and the complexity.
43:08
Teaching cues. Let's start with this.
43:13
Emotion regulation refers to influencing an emotional
43:17
response. Including its timing,
43:20
intensity, duration, and expression.
43:24
Some strategies change the situations,
43:27
others shift intention and/or interpretation,
43:31
still others change visible expression.
43:35
Okay, reappraisal involves
43:40
reconsidering the meaning of an event. If a
43:43
friend does not answer a message, I might initially interpret
43:47
that as rejection. I could then consider
43:52
that they are working or caring for someone and they're busy.
43:56
The second interpretation may change my response,
44:00
although I still would need some evidence. So,
44:04
you know, when someone doesn't respond, we kind of say, oh, what you been up
44:08
to? Or try and figure out why they had that delayed response.
44:13
Uh, sometimes we just know that person, right?
44:16
So we've had past experience with them,
44:20
and we know that if we text them today, they might
44:24
not answer for a couple weeks. And so again,
44:27
context and experience matters,
44:30
matters. And expressive suppression
44:35
involves inhibiting visi— visible— I can't
44:39
talk all of a sudden— visible expression after an
44:42
emotional response has begun. Holding back
44:46
an angry comment during a meeting could fit that
44:50
description. It does not necessarily eliminate the feeling.
44:55
So when we're suppressing our emotions,
44:58
we're, we're not denying that we feel that way.
45:02
We just don't express it in that moment given the
45:06
context of the situation. And again,
45:10
this is where culture can shape the goal of
45:14
regulation. Is the person trying to preserve dignity,
45:19
avoid punishment, maintain relationships,
45:23
communicate urgency, and prepare for a task?
45:28
And again, several of these can conflict with each other.
45:31
But culture tends to provide the information
45:36
the person needs at that moment to then
45:40
regulate in that situation.
45:43
So, for example, waiting could allow— suppressed
45:47
anger, waiting could allow a safer
45:51
or more constructive conversation.
45:54
Now, repeatedly hiding distress could
45:57
also prevent others from recognizing a
46:01
need for support. We need to consider frequency,
46:04
flexibility, safety, and the consequences.
46:09
So the same strategy label can cover
46:13
different experiences as well.
46:15
Voluntarily choosing to restrain in a trusted relationship
46:20
differs from fearing retaliation.
46:24
That is why simple lists of good and bad strategies can
46:29
mislead us. We should ask how
46:32
the strategy would work for this person in this situation
46:37
and over time.
46:43
So let's look now at some other
46:46
kind of research that looks at regulation and
46:51
get back to that topic of mental health, as I
46:54
was talking about with the generational shifts in
46:58
men's emotional expression as my example.
47:03
So Chen and his colleagues, and this is kind of a
47:09
large, what we call meta-analysis. And to
47:13
remind you what a meta-analysis is, is it takes a whole bunch
47:17
of research. For example, in this research, they took 245
47:23
studies 249 different research articles,
47:27
and it involved over 150,000 people in about
47:31
37 countries or regions.
47:34
Okay, and they squish all those 249
47:39
articles together to get what's called a,
47:43
uh, what a statistical,
47:47
um, uh, kind of proof as you
47:51
would say, whether or not, uh, the— what the articles
47:56
have tried to argue still fits.
48:00
Okay, um, and in
48:03
this one, they, they examined reappraisal,
48:07
expressive suppression, and mental health.
48:11
And what they found is that it varied with culture
48:15
and sample characteristics. And it extended
48:19
beyond just this simple East-West comparison,
48:23
or, you know, that collective individualistic one
48:28
that tends to be tied to that kind of conversation.
48:33
So,
48:39
so in this research, what I should state is, for example,
48:43
They showed that in country— some
48:48
cultures where suppression
48:55
of certain emotions actually produce
49:00
better mental health outcomes. But in a
49:03
similar culture that also encourages suppression
49:08
of those emotions, it creates a worse mental
49:12
health outcome. So suppression
49:16
really is determined by
49:23
the cultural context and kind of
49:27
the reasons why that emotion
49:31
of suppression is either something that will
49:35
promote mental health or diminished
49:38
mental health. And again, we can come back
49:42
here into the United States. Uh,
49:46
men and women's suppression of certain emotions,
49:51
uh, established a culture that
49:56
sustained itself at those periods of
50:00
time in, uh, that this
50:03
culture. But as relationship
50:07
needs, economic needs shifted,
50:12
uh, the idea of relationships instead
50:17
of being this kind of more economic exchange
50:22
family-building process and has become
50:25
more of an emotional support and partnership
50:29
process and friend process,
50:34
uh, in this change in relationships,
50:37
having more open emotional expression between
50:41
each other has now showed
50:45
that suppression of those, uh, masculine or feminine,
50:50
uh, emotions is no longer a
50:54
mentally healthy way to
50:57
get into relationships with other individuals.
51:01
Okay, so I hope that example
51:05
kind of helps understand these cultural
51:09
variations.
51:13
But we would be remiss that a cultural
51:17
explanation becomes weaker when it treats culture as a single national
51:21
trait. So I want you to think about the most emotional
51:26
expectations of family dinner, a workplace, a classroom,
51:31
or even on an online discussion. A person
51:34
moves among these settings and may adjust their behavior
51:38
based on them, but this is where power matters.
51:42
2 people can show similar anger and face
51:46
diff— different consequences because
51:50
of their roles and how others interpret
51:54
their identities. We should ask who is allowed
51:58
to express an emotion and who must manage
52:02
other people's comforts and who helps set the
52:06
rules. We can also ask how histories
52:10
of migration, discrimination, and language
52:13
exclusion shapes the meaning of these interactions.
52:18
Those histories are questions for inquiry,
52:23
not details how we should invent
52:26
for someone. Okay.
52:31
And I'd kind of ask you,
52:34
when you think about culture, about asking what
52:39
you should ask before describing a response as cultural.
52:44
Ask about the setting, relationships, learned expectation,
52:48
and a person's own expectation.
52:51
Change alternatives such as fatigue, personality, or immediate
52:55
misunderstandings. This prepares us for a
53:00
final case where we're going to interpret behavior
53:03
without treating a person's expressions as
53:07
transparent evidence of their inner state.
53:10
Or their entire community. Okay,
53:14
and so this is something that I would
53:18
encourage you to kind of think about,
53:21
and it will probably turn into the discussion question for,
53:26
um, uh, this section of
53:31
the class if you choose to do the discussion question.
53:35
So let's go through this. Nora contributes careful research
53:38
to a group presentation. After a strong
53:42
grade, she smiled briefly and thanks the group.
53:46
She says, I appreciate the result, felt awkward
53:50
being watched, and usually shares credit at home.
53:55
So what we should look at now is interpret
54:00
and investigation. A teammate reads her
54:04
as reserved. Or response of
54:08
lack of commitment? What are the 2 possibilities?
54:12
The investigation is ask 2 respectful questions
54:16
to propose one repair. Distinguish the interference
54:21
of evidence of inference, such as when—
54:25
so in this example, what I would encourage you to do is
54:29
look at what the context is in a given response.
54:35
And not assume a personality trait,
54:39
or assume how quickly and effectively someone
54:44
responses, or assume the culture and
54:49
the cultural influences of a response. All right,
54:57
so to kind of wrap up for today,
55:01
I want to give you a framework for
55:05
interpreting emotional responses. It's observe,
55:09
ask, compare, and check.
55:13
Describe what happened.
55:17
Investigate the meaning of the context in which that
55:22
emotion occurred. Consider plausible
55:26
alternatives. And then check,
55:29
use evidence and the person's account of what happened.
55:35
Instead of using our immediate emotional
55:39
response to someone, we should sit
55:43
back and ask these 4 questions.
55:47
And so I would encourage you to do that.