Culture and Emotional Control

As you know, cultural differences are apparent in every aspect of development. This is quite obvious in emotional expression. Children may be encouraged to laugh/cry/yell or the opposite, to hide those emotions. Some adults guffaw, slap their knees, and stomp their feet for joy; others cover their mouths with their hands if a smile spontaneously appears. Children learn to do the same.

Control strategies vary culturally as well. Peers, parents, and strangers sometimes ignore emotional outbursts, sometimes deflect them, sometimes punish them. Shame is used when social reputation is a priority. In some cultures, “pride goeth before a fall” and people who “have no shame” are considered mentally ill (Stein, 2006).

Finally, families, cultures, and nations differ as to which emotions most need to be regulated. Cohort changes and social stereotypes distort any attempt to link specific nations with the emotions each attempts to regulate, but the following illustrates the idea of cultural variations:

Fear (United States)
Anger (Iran)
Pride (China)
Selfishness (Japan)
Impatience (many Native American communities)
Defiance (Mexico)
Moodiness (the Netherlands)

(Chen, 2011; Harkness et al., 2011; J. G. Miller, 2004; Stubben, 2001; Tahmouresi et al., 2014).

Temperaments vary, which makes people within the same culture unlike one another. “Cultures are inevitably more complicated than the framework that is supposed to explain them” (Harkness et al., 2011, p. 92). Nonetheless, parents everywhere teach emotional regulation, hoping their children will adapt to the norms of their culture, and cultures differ in which emotions are particularly unwelcome (Kim & Sasaki, 2014).