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Emotion Socialization in Cross‐Cultural Perspective
Author(s) -
Friedlmeier Wolfgang,
Corapci Feyza,
Cole Pamela M.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
social and personality psychology compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.699
H-Index - 53
ISSN - 1751-9004
DOI - 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2011.00362.x
Subject(s) - psychology , socialization , competence (human resources) , perspective (graphical) , social psychology , individualism , emotion work , developmental psychology , empirical research , epistemology , philosophy , artificial intelligence , computer science , political science , law
Abstract Emotion socialization aims to promote children’s emotion competence. Children’s competence is embedded in cultural contexts that influence caregivers’ expectations of appropriateness of children’s expression and experience of emotions. Two aspects of emotion competence – individualistic and relational emotion competence – are outlined. They offer a theoretical framework to interpret cultural commonalities and differences in emotion socialization strategies. This review summarizes current knowledge about caregivers’ emotion socialization strategies toward children’s negative emotional expressions and related behaviors in cultural perspective. The number of empirical studies in cultures outside of United States remains low. Nonetheless, the available evidence describes a range of emotion socialization strategies that are embedded in caregiving, and their consequences for children’s emotion development. Besides several commonalities across cultures, we describe differences in the degree to which strategies are endorsed by caregivers as well as some of the qualitative information that point to cultural variations. Finally, we note gaps in the literature and suggest future research directions.