The Systemic Way
The Systemic Way Podcast is a therapy and mental health podcast featuring conversations with experts, practitioners, researchers, and people with lived experience from the worlds of systemic psychotherapy, family therapy, psychology, social work, and community practice. Hosted by Sezer and Julie, two systemic and family psychotherapists, the podcast explores mental health, relationships, trauma, resilience, social justice, culture, and change. Through engaging discussions on theory, practice, and real-world experiences, listeners gain a deeper understanding of how systemic and relational approaches can support individuals, families, organisations, and communities.
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Music by Rena Paid
The Systemic Way
Culture, Emotions and the Relationships Between: In Conversation with Batja Mesquita
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Batja Mesquita, social psychologist, affective scientist, and pioneer of cultural psychology joins us to talk about her wonderful book Between Us: How Cultures Create Emotions (2022).
In this episodes, we dive deep into the key ideas within the book and discuss the interplay with systemic ideas. Batja invites us to reconsider emotions as universal responses and takes an outside/in perspective on how emotions are created through culture. We discuss how this can be vital to understanding and navigating cultural differences in emotions. She skilfully presents how acknowledging these differences in emotions allows us ti find common ground, humanising and humbling us for the better.
About Batja:
Batja Mesquita is a social psychologist, an affective scientist, and a pioneer of cultural psychology. She is a professor of psychology at the University of Leuven, Belgium, and director of the Center for Social and Cultural Psychology at the University of Leuven. Before coming to Leuven, she was affiliated to Wake Forest University, the University of Michigan, Stanford University, and the University of Amsterdam. Mesquita is one of the world’s leading authorities on the psychological study of cultural differences in emotions. Her most recent research focuses on the role of emotions in multicultural societies. She studies how emotions affect the belonging of minoritized youth in middle schools, and the social and economic integration of “newcomers” (i.e. newly arrived immigrants). Mesquita has been a consultant for UNICEF and the WHO, and most recently, she was a member of the core group of scientific advisors for the Happiness and Well-being (SEH) Project, and initiative of the Vatican in partnership with the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN).
Link to website:
https://www.batjamesquita.com/
Reference:
Mesquita, B. (2022). Between us: How cultures create emotions. WW Norton & Company.
Welcome to the Systemic Way. In today's episode, we meet with Batcha Meskita, who is a Dutch social psychologist, cultural psychologist, and an affective scientist. She is a professor of psychology at the University of Leuven in Belgium, where she studies the role of culture in emotions and emotions in culture and society. She is director of the Centre of Social and Cultural Psychology. In today's episode, we have the absolute privilege and honour to speak to her about the wonderful book that she has written called Between Us, How Cultures Create Emotions. She's a pioneer of cultural psychology, and she argues that emotions are not innate but made as we live our lives together. In the book, she argues that we may think of emotions as universal responses felt inside. But Batch argues that we need to reconsider them through the lens of what they do in our relationships, both one-on-one and within larger social networks. Julie, what are some of the things that resonated with you?
SPEAKER_03I think, oh well, I suppose being systemic, the thing, the relationship aspect of emotions and culture, and how emotions may not are not universal, but are made in within context or cultural context and how that informs how we do emotions is just was just so interesting, actually, for me. And I think Bachu is very generous in terms of taking us through her own experience of getting to that point of understanding emotions in this way, of how they could be made, and also through case studies and conversations that she's had in terms of her research. So I think it just gives you a whole fresh perspective on how the I suppose that intersection, isn't it, between between culture and emotions in some ways and what that might mean in terms of conversations that you will be having with people in your practice. So it gives you a lot of different ways to think about language you might use, what might be holding someone back in terms of the way they're speaking to you, what might be informing the way they're they're choosing to language, what's what's going on for them. And to you to really be open perhaps to inviting people to think about where the roots of those things come for from themselves. I guess it links to a lot of systemic things. I'm thinking of geneograms even now and how you might be using those things in a room with people, or patterns, or life cycles, or stories of my migration. Yeah, I think it's as a really interesting way of thinking about emotions that fits with our systemic perspective quite nicely. How about you, César?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the kind of the relational focus on emotions seems like the type of language or thought processes as systemic psychotherapists we should be quite used to, right? And it was something about um what Batcher presented that felt quite radical and it felt like a real kind of shift away from a mainstream understanding of how emotions are created and felt and understood. And she made this the distinction between the kind of mind, mind theory of emotion and the ours theory of emotion. And she she explains it in the podcast, so I'll leave that for people to listen to. But it just provided a way, I think, to hold all of these possibilities that we we do have some universal kind of feelings and emotions around that, but the way that they're understood, expressed, um, manifested as a real cultural contextual element to it that can be lost if we're not holding these ideas that there is a social aspect to emotions. And I yeah, just to say, uh I'm just amazed at the work that's taking place in that part of the world. And if I could do a sabbatical, that would be me going to Belgium Leuven to spend more time over there. But I um I really loved her book, a wonderful contribution to the field of psychology. But I think systemic psychotherapists have a lot to take from it, but also to contribute to the development of some of these ideas. So, yeah, hope you all enjoy it. Welcome to the systemic wave, welcome back, your Mesquita. Thank you for joining us.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Caesar and Julie. I'm happy to be here.
SPEAKER_02Really lovely to have you. Um, we're here to talk about your amazing book that you've written called Between Us, How Cultures Create Emotions. And we're going to talk about some of the key ideas and some of the thinking and the different key points within the book and your your kind of journey to writing the book, we're really interested in. Before we dive in, Bachelor, um, could you tell us a little bit about yourself? Um, maybe what your work context, who you are, where you work?
SPEAKER_00My work context. I'm uh I'm well, let me talk about myself first. I'm I'm Dutch uh originally. I was born in in Amsterdam. Um, and I lived in a number of places, but mostly in the US, and then came back to Europe. Um, and it's important because it felt I I lived in a few different places in Europe, but especially when I went to the US, I really felt that my emotions did not fit there. So that that was an important experience for me. And what I am, I am um a uh professor in social and cultural psychology at the University of Leuven in Belgium at the moment. And um that's where I've been for the last 15 years or so. That is that enough?
SPEAKER_02As a starting place. There must be some amazing stuff going on at that university, right?
SPEAKER_00Uh there there's some. I'm I mean, I have some really good colleagues, yes. And some good, yeah, some good, but you know, as as everybody, I don't know. When you're in it, it doesn't look so amazing. It looks like a lot of interesting things, but I yeah. You're referring to to your other guest, Peter Rover, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yes, yes. We were just talking to you, and we were like, wow, some amazing things are coming out of Belgium.
SPEAKER_00Um it's a good country, it's a country, it's actually a good country, and in part it's a good country because it has a really good funding of research, I think. Um so yeah, it is good.
SPEAKER_02Bachelor, we we like to hear people's kind of story that brought them to the thing that got them most interested in the their area of research, their area of interest. And I I I mean I I know you've been doing research around culture and emotions for a long time. And I'm I'm wondering what some of those kind of early stories are for you and what kind of brought your what tweaked your interest in wanting to study this particular area?
SPEAKER_00No, that's a really hard question to answer because there are many, there are multiple layers of of answer to that question. So I think, you know, I think as a as a child, I probably became interested in emotions because I grew up in this, and I described that in the book, but I grew up um in a Jewish family, and my parents, you know, my my parents were the generation who survived the war, but of course there were also many people who didn't survive the war. And so I felt the war was very clear what you were talking about, by the way. That wouldn't that wouldn't be true everywhere, but uh it was World War II. Um and I think I think emotions were interesting at that point, and so it was sort of a different culture in the sense that it was uh was a cohort or a generation with a completely different experience than mine. I mean, I grew up, I was born um in 1960, so well post the war, my family was comfortable middle class. Um, there was, you know, there was the world was doing really well. I think, you know, people were really hopeful. So a completely different era and experience than what my parents went through. Um, and I think that was sort of, I think of that as a as a different culture, really. And so me trying to figure out as a child where my parents' emotions came from, because they were not always justified by the things that we had in common, that we sh the environments that we shared. So that was probably my earliest introduction to culture. Um, and then I think there was maybe a little bit of code switching, um, you know, from being in a Jewish environment and being in a very secular uh Dutch environment, although my my parents were by no means religious, but there were certain things that we did that were not shared by other people. So I think that was a part of it. And then I became just very interested. Well, I think I think another part of that was that you know people respond differently to those war experiences. And my parents and also I have drawn lessons of lessons of more, I would say more the general lessons of social justice became really important. There are also, of course, people who had that experience and who think that Jews are the only people in the world who suffered and that we should really only focus on on Jews and and sometimes Israel. Um, but that was not my response. My response was, and and also that of my parents, I should say, was very much that, you know, we knew where the world went when it wasn't tolerant and mutually understanding. And so that was always um a big driving force for me to social justice. Um, I don't know, multiculturalism came sort of later, I think in the but in the 80s when I went to university, there was clearly multiculturalism in in Amsterdam. So it became interesting in you know who who do we share this society with? Um and then there are also, you know, some some of the reasons that you study a topic are serendipity. I mean, it was just I the most interesting professor in my department of psychology was somebody by the name of Nico Freida, and he at that point was working in a book on emotions, and it was a new field of interest, and and I found him interesting, and I found the topic interesting, and then um I started actually with a thesis on gender differences in emotions, and then you know that was that was interesting, but then you know, we were all interested in is are there actually cultural differences in emotions? And so that converged. And the field, I should say, at that point was was very convinced that whatever was cultural about emotions was very superficial, like the way we express them, maybe. Um and but but but as I was doing this, I discovered that um that emotions have so much to do with what people want and and you know and experience in their relationships, and that it's so closely intertwined with um, you know, and for you as a systemic way, that's probably not so hard to um to understand, but that emotions are really between people and that cultures organize their relationships and interactions and their priorities differently, and so that emotions were also different. So that's I would say the the the course of my interest. Um there's also as I was doing this during my PhD, which was in the late 80s, early 90s, um, a field emerged uh with the name of cultural psychologist. And it was really um anthropologists and psychologists and and some sociologists who came together and thought, how can we how can we combine what we know? And and in my personal interest was at that point, how is it that all those anthropologists find cultural differences in emotions and that psychologists um time and again find similarities? How can we how how are those two uh approaches compatible? So that that was a was a big part of my PhD to try to understand why we found um those differences. And it's become it's become a big part of my career, really, to under to understand that. So I would say that the book is uh a great deal of reflects a great deal of the insights that I got from from that trajectory. Is that an answer to your question?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's a great answer, Fatcher. Thank you, thank you so much. And um I suppose I just wanted to share. I know from you know, from reading the book that it made me re reflect a lot, I suppose, and the cultures that that I grew up in and how they may have shaped sort of my experience and how I relate to emotions and what I think. Yeah, well, I know, I mean, I suppose we're gonna get a little bit in what my the culture, I suppose so my mum comes from an Irish, Catholic, Russian, Jewish background. Um, so I was, you know, when you were talking about you, you know, you mentioned your parents um being Jewish, and so I was thinking a lot about how that might have um influenced her in terms of her parenting and raise raised me in terms of cultural emotions. And my dad is Norwegian. So when I was reading your book and you were talking about, for example, um the Dutch aspects of being in culture and then going to America, I was thinking about how those how how that culture of emotion shows up in me just in in different places and how I might have it made me think about the times when I might have struggled in terms of connections because I think you talk about that um when you're inversed in a culture that's completely different, and how how do you navigate those places? Um and I really loved in your title, I suppose it's that bit of between us, the things that happened between us. And so I guess connected to that, I was curious about um yeah, why why did you write your book when you when you did? Why did I mean you've given us a little bit in your first answer of why why now? Why when you did, why did it feel important?
SPEAKER_00I, you know, again, why do you I think it's it's something that people do towards the end of the career, of their career, even people who don't, you know, there are disciplines where people write books all the time. Uh psychology is not one of them. So I think it's when you feel that you have enough to say to maybe communicate it. So that's part, that's you know, when I look back at my advisor when he wrote his book, it was about 60, also 55, 60. It's when you start to think, well, maybe I should, you know, I should should share some of the knowledge that I have. Um, I also um, so I I'd come to that conclusion. I also felt that when I talked to people, that I had a poor vocabulary to people always ask me the wrong questions, like um, which of course means that I didn't know how to answer them, right? It doesn't mean anything, questions. There are no wrong questions, but they would ask me, so you're interested in cultural differences and emotions. So which emotions are different? And I just didn't know where to start answering that question, like all of them, maybe. Uh what do you mean by which? I mean, there are so many emotions. So it was very clear to me that I lacked the vocabulary of talking to people, um, and that it was that it was important, you know, in a multicultural society. And I also started to notice that people talked about emotions in a way that I thought was very, very Western and very, but but as if everybody need, you know, we all need to find our emotions deep inside us. And I would think, well, that's not how, you know, 99% of the world thinks about their emotions, maybe 90. But um, so it's it's it started to feel like what we knew in the academy was too much different from the from the common discourse. And then another reason was I was at a center for advanced study with a lot of different disciplines. Um, so philosophers, sociologists, um, you know, uh medicine. And I just noticed that people were really interested in it, you know, people who were not scholars of emotion were really interested in it, and they said, where can we find it? It was just, you know, the it wasn't in the world. So I think all of those reasons I wanted I wanted to share it more. And then I think, you know, in another way, in another way, a way that is maybe maybe more interesting to tell, is that I also think that many people get misunderstood because psychologists um or whoever educators think that they know their, you know, that they can project their emotions and understand them. And so from a social justice or from an inclusion perspective, I also thought it was it was important. But um yeah, I think all the bits and pieces made me actually write it.
SPEAKER_03Thanks, Patya. I mean, I guess as well, just to add, I think part of where that question came from in me was when you gave your first answer, it's sort of you know, we it's unique the time that we live in, each of us. And in that period of time, like you said, the the things that came out about being a cultural psychologist in the world becoming more multicultural. Um, and so it feels quite relevant in some way to think about our, I suppose part of what your book offers is to think about emotions a bit differently, just as you touched upon now, that there's a dominant Western discourse about thinking them about them, but there's also another way, which is part of what your book speaks to.
SPEAKER_00Right, yeah, there are many different ways. And yeah, you know, and we can gloss them over the different ways and and have some, but there's certainly different differences in the dominant um academic discourse on emotions and the way many people think and and cope with their emotions. So I think that's very that's very different. That's very important because we're supposed to be the experts, and you know, and and maybe we're only we're only expert in a limited way of having emotions. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02I really like in in the end of chapter one. I don't know how to to to name this, but it was this kind of like call to what the book was about for me and understanding what the purpose was. And uh I'll read it out quickly. It was by through embracing emotional differences, we allow we lay the groundwork for truly bridging cultures and finding common ground. And that message permeated all the way through the book, all the way to the to the very end, to the toolkit that you you you talk about, and and hopefully we can have some time to really think about that. It feels when I read it, it feels quite a radical idea, away from a kind of dominant discourse around what emotions are and a kind of an understanding of how emotions are expressed and understood. And you talk about those the two models that you you define the kind of the mind model of emotion and the ours model of emotion. Could you just briefly maybe tell us a bit more about each one?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, sure. Yeah, sure. Those are abbreviations that I came up with. Um they mine happens to be mental feelings inside the person and essences. And I think, you know, what I the example I use in the book is a good example for people who watch the movie. It's um the movie Inside Out, where you know, we have this. We so in that movie, for those people who haven't seen it, they're little creatures that live in the protagonist's hat, and their uh anger, I think, sadness, uh happy, well, one or two more. Um, and they um they uh struggle for control with each other, for control over the over the control board. And so, you know, when when you're happy, everything looks rosy and you know, things are going well, and you're very activated. And when you're angry, you know, you see everything through those angry angry lenses. And I think that's really they also look the same, and that coincides with the idea that people who have a And emotion are always have the same face. There is a story here to tell about how people in the West, educated people in the West, think about emotions and how psychologists think about emotions. And I'm gonna talk about how what the lay perspective is. So I think really when you talk to lay people in in Western and mostly educated environments, they really think that emotions are inside. And it comes with this idea of finding your emotions, making sure you know what you really feel. That's the kind of discourse, that's the kind of language we use for our emotions. They're natural, they're coming out. Well, in many cultures, that's actually not how emotions I thought of. And when I say that, it's not that you know, people in every culture have feelings, of course, you know, in in but the focus on emotions is really on what they do between people. So when I am angry, the most important part is that I'm telling you that you went too far and that I'm not gonna accept it. That's the important part. And so it's really what does the emotion do in the relationship? Um, in many cultures, there's also emotions I thought of as the emotions of two people. So you can have complementary emotions. I'm angry and you feel humiliated, or you feel uh you feel shy, or you feel like you're you feel sad sometimes. Um, in other situations or in other cultures, it's if somebody is angry, then the other person is angry back. It also very much depends on your position and on whether you're you are legitimately angry, whether other people can be angry back, or whether they have to sort of yield to your anger desires. Um but but the point of it is that in many cultures, people think of emotions primarily as relational acts. So that's so the ours is something outside of an individual, relational acts, and also situations situated. So every emotion is different in a different situation. So the essences versus the situation is situated, is really, you know, essences it is is it's always looks the same and situated is what your anger looks like is really dependent on what the environment is, what the context is. So those are two, I would say those are two lenses to look at emotions. And maybe, maybe that's the best way of thinking about them. There's no culture that cannot imagine that emotions also do something between people, right? There is, and there's also no culture where people think that emotions have nothing to do with feelings. But what is important about the emotion is is different in different cultures. And so, and it has some consequences. So when in cultures where people look at what emotions do between people, they're also they also tend to shape or to bend your emotions towards what the relational goal really is. So there is this idea that what what your emotions should be and what they really are, what you're working on, is to have an emotion that fits the situation. So for example, if you are a customer service person and you need to be friendly and and easygoing, then you make sure that your emotions are in line with that and that your response will be in line with that. Now, one of the interesting consequences of that way of thinking of um seeing emotions between people is that people in those kinds of cultures actually don't have as much problem suppress making the emotion, shaping the emotion or the emotional expression in the way that's expected or that that fits with the situation. So, for example, customer service employees are friendly, they mostly, when they act friendly, they mostly also feel friendly. And they're not there, there are no signs of that it's particularly exhaustive or that they have burnouts. Whereas there's a whole literature in in sociology, in in Western sociology, that is about emotion labor, as it's called, where basically the message is that if you need to be friendly all the time and you don't feel so so friendly, that or happy, um, that that's really bad for you, that it can lead to burnout, it in fact does, um, that when you have to act as if you're friendly or happy and you don't feel that, that it's really that there's really a discrepancy. And and even there is even some literature that suggests that if in those contexts, if you suppress your emotions, that the feelings go up. So it's a very psychodynamic idea of your emotions, you know, they're inside and they need to come out. Well, that is an example of a mechanism that really works differently when you have this different perspective of emotions. And you can also, you know, not that we understand everything about it, but you can sort of see that if you know, if you treat your emotions as something that is your authentic self and that is inside you, and the circumstances require you to regulate their expression somehow, that that is costly. But that if you think that to begin with, emotions are things that you do between people and that are there to achieve certain goals in the situation, that that is a much more natural, um, natural adjustment to okay, somebody asks you to do something else in a slightly different environment, big deal. So so it's so it's it's not it's there are definitely different definitely lenses. There are lenses that are more adopted, not exclusively adopted, but more adopted by some culture than in other cultures. There are also ways in which people approach their emotions, even collectively or individually, that make a number of emotional phenomena also different, as in the example of the of the regulation of the or the emotion labor. Um those are the two ways of thinking about it. The other way in which, you know, in which I may be radical is um there is still um there is still a debate in the psychological research between people who think that emotions are are basic emotions and and sort of essential in you know, in like there is an anger that's the same everywhere. I think that the evidence for that, especially the cross-cultural evidence, is really, really weak. I mean, you know, of course, we can find translations of anger, some translations of anger in most in most languages. But when you actually start to look at what those angers look like, they're very different. And so, you know, of course, you you you translate one to the other, and so you're you're you're emphasizing the commonalities, but often it's not even clear what is, you know, so it okay, so I have this anger, um, but it doesn't feel in one culture it's a good emotion, in another culture it's a bad emotion. In one culture, I yield to it and I I make it stronger. In the other culture, I suppress it and try to avoid it. In one culture, you know, it has a certain look on the face, in the other culture, it has another look on the face. In one culture, people are kind of thinking that you have you, you you are rightfully defending your rights and they uh they they accommodate to your wishes, and in another culture, they think that you're immature and childish. You know, at the end of the at the end of the of the story, you have to wonder what is still similar in those experiences. We also know that it's not, it's not like emotions are not mapping one-on-one in the brain. We know that now. So it's not like you know, there's this mechanism that that we can that if you were to see through the skull that you that you you would see it sitting there and firing. It's not like the inside out. They're not really figures that you can so then the question is what what what are we talking about actually, when we're talking about um about anger in one culture and in another. And I think that's um that's a more useful question to ask than to assume that they're they're similar, and then to say, but this is different, this is different, different, this is different. So, what I say in the book is that when you know, when I talk about anger and when let's say my Japanese colleagues talk about anger, that first of all, we're talking probably about very different situations, a range of very different situations, and that the episodes that we refer to by that word are very different. And so that what it really takes to understand emotions in different cultures is to understand what is going on between people and not assume it. So, so there is also an epistemological argument, like, well, how would we find out more? How would we understand more? When we assume that that we're somewhat different, and when we have to figure out how another person feels, or when we assume that we're we're similar and that I project whatever is in my experience of or concept of anger. And I think it's the it's the former. I think that we understand each other. So that's also the the sentence that you quoted. I think that we can, you know, some people have, I I can see the intuitive appeal of saying, well, we're all humans and we all have feelings. But the problem with that is that we, of course, we all have feelings. We all all care about things. And and you know, we can talk about some commonalities beyond that too. But I think we would understand each other better as human beings if we actually spend a little more time on trying to understand what life is about, what is important for people, and not assume that life is about the same thing everywhere and that the same things are important for people, or that people, you know, that you can just read from a person's face what all is going on. I don't think that that's the case. And I also think, you know, there is a there is an argument of, you know, I can give you evidence that it's not the case, but there is also the argument of how would we find out more, how do we actually respect each other more by just projecting our you know, our own feelings or by trying to figure out what was important for you? And I think the the my answer is the letter.
SPEAKER_02So thank you, Petra. I I've got a burning question of I wonder what Inside Out 2, the hours model version might look like.
SPEAKER_00And have have Pixar been in contact yet to no, no, I'm not a creative, I'm clearly not a creative director. I I say that in the book. Uh I wish I could show you a movie that was that was equally compelling, but I'm not in that domain. So you'll have to you're talking to a psycho to a boring psychologist, I'm afraid.
SPEAKER_02Someone might take the book and be inspired to write a screenplay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's really interesting. What I mean, I have been thinking what it would look like. Um you know, it wouldn't look like single people, it would look more like a, but you know, if I had a model, I would have I would have used it in the book because that's the million-dollar question, I think. What would you what would you come up with? What would be a metaphor that was equally strong but that represented the other way of having emotions better?
SPEAKER_03I suppose this idea of it would you say that in for for you that you think that there is one of these models that we should be do they each have a place or is there one that we need to be focusing on more?
SPEAKER_00It's a really interesting question, and I think it's a question that I did a poor job of answering because uh people uh people keep asking me that. Um and I think it's different for different parts of the model, so that tells you that it's not completely thought through. Um, I think for the you know, the mental feelings and the relational acts, you know, I'm just saying where the the opposites parts of the acronyms. Um, there I think emotions are both. Um, and and I think that I also say write that in the book, that I think that for for Westerners that it's actually really helpful to also think about emotions as what do they do in the relationship. So I I give a personal example um where I started crying in um in a meeting, and you know, my mostly male colleagues were really um uneasy with it, and it didn't, and so I was I was thinking, what does it do? And the crying really is, I think, asking for help from people whom you have a close relationship with. So it's interesting to know that that was my model of collegial interaction, right? Um the model that was dominant at the moment was at that point was um was uh um slamming on the table and demanding what you needed for your group. I mean, it was uh it was uh was about finances and and and being divided and saying this is unreasonable and how could you think? And it's also it's you know it's equally it's equally emotional, but it just has a different way of relating to of positioning yourself in respect to other people. And I'm not saying that one is better than the other, I'm saying that people as they choose is too much of a voluntary word, but as they have their emotions, they're actually that's a way of of engaging in a relationship. And it may be, you know, choose is not the right word because often we're socialized to choose certain ways. It's not that, you know, it's not that in at every moment and you you choose what way am I gonna engage. I I use it as an example of of gendered socialization where you know where I'm where I was raised not to fight with people but to connect, uh very, very much of a women's uh female role. Um and you know, I think likewise some people who are humiliated become small, and some people who are humiliated become really angry because it's a way to save honor. Um, and you know, it's not that the people who who have, you know, who respond naturally with being really angry and and and hostile that they think let me be hostile now. But it is, of course, a culture that says if you want to have, if you want to claim your position, this is the only way in which you can do so. So I think, you know, in that way we should understand it. But it is interesting, I think, to see also for Westerners to see emotions not as feelings inside us only, because that also makes them inexplicable, you know, making seeing them as, you know, it's something that our body does also, of course. I mean, it's embodied experiences, not saying the body is not involved. But in a way, your emotion tells you something about the way you engage in that relationship, and that's that's good, that's additional information, I think that would be good everywhere. Um, somebody asked me the question the other way around. What would it how would it help ours and cultures that are more focused on the ours to look more at their um their emotions or their feelings? I'm not completely sure, but I could see that um sometimes it gives you maybe information about the goal you were really following while things were going on. I mean, feeling does mean something about what you had wished for, what you're striving for. So, in that sense, I think that it that, you know, to the extent that in those cultures there's any place for individual goals or or values, I think it may be informative. And so in that sense, I also think that when you say, like, you know, I want to see what I really feel, it's not because because that's more natural or authentic, but in a way, of course, your feelings give informate give you information about what were was this disappointing or was it more pleasant than you thought? Is it going well? Is it not going so well? So, in in that sense, feelings are also very informative about what you were up to as a as a person or even how you evaluate the situation as it's going on. Um the uh inside outside, I think it's both, as I said, as I said, I think it's between us, and it's very importantly between us, but it's also it's also me. And you know, at different at different moments in your life and in different relationships, there is a different emphasis on what is most important. I always give, and this is I give this example as an example that I think holds for in Western context, where, you know, I think with my children, it's actually much more important what I give to them in the sense of how my emotions are having an effect on them than what I particularly feel. And so I think it's for for many people, it's the closest, for many Western people, it's the closest to something like an interdependence relationship where you're really focused on the on the other person most of the time. I think most most parents and for a period of life in their children's life, but it's um, you know, it's certainly both important. The essentialist and situated, and that's where um I think I didn't do a very good job. I really think that emotions are situated and that there are there is no essence of. I mean, if just to give an example, uh my love for my children is a very different love than my love for my for my partner. And if it if that weren't the case, people would be very worried, I think. Um my anger at my partner is very different from my anger at the world, for you know, at the end, injustice in the world. So I think we use these emotions. It's a category of of experiences that we we talk about, and that for one reason or another, we group together, but we're actually also flexible in grouping them. We are we can describe the same emo the same situation or the same episode as one of anger or one of sadness or one of jealousy, depending on where we focus our attention. And we can we can different situations, you know, consecutive situations, depending on the time of life or depending on the relationship, we can also evaluate them differently. So I think that's a a much more fluid and situated process. And that really the idea that emotions are essences or things is really just wrong. Um, I I really don't think they oak also there is some there's some research trying to see. Um, it's usually, I don't know if you speak that language, but there's some research trying to see what appraisals um, so people, what appraisals are associated with, for example, anger. There's research done by one of my interesting colleagues at Leuven, uh, Peter Koppens, who did research on anger and anger among Belgian students. And he made them say, you know, was it was it and was it was it good or bad? Uh what did somebody have responsibility? Was it fair or unfair? Was it frustrating? A number of those, and those are called appraisals. So um, and he found that, you know, yes, those appraisals were in anger, but there were many different angers, and there was, it was not only that um that not all appraisals happened, you know, every time when there was anger, it was even that there wasn't a single appraisal that was necessary as a component to call an experience anger. So, in other words, we call we call our experiences anger or the episode anger, sometimes because we're frustrated, and other times because somebody else did something negative, you know, and was responsible, and sometimes because it was unfair. And you know, and all of those somehow we connect to each other, but they are very loosely connected, and they're connected in our conceptual system more than that they are in the real in the real world or in our head or in our bodies. So that's So that last aspect of mine and ours, the situated in essences, I think we essentialize them. Uh we tend to essentialize them in Western cultures. People in in other cultures do so less. Um, but I I I think they're they're very different, you know, they're very even if we think about it ourselves, it's just the situation is everything. And the emotion also feels different in those different situations. It may have some similarity somehow, but but it's not the same emotion. And probably we should say there's never exactly the same emotion in another time. We every time we, you know, we have we make this new episode that we can connect to previous experiences. And that's why we say, well, you know, this looked pretty much like a previous instance of anger. And what did I do then, or what did I feel then? And so we we take some of that information to guide us through a new uh new experience or a new episode. Um, and that by the way, is also what is so hard in um, I'm I'm jumping to another topic, but that's so hard when we move to another culture because our expectations based on previous experiences just don't hold. You know, what other people do or what I am supposed to say or what its situations are that people how people respond to me when I'm angry or when I say that I'm sad is different. And so what I, you know, it's it is as if I'm dancing that dance, but other people are not. So that's but that's another another topic. But I think you know, that's how we in cultures, because we share some of the experiences, we are we do have certain expectations of how other people will respond to us, even if if the overwhelming um idea of emotions in Western cultures is that they're inside us. We we would be really surprised if somebody responded in a completely different way than than what we than what we um were used to or what we were predicting.
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, you say we're moving on, but it you're bringing us to the next bit because that's where my my mind was going as well, really. Um and we met with a um a professor from America recently, Ruth Van Rieken. I don't know if you've come across her work. She talks about the concept of cross-cultural children and the third culture kids, um, and the kind of the the process of managing the transition or holding two cultures at the same time within yourself. And I'm thinking about this from the emotional experience and the chapter you talk about in kind of raising children and the impact that this stuff has. And I'm thinking about how emotions socialize children in culture. And I I'm wondering how this what this might have, the relational impact on a family when there's different cultural emotion, different emotional cultures within the same household. And what have you come across any research or um any stories around how this kind of manifests itself in families?
SPEAKER_00We're I I think we know very little about the emotion part. Um we are doing we're not doing work on cross-cultural families, but we are doing work on on second and third generation migrant children. So so the question, you know, one of the questions is specifically what happens when the two parents are from a different culture. And you know, I I don't I don't really know. I think it depends on on how well they can understand each other. And so so one of the things that um one of my former students, um, Michael Boyger at the University of Amsterdam, one of the things that he's looking at now is is cultures, cross-cultural couples. And um what he what he's trying to test out is if you if you teach people that uh some of the differences of some of their misunderstanding really are because they have different cultural, their emotions have different cultural logics. Um, would that you know maybe get them to take a little bit more distance? I think in a way, in a way, it's you know, being a little bit more humble about the conclusions that you draw from from the behaviors, trying to understand a little bit more and how it's how it is contextualized for the partner. And does that help? But we we really don't know very much. We also very we don't we know very little about um we have done some research and are doing some research on what happens to um minority minority kids from uh with an immigrant background, and and and there are different ways to tell the story, but one way to tell the story is that with each generation we see that the emotions in you know certain types of daily situations become more and more similar to the majority group. So until in the third generation, you actually don't see a difference anymore in the in the modal way of experiencing emotions. We what we what we also see is that majority students, or yeah, I'm talking now about Belgian majority students, um, can also learn from immigrant minority students uh when they're in their class and when there is a dense network. So, in other words, when there is a clear, when when the minorities have a lot in common and when they communicate a lot, and what we think um, you know, from is that that means that they have a clear norm. So when there is a clear other norm, majority students actually can move towards that emotional norm too. So it gives us some hope that the process can be bi-directional, and that's you know, that depending what we know very little about, um, also because it's just hard to to study is what people do when they're exposed to two cultures and to what extent those become two different islands in their heads where you know where you where you code switch very much, or to what extent there's an emergent culture where you just take some some of each and make it work in both circumstances. Not only don't we know what most people do, that's actually one of um that's that's one of the one of the things that we're doing research on now. We also don't know what is good for people or in in terms of their well-being, in terms of their adjustments. We're we're um often studying uh kids in middle and high school because they can be studied, um, and because also we feel that that's the future, and because it's one of the environments where where kids are exposed in a segregated society where we know that kids in many schools are uh interacting with each other. So it's for all those reasons it's an interesting environment. Um and so what what we don't know is what is good for kids. Well, you know, what what is it is it is it good for kids to have a strong to be part of a of an immigrant culture and to have that social support and and to in that way be strong in the school environment? Are uh are immigrant kids actually more accepted, for example, or more blended when they're in a major still a majority context, which is the school. Um is that an advantage or are they never accepted? How well, you know, how how close they are emotionally, you know, is it just something else? So we don't know all of those things. I would say we know very little. And the other question, the original question that you asked uh about families with different cultures. I don't know, I was married to um to uh my the father of my children is American, and we had some some different ideas, but I think so do most so do most parents, right? You also it's also very hard to know what is cultural when it's a one-on-one relationship, what is cultural and what is just mom is more lenient than that, you know, or uh mom finds these kind of things important, and dad finds these things important. And I'm also not completely sure, you know, in some way, marriages are always a coming together of cultures, right? If it's a very small way, of course, but you know, nobody was raised in the same, you're not you're not marrying your brother, and so so in a way, I think it's the kind of adjustment, uh adjustments that parents and and and partners make to each other, except there are a little bit more, they're probably there sometimes more distances. And I think when you came from the same neighborhood and the kind in the same the kind of similar environment, that there is um more of a frame of reference that you share, even if it wasn't exactly the same. But I, as far as I know, there's very little, we're really at the beginnings of of uh answering those questions or researching those questions. And one of the things I want to say is that we didn't have reason to study those questions when we thought that emotions were basic, right? This is one of illustrations of what I said in the beginning that I think we have more to gain from from uh from allowing for differences in that, well, people have to make those adjustments. What they do what do they look like? Let's look at it more carefully instead of assuming that we're all sort of more or less the same. Um, so but it but it is it is very in a very new framework of um of studying acculturation. Um it's interesting. You're probably in your in your system therapy, it's probably something that you come across. I don't know. Do you have experiences with cross-cultural couples?
SPEAKER_02Oh, oh, I mean, living in London as well, of course, yeah. A lot of um exposure to to people managing those things in their day-to-day lives, their day-to-day interactions, and uh personally as well, you know. I'm in a multicultural relationship. Um, so we're I mean, hearing you talk takes me to arguments I've having with my partner and and all the time on how we try to manage this. I'm like, boy, why did you get angry? I'm not angry, you look angry, you know. I mean, but I think this is probably a very common thing, even as you're saying, for people within a very similar culture, anyway, and upbringing and all of that. But what I'm interested in actually in in that chapter that you're talking about, um, in raising children, was thinking about the the variances in the minds and ours model of emotions and what's privileged and what that might have, what impact that might have on child development, child rearing. Um and I think you talk about some of those emotions of kind of like shame. And I guess we talk about the socialization of emotions again.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, there are many things to say about shame. Uh one of the things is that you know, in not, I think in many in Anglo, I never know how to buy, you know, Anglo-Western cultures, middle class. I mean, it's certainly not. We think of shame as something that is bad for a child. And you know, the the the discourse is often that you need to that a child needs to have self-esteem, needs to learn to like themselves, needs to be self-uh certain. And that is very much uh the perspective of a culture in which children are by themselves and need to achieve things by themselves as an individual, need to develop autonomy and and um and be good and well and yeah, good and achieving in the world by themselves. In many cultures, um, the idea is much more. I would say, I'm I'm not sure I only think that has to do with mine and ours, but shame can be a very uh useful emotion in some cultures where you know, where what is important is that a child knows it's his or her place in the hierarchy. And that sounds, you know, it's just knowing that you, you know, as a child, you need to own up to your mistakes, you need to be proper. And so in many cultures, shame is actually a child needs to realize when they when they uh sorry, a word escapes me. Uh a child needs to realize when they're not behaving according to the norms, uh and when they need to behave like a proper child. And so for many, for many mothers in many cultures, shame is actually a way of socializing kids, and a kid who shows shame is a kid who is well, who is who's raised well. So uh a kid with shame reflects well on the parents, and the parents are happy when they when the child recognizes how they um how they violated norms and and also owns up to them. So it has a very the the emotion of shame has a very different position. Um and also it has very different consequences. So in in Western literature, shame kids kids who have who are of shame in general, also for for adults is is associated with depression and and not feeling good good about yourself. Um, that is not the case in many Asian cultures. Um shame is not a bad emotion, it doesn't lead to maladjustment. In fact, it's it's an emotion that shows that you're well adjusted. And it also comes with acceptance by others, especially by parents who then, you know, who are can then be proud of you as a child because you did the right thing. You are you're clearly your good child, you know what you did wrong and you're owning up to it. So it has this very different uh position. And in many, in many cultures, it's what what um anthropologists and and developmental psychologists call socializing emotion. It's a it's an emotion that is so many um mothers in in China, in you know, a lot of East Asian cultures want their child to be ashamed because that and and to see how they violated norms or where they made mistakes. Um and so it's a good emotion. They will point out this was wrong and and look when I when you made me ashamed here, and they really ponder on on the on the times where the child did something wrong, so that the child will feel appropriately ashamed. And then the shame is greeted with um with you know, is welcomed, is greeted with approve with approval. So it so if you compare that to shame in um in a Western context where it really you you avoid making kids ashamed, usually you want them to feel good about themselves. When they're ashamed, that usually means no good. Um, they're certainly not shame, is you know, a person who is ashamed is at risk of being expelled. So it's you know, it's it's really it's a reflection on not having the social status that you would want to. And it is associated with not very positive responses by other people, and also um in the in the long run um with maladjustments such as depressive symptoms. So it's a very different beast in those cultures. Now, I don't know if you had one parent that's coming returning to your question. I I don't know if you had one parent who saw shame in one way and another parent who saw shame in other ways, how that would work. You know, that's an interesting that's an interesting question.
SPEAKER_02A conflict between how how useful that is, how to express that when I mean I'm I'm thinking about my own experience of being a being parented, and my mom would be one who would be more kind of leaning towards using shame in a way to say um like in Turkish the word is ayup, that's rude, you know, that's that's you're almost bringing shame to the family, you know, it's kind of um whereas my dad would be different, maybe he would he'd be more about kind of self-esteem and you know, giving confidence, and um, and there was there was a difference to that, and they're they're both from the same culture, you know. Um but I I'm wondering about kind of labor of roles within that as well, and the kind of the gender divide of parenting roles in my upbringing, in my culture, how that also plays into there, yeah, there that could be could be, although I think in East uh Turkish the the role of shame is still different.
SPEAKER_00I think in honor cultures like um like Turkey, you should definitely have enough shame to not shame your parents, but then to be humiliated or shamed by somebody else, that would be uh that that elicits another response, right? It's a more it's that that's not that's not the cycle that I just described. What I just described is probably more face cultures, and what you're describing is an honor culture, which is even even different from a from uh a face culture. But in both cases, I think the the response of others or how others look at you is really important, and and shame plays a role there because a person who is ashamed looks at themselves as if they were uh evaluated by other people. And so, in you know, in most cultures outside of Western or what is sometimes called dignity cultures, people really want uh individuals to look at themselves from the perspective of how other people would would judge them. The self, the the value of the self is really determined by how other people see you. Um, and I think in Western cultures is it's much more that your your inner value, you know, you you your self-esteem is important. It's how you see yourself. Um, so we yeah, so that's definitely different. Uh that's different, definitely a different perspective. What I see in some mixed couples, but I only have a few examples, is is that both both are developed somewhat, you know, that you both uh but that's certainly not true within a culture. I mean, the Chinese mothers in um in some of the research that I described, they they told the researcher that they weren't afraid that their children would be ashamed of themselves. They were afraid of shameless kids. Shameless kids could really um bring shame on the family. I mean, that that was that was a horrible thing to to imagine. Um, and I think it would be the opposite for people, uh Western people. My grandmother, by the way, it's not um, this is maybe a good thing to say. Um, culture is is always in flux, right? It's always changing. So I think one of the some of the things that my grandmother would say were were more shame focused or were more other people's approval focused than than what my generation grew up with. Um, you know, things like you always you always want to make sure that your underwear is um clean and whole. Because suppose that they hust they have to hospitalize you and the other people would see you. You know, there was always this, or it's it was very much about about much more about the appearance of the family or what other people would think of you. So I think you know, it's a it's a changing, it's it's changing. It's not it's not that old Chinese are this way and old so and and that's of course something to say about third cultures and even um even first generation immigrants um you know arrive in a c are exposed to another culture. There is it's not a fixed, you know, they don't carry the culture in them. The culture is something that is maintained with other people. So if you start interacting with other people, your values and your frame of reference uh may change. And that's what I think could happen also between between uh partners of a couple is that you create that that in the end, you create you know successful marriage. I think you do that anyway, you sort of create an emergent culture, and it's not that you're always you're always completely aligned, but you make you make a workable relationship, also in terms of emotions, I think. Try to, you know, you try to understand how another person responds and where it comes from. And you may not like everything, but you you can more You start understanding them from their perspective more when it works. You know.
SPEAKER_03And I suppose I guess back to what I'm one of the things that I'm getting from from this conversation is is that in a way culture is like you said, it's influx, it's constantly emerging, it's emerging what happens between us, between people. Um and that in a way it's sort of shifted my perception of like when we think of emotional intelligence, that there's an opportunity or there's an offering in your book, in a way, to sort of um extend yourself in terms of emotional intelligence. Because how do you meet whoever is in front of you with an acceptance or a willingness to have an understanding of them and them to have an understanding of you and to see what you might create together in terms of under understanding um and being in relationship with each other? And my head was going to, I suppose it made me think you mentioned research and to do with schools. And I was thinking what what what as a society, where are the places then really for us to be um allowing people to learn these tools or to understand the need for this, if we're thinking of the mine and that and ours, and um because I suppose if you think in the in the room in the therapeutic space, you know, I think Cesar and I were talking, people come, you hope, with the willingness to unpack these things and to have these conversations. Um but there's also a a call or a need for everybody in a way to have this language.
SPEAKER_00I agree, I agree, and I think that um, you know, I think it's a really good thing that social and emotional learning is now a part of many curricula uh or curriculums. Um I I it's very hard to really get a sense of what people do there because most of the programs that introduce are paid programs, so you never get sort of coarse categories of learning. But from what I can from what I sense is that there is not a lot of attention to cultural and individual differences, that it's very much about a one type of intelligence. And I think that's you know, it's certainly good. I think we make we've made a big step forwards um to even give attention to emotional intelligence because it used to be that we thought, you know, that we thought it was all about the subjects and the and uh the cognitive intelligence. I think a big part of what happens in people's lives is about emotional intelligence. But I don't think we I think we've only started to pay attention to a diversified kind of emotional intelligence. And I think you phrased that really well. We we're gonna have to set up a space and be humble and allow for different ways of experiencing the world and and give each other time to to be ourselves and to explain ourselves to others. And I do think that the schools could have a could have a function there that you know that that's even the assumption that people are different and and how are they different would create some space for kids to give their perspective. And you know, what I say in the book is um they're very general interventions um that I consider as um there is uh an intervention with teachers in uh I think somewhere in the United States, where they had teachers not penalize the the students, but you know, wait uh a minute and try to find out what was going on for the student. And that already uh reduced the um, I I can't remember, reduced the I think the punishments, but I can't I can't remember. Maybe anyway, they resolved it. So I think giving a minute or two to students to explain themselves or to understand where they come from is probably all that's needed, right? In the so not immediately jump to conclusions or this student had bad intentions, or this student. And I I mentioned a few examples in the book where I think you know, a kid, a kid who um who gets accused of something and and is ashamed, um, that may be in a Western context a sign that they've done it, but maybe the kid only wanted to be respectful. Um, and it's it's actually a serious, it's a real, it's a real example. Um, and it's a real example of cultural differences, or a kid that you know that that is kind of aggressive and threatening, but in in response to a teacher that puts him on the spot with all his friends, where you can say this is an aggressive kid, or you can say this kid couldn't do anything else to protect their respect. You have to give them a respectful way out. Um, and I don't know how we can do that, how we can allow for, I mean, we will have to train our teachers to allow the students a little more space to give meaning to their to their acts, their responses, and um, and you know, and not immediately suggest that a child who was who responds differently than your Anglo-middle class child has necessarily bad intentions.
SPEAKER_03Um absolutely. And and I think the other thing that Cesare and I spoke about in regards to that was I mean, you know, I we both work in mental health settings about diagnosis and even when you're presented with people who come into a clinic of what what they're presenting with, is it really, you know, depri you know, depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, or could it be this is the invitation I think in your book is is thinking beyond be you know be beyond the sort of mine way of looking at things. There might be other questions to ask and other information to get from people that you absolutely and the and the diagnostic criterion is not always how you feel.
SPEAKER_00So that and and there's there's some research on um especially on depression, where you know the the mental phenomena, the the the feelings of sadness or desperateness, or they show up less in um in in a lot of other cultures where there is something of loss of energy, loss of connection, but not it doesn't necessarily present itself in terms of the mental the mental phenomena or the mental feelings. So there is a little bit of research about that, but I think I I also I talked to an to an Algerian um person who works with um uh PTSD um uh victims in Algerian men. And he said, Well, I can't possibly ask them, you know, are you are you feeling weak and vulnerable? You know, you um and you know, I was I was talking to him about, well, well, of course not, because that's presenting yourself, you know, you're in a you're in an honor culture, and then you're saying you're you're weak and vulnerable. That's not how you would present yourself. But what would it feel like? It would feel like I have ambitions that I cannot meet, right? I can't, I really have goals that, and it's much harder for me to meet those goals than before the war, those kind of things. What I wish I what I wish I could do if I didn't have um these memories of the war. I mean, those are probably things that you can get them to talk about, but not about being depressed, vulnerable, and weak. So I think even the language of of of reaching people has to be changed because it's not about finding your real weaknesses with within, but it's about your relationship with the world and and your positioning with with the world, other than positioning yourself in a way that would reflect badly on you or poorly on your family. So it's really about things that you could that you cannot do. Uh, a lot of the I I worked in in Bosnia for a while um during the war and I interviewed um Bosnian traumatized women. I will say a lot of their stories were about the body. It was about uh really feeling sick to their stomach, uh fatigued, not well. You know, I'm sure they felt that too. But there was hardly any mention of, for especially the non-educated people, there was no mention of anxiety, depression. You know, it's not that they were raped, they lost their family, and they were unsafe at that point. It was during the war. So, you know, the conclusion cannot be that they only have physical problems, but it it means that their relationship with the world was expressed in a in a different way. Their position, um, yeah, their positioning or the way they experience life had a different vocabulary. And and I think, yeah, we have to allow for the different vocabulary and search for search for the way in which people express their own symptoms and and maybe give them tools that are closer to what to what in their society is um is a useful or meaningful tool to describe what's going on. So in that sense, I think it's it's important because of course, in the mental health, mental health professional, one of the things you do is reach, is is provide people with tools to understand what's going on with them. And you know, one way of providing them with those tools is to relate it to the context, to the experiences that they have went that they have gone to, and to ask them what those experiences mean for them, how they see their life now as different from their life before, or what has changed in the circumstances. So, so there are many ways of helping people articulate the experiences that they had without necessarily referring to a mental vocabulary.
SPEAKER_02Just hearing you both talk is is got me thinking about kind of matters of power, power dynamics. And I'm thinking about kind of intersectionality and power, so that the intersection of like cultural variations of emotion and other social categories like like gender and class and race and religion and sexuality and and how that might introduce kind of additional power dynamics. Just thinking how different identities they may um they may experience and express or have the kind of not ability, not it's not the word ability, but they might be free to express certain emotions differently because of their social identities, and how there might be a power imbalance within that. So for a person of a certain race to express anger in a certain situation may be very, very unsafe, whereas for another person to express that same emotion might be really kind of valued or you know accepted. Oh, he's that person's very angry about this, therefore we take them serious, where the other person expressing anger might be a real signifier of threat. And how much how much we think about that stuff really of the kind of power dynamics in the expression of emotion?
SPEAKER_00It's a really complicated one. Um, you know, I I in the book I write I I write about anger specifically because anger in a in a way is claiming a right, claiming the right to be better, the to be treated better. And what we know is that that claim is accepted more easily from uh white men, basically. I mean, we see that that angry claims by women do not get the same weight. We also see that angry um it's it's even more complicated, I think, um, in people of color, when uh especially men, when they're angry, they're um it's not only that they don't have the right, but they're also it it makes them into angry young, threatening young men, right? And and that's you know, in a lot of countries that is actually happening also with police intervention. So it is, it's but but definitely for both of them, and and women also had a backlash. There is a whole literature on the backlash of women who are not even angry but assertive. Um, you know, how you may sometimes get what you want, but you're not liked for it. And often you don't get what you want because you people just think you don't have the right to make that claim. And there um, you know, there is this political scientist, um, I can't remember his name, but who compared the white um you know, white crowds protesting versus black uh black Black Lives Matter protests, and say, you know, the Black Lives Matter protests were described as aggressive and and unreasonable and uh and violent, and meanwhile, the exact same behavior just gets interpreted differently when it's when it's white people claiming their rights. So anger is specifically, we know something about it. We also know that um that male bosses who are angry get more done, but female bosses who are angry get ignored. I mean, there's no effect. Actually, the only thing that has an effect for women is to not be emotional at all, or to be perceived to not be emotional, they're a little bit more effective, but any emotion makes a woman emotional. So so no. So I think what what you do, and and again, I think it helps to see emotions as doing something between people. You really what you do between people by having an emotion is is making a certain proposing a certain interpretation of the relationship between you, right? And that's true for anger, that's also true for shame. Now, the response to that is um you can be chat that interpretation can be challenged. So it it from what we know, it often gets challenged when it's angry and um and you're you happen to be not white and not a man. You know, and and and it's it's interesting. I it would be really interesting to see if that changes with um the changes of economic power. Um, but you know, we don't we don't know that. I could imagine, for example, if you if you and I but I don't know the research, if you uh compare the effectiveness of anger claims by women in countries where gender disparities and income were smaller, you would expect the anger claims to be more effective and to be even be more acceptable. Um, but that's I'm making up a research that I don't would be good research, that would be the prediction. Um so I think you know, I think you're right that your position matters when you when you think of emotions as as claims of actions between people, then your position is uh really matters in making those claims or taking those positions in how people are gonna are gonna respond to it.
SPEAKER_02And how that how power dynamics in a particular culture may shape your um expression. So if I'm coming from a ours cultural, um ours emotional model culture, and I'm moving into something where the kind of mind's model is privileged or is a dominant, the power dynamics within that will impact how I am also working between those two or or having to maybe assimilate or change because of the power dynamics.
SPEAKER_00But that's that's very possible. We uh we don't know that for sure. There is a first, we always thought, um, I can give you one piece of evidence that would that would support your your claim. We always thought that if kids were in multicultural schools, that they would have more contact and that they would then um become more what we call emotionally acculturated, so that the minorities would have more opportunities to learn the majority culture. Um we don't have many findings, but the one finding that we have is that it's actually the opposite, that if a culture is assimilationist, so if they want, if they force basically minorities to become more white in their behavior, then we see more uh emotional acculturation. It's not what I thought, but it does, it is consistent with your idea about power. Like, do you have the power to have emotions from your heritage or immigrant uh culture? And are they respected as another alternative, another equally valuable alternative? But you know, that's one finding where I can I can just tell you that that's what we found, and we haven't published it yet, and we're also really finding out what the dynamics are there. But it is possible that um that if there was more more tolerance and more that if people had more opportunity to become someone in a culture and still capture their way of interpreting the world, that there's less pressure to actually assimilate and that there would be more diversity. I don't I don't know that. I think I think it's a little bit of both. I also think that you know, was I under pressure in in the United States to change a little bit, but I also also by seeing a you know reiteratively how other people look at the world, your own view of the world or your own evaluation, your own interpretation also changes, shifts a little bit in that direction. You just it's also you also get a larger repertoire of possibilities. And so, in that sense, I you know, I what I would think would happen ideally also is that people learn from each other and that it's added possibility, possibilities of of experiencing the world and of being a person in the world. But that I don't know if that in fact happens and under what circumstances that's what the research is about currently.
SPEAKER_03And maybe there's a sort of role higher up, like I'm thinking in schools, like the role the teachers play, but then also the role governments play, everybody has a different role to play to allow for that possibility, I suppose.
SPEAKER_00In what you're saying. Our reason to um we have studies. I mean, in some in some research, we study the the diversity uh oriented beliefs of teachers, but in this research we we looked at the um the school mission plans of of schools, and we we coded them in that way along multiculturalism and assimilation. So you can really say it's it's the it's the missions, it's the school, it's kind of the school climate that that's a little vague, but whatever that is.
SPEAKER_03And I suppose even that though, then gets influence. I suppose I'm thinking in this country, for example, like if you just look at the history of Britain and colonialism and then how even that still probably finds its way all the way into a classroom today.
SPEAKER_00Sure. Yeah. Cultures are slow to change and we have a long way to go, but yeah.
SPEAKER_03But it's good to have, I think, what what you've brought and what you say in the book of um, you know, it is the there's a possibility for us to embrace all of it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think so. I think we're making emotions as we go together between us, as uh as the book says. Exactly. We play a role. That's the hopeful part of the book.
SPEAKER_02When you were talking about maybe the the expression of um maybe was you under pressure to to kind of express emotions a certain way in America, that that brought me to something when I was reading your book, and and it was an uncomfortable feeling, actually. A story you shared when um I think it was a work colleague who had offered to go to lunch or something, or to dinner, maybe, and you was just kind of matter-of-fact about it and said you're busy. Um and and then another colleague in a helpful way had pulled you aside to say, you know, that that might have come across rude, and maybe you should have in a kind of helpful, well-intentioned way of coaching, in a way to to help help you manage that way so you don't come across rude, because that is not how you want it to come across. And I I can see that I can see that being a well intentioned action from a friend and quite useful for someone who's in that moment. But for some reason, reading it, it made me think of uh have you seen the film um by Borat about um have you seen uh do you know this film?
SPEAKER_00I think. I do. I think I do know what you refer to. The um British women who talk down to him. Is that right?
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's those scenes. But the the the kind of the theme of the film is he's obviously doing a satire where he goes to America and he does very, very like kind of like non-American things or weird, abstract, you know, obscure things. And then in America, the people are always trying to say, Oh no, that's not how we do it here. And they always try to help him. And it's that awkwardness that he picks up on in it for a comedic effect. Um so again, there was something when I read it, it brought me to that because he highlights some of the issues within that. And it brought me to this idea of kind of globalization, a single way of doing things, and and yeah, the tension between those things being helpful for someone, being in that moment, and you you don't want to come across rude, and you do want to kind of understand the cultural norms, but then to be made to feel weird and other as well, and that that that bit felt off for me, and I didn't know I think they're very different experiences.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I so for me, I was really an immigrant who I arrived there as a as a postdoctoral researcher. I was clearly from another country. At that point, anyway, it wasn't my country. I really came to visit. So for me to for her to say this is, you know, this is how it might come across here was helpful. I mostly I mostly experienced that as helpful. That becomes harder once you're part of a culture, right? If if you know, if I am if I'm working in a department and the department's chair says, um, this is not how we're doing things, and I think, who's the we here? Am I not one of the we? That becomes different. And and I also think that that's the that's what you're picking up on. You know, if I tell my third generation Turkish person who was born in, you know, in a country, who is the country, that this is not how we do things, then then you're then then you're playing right into the power dynamics because who is the we here? We're you know, we're deciding what the we is. So I don't think that's um, you know, I don't think that's generally within a society a way of um of solving the problems of diversity, like this is how we do. But at that point it was really not inappropriate because I had been in the United States for two months and I was doing my best, but you know, my English wasn't that great, and um, I didn't know how things were were being done. And so to say that, you know, maybe, maybe, you know, maybe I I know you don't mean this route, but if you, you know, this this is how it would come across. We would say something like, if we just wanted to say, not this time, you know, I can't have lunch tomorrow, but I would love to have lunch a week from now, then say it that way. That was helpful at that point. But I I think it's a real big difference. I mean, if you were on vacation in France um and you were waiting for, you know, for in line for the baguette, and somebody said this is not how you do it, you know, that would be no problem. It becomes a problem when you're actually French, and you know, and just you're just doing it in a different way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's an important distinction. That's a bit distinction.
SPEAKER_00The other thing Yeah, no, go ahead. No, no, no. I think it's really what who's the we is really the the and I at that point I didn't feel I didn't feel like I was the we at all. I didn't feel I could make a claim on the we.
SPEAKER_02The other thing, and I I might be changing gears a little bit, is but just for you for you looking back on your well uh a career in researching this stuff, really complex stuff, right? And um I'm wondering for you looking back, what you might say have been some of the main challenges or difficulties as a researcher in looking at the cultural variations of emotions.
SPEAKER_00I think the main challenge is to leave behind your own ideas about what emotions are. I mean, I had so there were so many times where I think in retrospect, if I only had believed my data, you know, I would have gotten to this point a lot earlier. I just thought, you know, I I didn't think the people knew what I was talking about when they gave me answers I didn't expect. I mean, and I was a sensitive, I was I've always, as I said earlier, I've always been sensitive to social justice and doing, but it's so hard to abandon the idea that emotions are deep inside us and to, you know, to to think in a different to think that people could really not. I mean, one of the examples that I have in the book is first of all, I asked Turkish immigrants and Surinamese immigrants in the Netherlands and Dutch people to list emotions. And then, especially the Turkish, actually, but also the Surinamese, they gave me a lot of words that I didn't consider emotions. And I just, you know, my first response was just to discard them. Well, that these are just not emotions. Like as if I had a clear definition of what emotions was. Nobody does. So so really it was my disbelief that so I, you know, I I took them out, I reported them, but I I took, I didn't do anything indecent, but I just didn't believe my um the findings or my my respondents to know what they were doing. And in retrospect, that's exactly it shows that you know, the emotion words were not so much different from the words that showed it to the outside people, but to the outside world, because you know, crying and sadness are not so different when you think that emotions are between people anyway. So so I think that was a major challenge. Um, I also had, I remember I did interviews with uh a Japanese colleague, and I wanted to ask the Japanese the simple question of how intense was your emotion in that situation. And she said this the respondents didn't understand that question. And so we we changed the question and we made it something like how important was the situation? And I was a little annoyed with the difficulties of translation, but at the time, I mean, if you would have asked me at the time, I would have said stupid translators, can they can't, you know, but but in retrospect, I think if you don't, I think it was it was uh deeply meaningful because if you don't think of emotions as things in you, feelings in you, how can you say how intense it is? How intense is the interaction between you and another person? That's just a weird thing to ask. So, how important is the event, or how much has it changed? Well, so so I think that the the small cues that I got that I that it took me the longest time to take them actually really seriously. Um that is the hard that was the hardest. So, in retrospect, I wish that I could have relativized everything I thought about emotions and the field thought about emotions much earlier than I did. That's what I would say as a person with a long career. And and you know, to be to be fair, the the first time that I thought of my emotions as cultured was when I moved to the United States, because before that I was studying the Turkish and Surinamese immigrants, and of course I was comparing them to the to the Dutch majority culture. Um, and so I was really introducing a normal a normal deviant. Uh I mean, you know, I was again, I wasn't a bad person, but I thought that my emotions was what they really were. And my audiences often have the same bias. When I um present Japanese, when I presented Japanese and American data, my American audience would ask me, how do you know that the Japanese um don't feel exactly the same as we do? But they just, you know, they are just answering in a socially desirable way. And you know, a lot of it was self-report. So in self-report, you don't know. You have no idea. People's people, the only people who have access to the experience are the people who report. So so so the the most simple answer would be, I don't know. And then I started to answer, well, I don't know, but I also don't know that the Americans didn't feel really like the Japanese, and they just they just reported it because of social desirability. And of course, that made people change because they couldn't imagine that they would feel like the Japanese reported, but they could imagine very easily that the Japanese really felt what they felt, but reported differently. So I think that you know, those it's it's not just me, but it's just really hard to imagine that that an emotional life looks so different, and it can.
SPEAKER_03Thank you, Batcha. I I we normally sort of always end our podcast with asking about you know future hopes, really. Um so maybe now is the time to ask you what are your sort of hopes for emotions for your book for this field going forward. I don't know what you would like to speak to or for cultures and their relationship with emotions.
SPEAKER_00I think one of my hopes is um uh one of my hopes and one of the paths that I am taking now is to um know. I mean, a lot of what I say about how we communicate about emotions across cultural boundaries, however, cultures are defined is kind of speculation. So I think that's how we learn about cultures by being humble and asking or by trying different ways, but I don't really know. Um, and so what I'm hoping for is that we um that we will develop more serious interventions, uh that we will develop more social emotional learning for schools, and that we can actually do that in an evidence-based way. Um and I've started on it, but it's uh it's it's a huge enterprise. So that I I would say that's one of my hopes for the future, that we're actually gonna do something with this knowledge that emotions can look very differently and um and learn to learn to teach how to do emotions across cultures in a more than you know speculative speculative way that I'm doing.
SPEAKER_03Thank you so much, Bacia, for your time, for your experience, uh your words. Very much appreciated.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for having me here. It was really interesting, interesting questions.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. Great fun, and it's an amazing book, and it's a book that's gonna live with me, and I think I'm gonna have to read many, many times really to grapple with it. Um, so we'll just say it again for those people that have been listening. It's called Between Us, How Cultures Create Emotions, and we will put a link in our podcast for anyone that wants to purchase it. So thank you so much, Patra. It's been a real, real honor to have you.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for having me. The picture is coming out next year, by the way.
SPEAKER_02What is what's coming out?
SPEAKER_00Paperback is coming out next year if you wanna.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh. It's always nice, nice and hardback, isn't it? It's my yes, yes. I'm sure the sales go through the roof when it goes paperback. Hopefully. So lovely. Bachelor, thank you so much.
SPEAKER_03Thank you. Have a good weekend. You two.