Introduction
Batja Mesquita’s “Between Us: How Cultures Create Emotions” examines how human feelings are influenced by the cultures we live in. A social psychologist who explores how distinct cultures affect the way we both feel and express emotions, Mesquita mixes ideas from psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience to show us helpful new ways of thinking about emotions.
Book Review
Mesquita argues that emotions are not same for everyone everywhere. Instead, cultures shape what emotions we feel and how we show them.
Her research shows that we have “emotional accents,” which are cultural differences in how we express emotions. Using real-life examples, she outlines how emotional accents work. For example, in ‘Western’ cultures, happiness is often associated with individual achievement and personal fulfilment.
People may express happiness by smiling broadly, laughing aloud, or expressing excitement about their own success. In contrast, in Japan, for example, happiness is often linked to harmony within the group and upholding social harmony. Individuals might express happiness more subtly, with a modest smile or a nod of acknowledgment, to avoid drawing attention to themselves and disrupting the group’s cohesion.
Mesquita’s book challenges the idea that there’s a set list of basic emotions that everyonefeels. Instead, she suggests that emotions change depending on the situation and the culture we’re in. This means our feelings aren’t fixed or universal but can shift based on where we are and what’s happening around us.
“Between Us” is a fascinating look at how culture influences our emotions. Mesquita’s ideas make us rethink what we know about feelings and encourage us to be more aware of cultural differences in how we experience emotions. It’s a book that anyone interested in understanding people better should read.
For social change makers, the take-away from this book is that we shouldn’t think about emotions as being internal to or unique to ourselves and common across all communities of people. Instead, emotions are shaped by culture in a broad sense, and they occur between us – the people we are ‘feeling’ around.
When campaigners are trying to elicit emotional responses by using imagery, slogans, persuasive text to influence human actions, we need to check assumptions about how people might feel and respond to campaign content, and test this in multicultural or cross-cultural settings to be more broadly effective. Otherwise, we’re just campaigning in a dominant cultural silo that won’t reach the majority of people.