6/13/ Culture & Emotion Cor Baerveldt Copyright 2002 © Cor Baerveldt

6/13/ “Free Will as a Western Illusion” ( NRC-Handelsblad, January ) The case of Ali D: blood feud on a Dutch high school. Two questions: –What does it mean to use ‘culture’ in an explanation of behavior? –What is the task of (cultural) psychology?

6/13/ Misconceptions of Culture (Baerveldt & Voestermans, 2000) Culture as civilization Culture as ‘shared’ norms, values, and beliefs Culture as merely an independent variable

6/13/ Misconceptions of Emotion Emotions are passions (something that happens to us rather than something we choose, do, or think) Emotions are subjective and internal (rather than intentional and public) Emotions are natural or biological rather than cultural

6/13/ The Paradox of Cultural Psychology “Especially when people act on the basis of their own ‘authentic’ experience, when they are being ‘themselves’ their actions can be observed to be culturally patterned” Baerveldt & Verheggen, 1999

6/13/ “ Knowing the dominant ideologies, discourses, and symbols of a society is only the beginning. Their remains the hard work of understanding why some of those ideologies, discourses and symbols become more compelling to social actors, while others are only the hollow shell of a morality that may be repeated in official pronouncements but is ignored in private lives” (Claudia Strauss, 1992, p. 1) Culture, Emotion and Motivation

6/13/ Affect is basic “(..) the entire psychological field –including human conception, responsible action, rationality, knowledge- is a vast and branching development of feeling” Susan K. Langer (1967): Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling

6/13/ “Feelings are not substances to be discovered in our blood but social practices organized by stories that we both enact and tell. They are structured by our forms of understanding.” “Emotions are thoughts somehow “felt’ in flushes, pulses, “movements” of our livers, minds, hearts, stomachs, skin. They are embodied thoughts, thoughts seeped with the apprehension that “I am involved” Michelle Rosaldo, 1984, p. 143

6/13/ Emotions and the Self (Levy, 1984) Emotions are feelings that that are connected with the external relations of the self, of ‘I’. This self is intimately constructed out of group processes and interpersonal relationships

6/13/ The Psychological Study of Culture & Emotion Culture is not an explanation of emotion, but something that should be (psychologically) explained Two questions: –Why do people feel compelled to certain ‘cultural models’? What orchestrates the sentiments that are involved in those models? –What kind of psychology do we need in order to understand culturally patterned emotion?

6/13/ Some issues concerning the cultural ‘framing’ of emotions Emotions and gender How does the seemingly natural expression of emotions of men and women contribute to the traditional division of roles? Emotions and ethnicity What feelings are involved in the identification with a particular ethnic group? How are the emotions produced that lead to hostility or amicability between different cultural groups? Emotions and power What emotions make people submit themselves to authority, even when they think this authority is not justified? Question: How do you think each of those issues (gender, ethnicity and power) is involved in the case of Ali D? What emotions do you think are involved? (Think about the role of his father, his culture of background, the role of honour and shame etc.)

6/13/ References Baerveldt, C., & Verheggen, Th. (1999). Enactivism and the experiential reality of culture: Rethinking the epistemological basis of cultural psychology. Culture & Psychology, 5, Baerveldt, C., & Voestermans, P. (2000). Het misverstand cultuur: naar een psychologie van biculturaliteit [The misconception of culture: toward a psychology of biculturalism]. Nederlands Tijdschrift voor de Psychologie, 55, Langer, S. K. (1967): Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University. Levy, R. I. (1984). Emotion, knowing, and culture. In R. A. Shweder & R. A. LeVine (Eds.), Culture theory: essays on mind, self, and emotion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rosaldo, M. (1984). Toward an anthropology of self and feeling. In R. A. Shweder & R. A. LeVine (Eds.), Culture theory: essays on mind, self, and emotion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Strauss, C. (1992). Models and motives. In R. D’Andrade & C. Strauss (Eds.), Human motives and cultural models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.