Cultural Comparisons of Children ’ s Emotion Regulation 1 Running head : CULTURAL COMPARISONS OF CHILDREN ’ S EMOTION REGULATION Broad and Narrow Cultural Comparisons of Children ’ s Emotion Regulation : Studies of Ghana and the United States

This research examined the effects of narrow (i.e., between Ghanaian orphans and village children; Study 1) and broad (i.e., between Ghana and African-American and Caucasian US children; Study 2) cultural contexts on children’s management of anger and sadness. Participants were 54 Ghanaian children, ages 5 to 15 (36 villagers, 18 orphans) and 77 American children, ages 5 to 15, (38 African American, 39 Caucasian American). Children completed the Children’s Anger and Sadness Management Scales (Zeman, Shipman, & Penza-Clyve, 2001) to assess inhibition, coping, and dysregulation strategies. Results of Study 1 indicated that orphans reported more dysregulation whereas village children reported more inhibition of negative emotions. Study 2 found significant cultural differences with Ghanaians reporting more control over their anger than Americans. In both studies, child gender and age effects were found that appear to cut across cultural divides. Cultural Comparisons of Children’s Emotion Regulation 3 Broad and Narrow Cultural Comparisons of Children’s Emotion Regulation: Studies of Ghana and the United States Emotion regulation (ER) is a growing field of interest; however, very little research has been conducted on the role of culture in the development of ER. Socialization processes including the role of the broader culture are important to consider when investigating children’s ER development (Zeman, Cassano, Perry-Parrish, & Stegall, 2006). Without taking cultural factors into account, our understanding of how children’s emotions are socialized is incomplete (Cole, Tamang, & Shrestha, 2006). For example, children in Western culture are actively taught by their parents that there are certain situations in which you do not express how you feel for prosocial (e.g., hurt someone’s feelings) or self-protective (e.g., get in trouble) reasons (Saarni, 1999). These cultural display rules differ depending on the social context in which the emotion is evoked, the type of emotion that is experienced, and the values of the broader culture concerning emotional expressivity. The majority of research on children’s ER has used Western, Caucasian, middle-class samples with little empirical attention paid to minority children in Western culture, let alone children from non-Western cultures (Cole et al., 2006). Further, only a handful of studies have examined how children in African countries may express their emotions (Abiodun, 1993; Grantham-McGregor et al., 2007; Makame & Grantham-McGregor, 2002; Minde, 1975). When examining potential crossand within-cultural differences in ER, however, it is important to not make global generalizations without the requisite empirical evidence to support these statements. (Naidoo, Olowu, Gilbert, & Akotia, 1999). Even within cultures, there are individual contextual differences that influence the socialization, expression, and regulation of emotions (e.g., Brody, 2000; Ekman, 1999). Cultural Comparisons of Children’s Emotion Regulation 4 The primary goal of this study, therefore, was to explore the effect of broad (i.e., national) and specific (i.e., living environment, racial group) cultural contexts on children’s report of their ER skills. Specifically, children and adolescents living in an orphanage within Ghana were compared to their peers living in the village with their families. Then, youth from Ghana living with their families were compared to African-American (AA) and CaucasianAmerican (CA) youth on the ways they reported managing their anger and sadness expression. In order to understand this field of research adequately, a brief, historical overview of emotion research is presented followed by analysis of cross-cultural research methods and findings on emotion. Next, narrower within-culture research examining similarities and differences in ER between CA youth and AA youth is reviewed. The penultimate section describes research that examines specific types of emotion (i.e., anger, sadness) and types of emotion regulation (i.e., inhibition, coping, dysregulation) that are of particular relevance to the present study. Finally, an introduction to the goals and hypotheses of the present study is presented. Historical overview of emotion research From the earliest theories on emotions, a tendency to view emotions through a biological paradigm has pervaded emotion research. For instance, the James-Lange Theory of Emotion (1885/1994) argues that the recognition of emotions is based on the physiological reaction of the body. According to this theory, experiences produce physical responses of the central nervous system (e.g., perspiration, increased heart rate), thus emotions are the results of these physical feelings. For example, one would perceive the feeling of sadness because of tears. The next major theory of emotion, the Cannon-Bard theory (Cannon, 1927), emerged in opposition to the James-Lange Theory. The Cannon-Bard theory states that arousal caused by an emotion-eliciting event is too undifferentiated for one to infer a subsequent emotion (Cannon, Cultural Comparisons of Children’s Emotion Regulation 5 1927). Instead, this theory posits that an emotion-eliciting event causes an emotional reaction that, in turn, causes a particular physiological reaction. According to this theory, emotion occurs independently of physiological responses. For example, if one felt sadness, his or her individual physiological response to that sad event would follow his or her sad feelings. Thus, one would cry because he or she felt sad. The Two-Factor Theory of Emotion addresses what Schacter and Singer (1962) considered to be the shortcomings of the previous two emotional theories. Concerning the JamesLange theory, they agreed that physiological responses precede emotions but disputed the claim that physiological reactions are the sole cause of emotions. Concerning the Cannon-Bard theory of emotion, Schacter and Singer argued against the claim that emotions occurred independently of the body’s physiological response to a certain event. In their classic study involving adrenaline and emotional responses, Schacter and Singer (1962) reported that physiological arousal does influence emotional perception. A similar study provided support for Schacter and Singer’s (1962) conclusion that physiological responses and emotions are related (Dutton & Aron, 1974). This study found that men who were approached by a female in an anxietyproducing environment were significantly more likely to experience increased sexual thinking and feelings of attraction when compared to the control group of men who were approached in a normal (non physiological arousing) environment. Although our understanding of emotion processing is more sophisticated than it was when these theories first were proposed, a multitude of questions still exist in emotion research with preliminary answers typically leading to the creation of new questions. These early theories addressed and raised questions that researchers investigating emotions still face today such as: Are emotions biologically hardwired? Do our cognitions influence emotions, and if so, to what Cultural Comparisons of Children’s Emotion Regulation 6 extent? Which has more influence on emotional experiencephysiology or cognition (or some other factor)? Are emotions universal or are they influenced by individual surroundings? The last question is the focus of the current study. Universality of emotions Emotions are thought to be universally experienced (Ekman, 1979) but susceptible to cultural socialization practices (Brody, 2000; Cole et al., 2006; Ekman, 1999). In the past, there has been a general trend for researchers to create a dichotomy between emotions as innate and universal versus emotions as influenced by culture. More recently, some researchers have taken a perspective towards emotions that accounts for universal tendencies in emotions while acknowledging the essential role of socialization processes (e.g., Cole et al., 2006; Ellsworth, 1994; Kitayama & Markus, 1994; Pai, 1998). Ekman (1979) proposed that there are several universal characteristics attributed to emotions. These universalities of emotion include their function as a distinctive signal to others in the environment as well as their shared feature of being caused by some distinctive antecedent (Ekman, 1979). Although components of emotions may be biologically hardwired with a variety of physiological, neurological, and psychological components, it can be argued that the components, in themselves, should not be considered emotions (Kitayama & Markus, 1994). Instead, emotions are the product of the specific cultural and social processes by which these components are elicited (Kitayama & Markus, 1994). Despite the appearance of an underlying universality of emotional occurrence, emotions experienced in one culture cannot be assumed to be identical to the same label of emotion in another country. When universal theories are combined with theories that account for socialization factors it allows for a comprehensive investigation of human development, including the development of emotion. Cultural Comparisons of Children’s Emotion Regulation 7 Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory One theory that considers the multiplicity of social processes and interrelated contexts surrounding human development is Bronfenbrenner’s (1986) Ecological Theory. Each individual context, or system, in this theory, encompasses a piece of influence on an individual’s development. When these systems are combined, they form an inclusive and thorough theory through which human development, including ER, can be understood. Each system, although distinct, is not isolated. Bi-directional transactions occur between the various layers that constitute the specific and broad environmental influences. Within his theory, Bronfenbrenner (1986) describes four subsystems, each with its own effects on a child’s development: the microsystem (e.g., biologica