Cross-Cultural Emotional Development

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how the 'making' and sentimentalization of a child is something that is addressed very differently, depending on the culture and the society. The paper explains that in some cultures, emotional issues are more important and significant than physical ones, and when this is the case, the emotions of a person are seen as a prime source for that individual's motivation. The paper looks at how anthropology has conceptualized the relationship between emotional competence and the child. The paper also points out that the politics of a nation becomes that of the child that is raised in that nation, whether that is good or bad.

From the Paper:

"Lutz (1983, p. 247) infers that the parents often show the child how he or she 'should' react to something specific. If a parent reacts with anger to every little slight, the children will likely react that way as well. In a sense, they have been conditioned to react that way because it is what they see as normal, based on how their parents act. The more time they spend around others, though, the more that they see that there are different ways of reacting to specific stimuli, and they might then begin to question whether the way that their parents react is the 'right' way, or the way that they want to react. This begins a period of socialization where the child learns what is acceptable in society and his or her place in that (Lewis & Saarni, 1985, p. 4)."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Briggs, J. (1970). Never in Anger: Portrait of an Eskimo Family. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Chapt. 3: \"Inuttiaq\'s children\", pg. 109-176.
• Caputo, V. (1995). Anthropology\'s silent others: A consideration of some conceptual and methodological issues for the study of youth and children. In Amit-Talai, V. & Wulff, H. (eds.) Youth Cultures: A Cross-cultural Perspective. London: Routledge. Pg. 19-42.
• Geertz, H. (1959). The vocabulary of emotion: A study of Javanese socialization processes. Psychiatry, 22, 225-37.
• Lewis, M. & Saarni, C. (1985). Culture and Emotions. In the Socialization of Emotions. Lewis, M. & Saarni, C. (Eds.) New York: Plenum Press, pg. 1-17.
• Lutz, C. (1983). Parental goals, ethnopsychology, and the development of emotional meaning. Ethics, 11(4), 246-261.

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