Bicultural adolescents' anger regulation: In between two cultures?

Cross-Cultural Mental State Reading Ability in Antillean Dutch, Moroccan Dutch, and Dutch Young Adults

Understanding how bicultural and monocultural individuals are oriented toward the cultures they come into frequent contact with can increase insights into their adaptation and well-being. Previous research has shown a relation between culture and mental state reading in the form of the cultural in-group effect, which is defined as the advantage in reading mental states from the own cultural group compared with other groups. Thus, orientation toward cultures can be assessed not only in self-reported behavioral and psychological acculturation but also in the domain of social–cognitive abilities. The aim of the current research is to gain insight into acculturation in the social–cognitive ability of mental state reading. In addition, it explores how this facet of acculturation is related to the more traditionally studied behavioral and psychological acculturation. Cross-cultural mental state reading, language and possession of friends (behavioral acculturation), and cultural identification (psychological acculturation) were assessed in Antillean Dutch ( n = 128), Moroccan Dutch ( n = 204), and Dutch ( n = 349) young adults between 19 and 24 years old ( M = 21.57 years, SD = 1.38 years). For cross-cultural mental state reading, the in-group effect was confirmed for the Dutch but not for the Antillean Dutch and Moroccan Dutch participants. Furthermore, there were no consistent associations between mental state reading and behavioral and psychological acculturation in the three groups. The present results extend fundamental research on cross-cultural mental state reading and also help to further understand the orientation of these specific cultural groups.

Emotion Norms, Display Rules, and Regulation in the Akan Society of Ghana: An Exploration Using Proverbs

Proverbs are widely used by the Akan of West Africa. The current study thematically analyzed an Akan proverb compendium for proverbs containing emotion references. Of the identified proverbs, a focus on negative emotions was most typical. Emotion-focused proverbs highlighted four emotion regulation strategies: change in cognition, response modulation, situation modification, and situation selection. A subset of proverbs addressed emotion display rules restricting the expression of emotions such as pride, and emotional contagion associated with emotions such as shame. Additional themes including: social context influences on the expression and experience of emotion; expectations of emotion limits; as well as the nature of emotions were present in the proverb collection. In general, Akan emotion-related proverbs stress individual-level responsibility for affect regulation in interpersonal interactions and societal contexts.

Adolescents' responses to online peer conflict: How self-evaluation and ethnicity matter

For parents, online platforms where their children interact with others often feel like a "black box" in terms of what exactly is happening. In this study, we developed an ecologically valid online computer game in which a (computer-generated) peer teammate tried to provoke frustration, in order to examine (a) adolescents' responses and (b) how indices of self-evaluation (i.e., sense of coherence and self-esteem) and demographic variables (i.e., gender and ethnicity) matter to these responses. Like gender, being a member of a minority or majority group may influence how provocations by peers are interpreted, influencing how one responds. Fifteen-year-old Dutch and Moroccan-Dutch adolescents (N = 167) completed self-reports and played the online computer game. The game indeed elicited frustration, with increased self-reported anger. Moreover, expressions of displeasure were much more common during and after provocation than before provocation. Crucially, perceived self-evaluation mattered; higher levels of sense of coherence but lower levels of self-esteem (only in Moroccan-Dutch group) contributed to fewer expressions of displeasure. Gender did not play a moderating role. Our findings provide initial insights into individual differences in adolescents' responses in an online peer-conflict situation.

Highlights

We studied Dutch and Moroccan-Dutch adolescents' responses during online peer provocation and how self-evaluation and demographic variables matter.Provocation by the (computer-generated) peer teammate increased expressions of displeasure.More sense of coherence but less self-esteem was associated with fewer expressions of displeasure, but ethnicity moderated the effect with self-esteem.