Most emotions occur in the contexts of social interactions and relationships. However, most psychological studies have focused on emotions in nonsocial situations, such as during physical threats. When you assume that emotions develop in social contexts, then you also assume that emotions are ‘socially costructed’. In this article, it is described how emotion is construed from a multicomponential perspective of emotion. This means that emotions are viewed as emerging from the interplay between different components (cognitive, motivational, and physiological), rather than being unitary entities. Also, a person’s appraisal of the situation arises from other components of emotion. For instance, when someone spills a drink over you and you think that this is on purpose, you might get angry. However, when you see that the person slipped and it happened on accident, you may not be as angry. It is described how emotions differ based on different contexts: interactions, relationships, and the sociocultural context.

How are emotions construed within contexts?

Moment-to-moment interactions

Emotions develop as a function of interactions. For instance, when you are arguing, your emotion depends highly on the other person’s reactions: is he or she accepting or denying your emotions? Thus, the emotions that others have and express, interact with your own emotions. Also, emotions are influenced by the type of relationships. If you know someone for a very long time you may experience different emotions when he or she lies to you, compared to when you just met someone. Emotions are thus shaped by the relationship in which they occur, and they also shape relationships. There are also differences in the way that emotions are construed across sociocultural contexts. For example, some cultures emphasize autonomy, while others emphasize the relatedness between people (collectivism). Therefore, in individualistic cultures, anger may be seen as functional and it may be accepted. In contrast, in collectivistic cultures, the expression of emotions that reflect individual desires (anger) may be discouraged and perceived as immature.

Thus, the social construction of emotion is an iterative and ongoing process that unfolds within interactions, relationships, and which derive their shape and meaning from the large sociocultural context. The process of social construction happens during each emotional episode.

What are the interdependencies between the three different contexts?

There are not many studies conducted on the interplay between interactions, relationships and cultural contexts. One rare example on this topic is a cross-cultural study on mother-child interactions in Germany and Japan. This study showed that German mothers, in response to a disobeying child, infer that the child is acting on purpose. Therefore they react with anger. In response, the child reacts with protest. Then, the mother sees this as affirmation for her idea that her child is acting like that on purpose. This turns into a tantrum by the child. Then the mother feels like she lost control and the conflict is unresolved and may be repeated in the future. In Japan, mothers were more likely to view the disobedience of the child from the child’s perspective (“it is just a child, he or she just wants to play, he or she is just tired”). When their children misbehave, Japanese others repeat their demands in a friendly manner, and feel sorry for the child. The child reacted with irritation to the demand, and the mother feels disappointment and regret. In Japan, ittaikan refers to the desired feeling of harmony and one-ness, and it is a prevailing value. Therefore, both the child and the mother made concessions. The mothers comforted their children, and distracted them. This lead to that the child complied and the conflict was solved. These types of interactions have long-term effects on children’s relational patterns: escalations of interactions in early childhood predict the level of empathy-based altruism 9 years later. This example shows the interplay between the different contexts: mother-child emotional interactions were constructed based on prevalent cultural meanings, these shaped relational contexts immediately and over time, and therefore these culturally prevalent ways of dealing with emotions are maintained over time.

What can be concluded?

There is thus evidence for the social construction of emotion in three different contexts: moment-to-moment interactions, relationships, and cultural contexts. These findings signal that emotional construction should not only be viewed on one level of analysis. Instead, emotions should be studied from a social constructionist perspective.

BulletPoints

• Most emotions occur in the contexts of social interactions and relationships. However, most psychological studies have focused on emotions in nonsocial situations, such as during physical threats. When you assume that emotions develop in social contexts, then you also assume that emotions are ‘socially costructed’. In this article, it is described how emotion is construed from a multicomponential perspective of emotion. This means that emotions are viewed as emerging from the interplay between different components (cognitive, motivational, and physiological), rather than being unitary entities. Also, a person’s appraisal of the situation arises from other components of emotion. For instance, when someone spills a drink over you and you think that this is on purpose, you might get angry. However, when you see that the person slipped and it happened on accident, you may not be as angry. It is described how emotions differ based on different contexts: interactions, relationships, and the sociocultural context.

• There is thus evidence for the social construction of emotion in three different contexts: moment-to-moment interactions, relationships, and cultural contexts. These findings signal that emotional construction should not only be viewed on one level of analysis. Instead, emotions should be studied from a social constructionist perspective.