Influencing Others for Your Benefit or Theirs?: How Culture Shapes Interpersonal Emotion Regulation in Everyday Interactions

Abstract

Culture fundamentally shapes how people interact with others. During these interactions, people often desire to change others’ emotions, and take various actions to do so, but limited research has examined the role culture plays in shaping these actions to influence others’ emotions. Here, building on the literature examining cultural influences on intrapersonal emotion regulation, we theorize that cultural values should affect the strategies people use to regulate others’ emotions through an influence on self- vs. other-serving motives, and present new data in support of this theory. In a 7-day daily diary study (N = 211, 1557 daily reports) examining real episodes of interpersonal emotion regulation, collectivism predicted increased extrinsic reappraisal use, and other-serving motives mediated this relationship. Individualism, contrary to our prediction, did not predict increased extrinsic suppression use. The study, conducted in a natural setting, provides the first evidence linking culture and extrinsic interpersonal emotion regulation, advancing the understanding of how culture shapes motives and actions taken to change others’ emotions.