Beyond Individualism and Collectivism: Mapping Emotional Regulation Ecologies Using Social Network Analysis

While many studies (e.g., Robinson, 2024; Palomera et al., 2022) frame culture in broad strokes, there’s a need to understand how emotion regulation is rooted in specific social contexts—families, peer groups, religious communities. This research would use social network analysis to visualize and quantify how emotional regulation strategies (support-seeking, suppression, reappraisal, etc.) are shared, modeled, and sanctioned within real-life social networks in both collectivist and individualist societies. Mixed methods (survey, ethnography, digital trace data) would reveal “microcultures” of emotion regulation that cut across traditional cultural categories. This could generate new theory on how social structure and culture interact to shape emotional health, and help design interventions that tap into natural social transmission pathways.

References:

1. Cross-Cultural Differences in Emotional Regulation Strategies in United States. Harper Robinson (2024). International Journal of Psychology.
2. Differences in psychological distress, resilience and cognitive emotional regulation strategies in adults during the Coronavirus pandemic: A cross-cultural study of Poland and Spain.. R. Palomera, Sara González-Yubero, Justyna Mojsa-Kaja, K. Szklarczyk-Smolana (2022). Anales de Psicología.