Culture influences the stories we tell ourselves about our emotions. Members of a community of hunter-gatherers, known as the Hadza, describe their experiences of emotion in a different manner than what is common in the West.
For instance, when talking about emotions, Americans typically emphasize the mental experience, such as feeling anger or joy, whereas Hadza members focus on the physical sensation, like experiencing a racing heartbeat or clammy hands. The emotional narratives of Americans and Hadza members differ too in terms of whether the experience of an emotion is individual or shared. For Americans, it is common to experience an emotion as a result of a personal action and its direct effect on oneself, such as receiving praise for something you did which makes you feel joyful. Contrary to this is the Hadza way of shared emotional experience, where you are likely to feel in a certain way because others feel that way too, like feeling joyful after a hunt because it satisfies others.
Depending on where we live, we tell ourselves different stories about how we feel. What would an alternative way of feeling look like for you, such as feeling an emotion in a physical way or feeling because others feel in that way too?
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© Behavioral Scientist, 2024