Culture influences when comfort feels supportive, study finds

People’s ideas about emotional support may depend strongly on the culture they live in, according to a new study led by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The findings matter for families, workplaces, health care and counseling because a well-meant effort to cheer someone up may not be seen as the right kind of help in every setting.

The study, led by Dr. Maya Tamir and Ph.D. student Shir Ginosar Yaari, was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. According to Hebrew University, the research challenges the common assumption in psychology that people generally want to help others feel better when they are upset.

The researchers analyzed data from more than 6,900 participants in 17 countries across Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America and the Middle East. They also tracked couples in Germany and South Korea in daily life to examine how partners responded to each other’s emotions outside the laboratory, Hebrew University said.

Individualistic cultures showed stronger comfort goals

The study found that participants in more individualistic cultures were more inclined to try to reduce other people’s distress. Hebrew University identified Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom as examples of countries where participants, on average, showed stronger motivation to help others feel better.

Participants from more collectivistic cultures, including South Korea, Japan, India and China, were less likely to treat unpleasant emotions as feelings that should necessarily be removed, according to the university. The researchers said the pattern reflects broad cultural tendencies, rather than fixed traits of any one country.

“We often assume that if someone is suffering, the kind thing to do is to make them feel better,” Tamir said. “Our findings suggest that this assumption reflects cultural values more than universal human nature.”

Negative emotions may be seen as useful

According to Hebrew University, participants in countries that place more emphasis on individual achievement and personal happiness were more likely to use forms of support such as expressing care, listening, encouraging acceptance and helping others reinterpret difficult experiences. They were less likely to encourage suppressing feelings or dwelling on distress.

In more collectivistic settings, the researchers said, unpleasant emotions may be viewed as having value. Such emotions can be associated with self-improvement, relationship repair, reflection or meaning-making, according to the study summary from Hebrew University.

The researchers also reported that culture appeared to have a stronger link to how people tried to shape others’ emotions than to how they managed their own. Across countries, people were more similar in wanting to improve their own emotional state, while they differed more in how much they wanted to change someone else’s feelings.

“Culture doesn't just shape how we experience emotions,” Tamir said. “It shapes what we believe other people should feel and how we think we can best help them.”

Relationship effects differed by country

The daily-life data from couples pointed to different relationship patterns in Germany and South Korea. In Germany, where the researchers described the culture as more individualistic, people who were more motivated to reduce a partner’s distress also reported feeling closer to that partner.

Hebrew University said the same association did not appear in South Korea. There, wanting to make a partner feel better was not linked to reported closeness.

The study’s authors said the findings show that emotional support is shaped by cultural context. In multicultural families, international workplaces, education, health care and mental health care, they said, people may benefit from recognizing that care can be expressed in more than one way.

This story draws on original reporting from Phys.org.