Cultural shaping of emotion differentiation: Socially engaging and disengaging emotions

There is a growing consensus that emotion differentiation-the ability to discern specific emotions-is healthy. To assess this ability, studies so far have exclusively relied on the dimension of emotion pleasantness by lumping together various types of emotions that fall within the same valence category. However, this approach neglects the possibility that individuals may represent certain types of emotions in a more differentiated fashion, if these emotions are functionally adaptive and therefore are more frequently experienced in their cultural environments. Here, we propose social orientation as another dimension to analyze emotion differentiation and test a hypothesis that the ability to differentiate socially engaging (vs. disengaging) emotions is reinforced more and is associated with better health in interdependent (vs. independent) cultural contexts. In a longitudinal daily diary study conducted in the United States and Korea between 2019 and 2020, we assessed the extent to which participants differentiated engaging or disengaging emotions based on 2 weeks of daily affective reports. For both positive and negative emotions, Koreans differentiated engaging emotions more than European Americans did. Conversely, European Americans differentiated disengaging emotions more than Koreans did. Moreover, for both cultural groups, the extent to which they differentiated emotions that are valued more in their respective culture-engaging for Koreans and disengaging for European Americans-predicted better health 2 months later, indirectly via reducing their tendency to ruminate over time. These results suggest that culture shapes how we represent emotions, and doing so in a culturally preferred way has a potential to bring health benefits. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).