The cultural neuroscience of emotion regulation

Abstract

In this paper, we review and advocate for a cultural neuroscience approach to studying culture and emotion regulation. First, we summarize theoretical accounts regarding how culture influences the way people experience and prefer to regulate their internal experiences and outward expression of emotions. Next, we briefly summarize physiological and neural indicators of affect and the regulation of affect including examining skin response and heart rate, spatial differences in BOLD hemodynamic responses, and event-related potentials. We then review extant cultural neuroscience studies examining differences in emotion regulation across cultural groups and highlight how these findings extend theory from more traditional methods and provide novel insights. Finally, we outline several issues the field faces moving forward and offer recommendations for best practices as well as offering future directions for a culturally informed affective neuroscience.