Emotionally Expressive Interdependence in Latin America: Triangulating Through a Comparison of Three Cultural Zones

Cultural psychology has long distinguished between independent Western cultures and interdependent East Asian cultures, but Latin American cultures have remained understudied. This paper investigates whether Latin Americans possess a distinct form of interdependence that reconciles their known high levels of emotional expressivity with their collectivist social orientation.

Across two studies, the authors compared Latin Americans (from Chile, Mexico, and Colombia) with European Americans and Japanese participants. Participants completed an emotion expression questionnaire, reporting how strongly they would express various emotions in four specific social situations: positive personal (e.g., personal success), positive social (e.g., good news for a friend), negative personal (e.g., personal failure), and negative social (e.g., bad news for a friend). The researchers categorized emotions as socially engaging (e.g., friendly feelings, guilt) or socially disengaging (e.g., pride, anger) to assess whether emotional expression serves to affirm independence or interdependence.

Latin Americans demonstrated high levels of emotional expressivity, particularly for positive socially engaging emotions, which the authors term expressive interdependence. This tendency was most pronounced in negative social situations, where Latin Americans expressed strong feelings of connection and friendliness toward others facing adversity. In contrast, European Americans favored socially disengaging emotions like pride, especially in positive personal situations, to affirm their independence. Japanese participants were generally less expressive than both other groups; when they did express emotions, they prioritized negative socially engaging emotions like guilt and shame, which the authors suggest may serve to repair social relationships.