Emotions Across Cultures

What if emotions aren’t just something we feel on our own, but something we do—together? In this lecture, Mesquita, author of Between Us: How Cultures Create Emotions, explores the idea of emotions as relational experiences, rather than just internal ones. Drawing from cross-cultural research and personal stories, she challenges the Western idea that emotions live solely inside us, waiting to be expressed. Instead, she paints a richer, more connected picture—one where emotions are shaped between people and are deeply influenced by the cultural worlds we live in.
Mesquita’s most recent research focuses on the role of emotions in multicultural societies. She studies how emotions affect the belonging of minoritised youth in middle schools, and the social and economic integration of “newcomers” (i.e. newly arrived immigrants).

Speaker
Prof. Batja Mesquita, Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for Social and Cultural Psychology, University of Leuven 

This lecture is organised as part of the programme of De Nederlands Dansdagen