Friendship and emotion regulation across cultures

We all need friends or people who care about us. But are friendships the same all over the world? Or does cultural background influence how you deal with arguments for instance? These kinds of questions are especially relevant during adolescence, a period in which children become less focused on their parents and family, but more on their peers. It could be expected from a theoretical point of view that adolescents in a more collectivistic oriented culture, will less often opt for a confrontation in a peer conflict situation, whereas adolescents in more individualistic oriented cultures more often might want to stand up for themselves. Yet, how does this fit with the relatively high level of aggression among adolescents that is sometimes reported in a collectivistic culture, such as the Malaysian? 

In this project “Difficult teenagers; Aggression in different cultures” we examine differences between Malaysian and Dutch peer relationships, and factors related to this, such as levels of individualism, collectivism, aggression and emotion regulation. 

Researchers involved: Naqiuddin Dahamat Azam, Boya Li, Sheida Novin (Utrecht University), and Carolien Rieffe 

See our list of publications on culture.

And click here to learn about our data collection in Malaysia. 

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