Yulia Chentsova-Dutton
Biographic Data
| ID | 4614799 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Yulia Chentsova-Dutton |
| GIVEN NAMES | Yulia |
| FAMILY NAME | Chentsova-Dutton |
| SIGNATURE | CHENTSOVA-DUTTON Y |
| AFFILIATIONS | Georgetown University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2974-0550 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 34 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Relational Compartmentalization: How Culture Keeps Our Social Worlds Apart
Segregation of social networks has been studied primarily at the macro level in disciplines such as sociology. The present research introduces the concept of relational compartmentalization to examine this phenomenon at the level of individual behavior through a cultural–psychological lens. Across two studies, we investigated relational compartmentalization using a mixed-methods approach and complementary measures: a novel behavioral paradigm and…
Rumination in Daily Life Is Linked to Poorer Psychological Health in the United States Than in Japan
Rumination has been linked to worse psychological health. Yet, some cross-cultural research suggests that associations between trait rumination and psychological health may be stronger in Western than East Asian cultures. This investigation tested, for the first time, whether using rumination to regulate emotions in daily life is differentially linked to psychological health in different cultural contexts. In two preregistered studies that involv…
Why the West Minds and the East Behaves: An Integrative Review of the Cultural Evolution of Mind–Behavior Orientations
One fundamental characteristic of humans is that we have both “exteriors” (i.e., behavior) and “interiors” (i.e., mental states). This distinction between the mind and behavior is critical for understanding human nature, with implications for morality, social functioning, human development, clinical practices, and everyday life. Culture influences the extent to which people prioritize mental states versus behaviors. In this review, we propose tha…
Developmental exposure to the physical and social world and responses to risk among college students from four cultural contexts
What are the psychological implications of developmental exposure to the physical and social environment of one's community, with its threats and rewards? The cultural shaping of enacted autonomy-or self-reliance in an environment that includes real and perceived threats-has largely been overlooked despite historical changes in this domain. Responses to risk are thought to depend on experience-dependent calibration in teens and young adults. It i…
Motivated to feel better and doing something about it: Cross-cultural differences in motivated emotion regulation during Covid-19
Emotion regulation is linked to adaptive psychological outcomes. To engage in such regulation, people must be motivated to do it. Given that people in different countries vary in how they think about unpleasant emotions, we expected motivation to decrease unpleasant emotions to differ across countries. Furthermore, given that emotion regulation strategies operate in the service of motivation, we expected people who are less motivated to decrease …
Emotion regulation strategies and psychological health across cultures
Emotion regulation is important for psychological health and can be achieved by implementing various strategies. How one regulates emotions is critical for maximizing psychological health. Few studies, however, tested the psychological correlates of different emotion regulation strategies across multiple cultures. In a preregistered cross-cultural study ( N = 3,960, 19 countries), conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, we assessed associations b…
Within- and between-group heterogeneity in cultural models of emotion among people of European, Asian, and Latino heritage in the United States
Research on cultural variation in emotion values and beliefs has usually explained this variation in terms of individualism and collectivism, typically comparing European American against East Asian cultural contexts. This study examined emotion model variability across as well as within cultural contexts in a large sample of young adults of Latino heritage along with people of European and East Asian heritage. Using latent class analysis, we cha…
What can we learn about pleasure from the study of religion
Human emotions are emergent properties of biological, psychological, and cultural factors that influence and constrain each other. Natural selection shaped our emotional tendencies to maximize our
And they all lived unhappily ever after: Positive and negative emotions in American and Russian picture books
The U.S. and Russian cultural contexts are thought to foster different models of emotion, with the former emphasizing positive emotions more and negative emotions less than the latter. Little is known about the ways in which parents transmit these models of emotions to children. Cultural products, such as popular storybooks, may serve to provide important tools of transmission. Two studies examined similarities and differences in the extent to wh…
Emotions in Cultural Dynamics
Cultural models of normalcy and deviancy
In this article, we argue that the cultural models approach provides a useful framework for cultural‐clinical psychology. We begin with a brief review of this approach before presenting the distinction between cultural models for normalcy and deviancy. As well, we consider how both normalcy and deviancy can be culturally valorised or devalorised. Given that mental disorders do not always neatly fit with available cultural models, we offer evidenc…
Who emphasizes positivity? An exploration of emotion values in people of Latino, Asian, and European heritage living in the United States
Emotion values vary within and between individualistic and collectivistic cultural contexts. The form of collectivism prevalent in Latin America emphasizes simpatía, a cultural model that stresses the relational benefits of positivity but also the costs of negativity. This model was predicted to engender a pattern of emotion values distinct from that of the more commonly studied collectivist group, people of Asian heritage (PAH), among whom an em…
Feelings in the body: Cultural variations in the somatic concomitants of affective experience
Affective science research has investigated how the sociocultural context shapes the bodily experience of emotion. Similarly, in the culture and mental health literature, there is a history of research on cultural variations in the presentation of somatic symptoms. A well-known example of the latter is the finding that Chinese depressed patients report more somatic symptoms compared to their "Western" counterparts. The present study represents a …
Ethnic variation in gratitude and well-being
Gratitude is positively associated with health and well-being. Past studies of gratitude have primarily focused on the distinct cultural context of European Americans. The current studies aimed to extend gratitude research to Latino and East Asian Americans, 2 collectivistic contexts known to differently value positive emotions. Two studies explored whether Latino and East Asian Americans varied in gratitude experience and whether the disposition…
From culture to symptom: "Testing a structural model of "Chinese somatization
Chinese somatization" has been frequently discussed over the past three decades of cultural psychiatry, and has more recently been demonstrated in cross-national comparisons. Empirical studies of potential explanations are lacking, however. Ryder and Chentsova-Dutton (2012) proposed that Chinese somatization can be understood as a cultural script for depression, noting that the literature is divided on whether this script primarily involves felt …
I felt sad and did not enjoy life: Cultural context and the associations between anhedonia, depressed mood, and momentary emotions
The meanings of "anhedonia" and "depressed mood," the cardinal emotional symptoms of major depression, may be shaped by cultural norms regarding pleasure and sadness. Thirty-two European Americans, 26 Hispanic Americans, 33 Asian Americans, and 20 Russian Americans provided reports of (a) depressive symptoms, (b) momentary emotions and pleasure, and (c) global subjective well-being. Momentary reports were collected over 10 days using handheld per…
Power Plays: Expressive Mimicry of Valid Agonistic Cues
Both transient and stable facial cues have evolved as essential features of social communication in humans. Accumulating research links actual and perceived aggression to a higher ratio between the height and bizygomatic width of a person’s face (facial width-to-height ratio [WHR]) and shows that digitally increasing this ratio can alter apparent aggressiveness. We present evidence that facial behaviors associated with anger—the state most closel…
Listen to your heart: The cultural shaping of interoceptive awareness and accuracy
West African cultural contexts foster higher levels of attention to the bodily signals compared with the European American contexts. Interoception, or the processing of signals from the body, is a key component of emotional reactivity. Interoceptive awareness (i.e., the self-reported tendency to attend to physiological changes) and accuracy (i.e., the ability to accurately detect physiological changes) are distinct aspects of interoception. Does …
Let Me Tell You What to Do: Cultural Differences in Advice-Giving
Although few decisions are made without seeking advice, advice can challenge the autonomy of its recipient. As a result, it is viewed as potentially intrusive and is enacted cautiously. In part, these findings may reflect European American culture, which fosters respect for personal autonomy. Cultural models of social relationships can affect advice-giving. In contrast to European American cultural context, Russian cultural context fosters an emp…
Further evidence for the cultural norm hypothesis: Positive emotion in depressed and control European American and Asian American women
How does culture shape the effects of depression on emotion? A previous study showed that depression dampened negative emotional responses in European Americans, but increased these responses in Asian Americans (Chentsova-Dutton et al., 2007). These findings support the cultural norm hypothesis, which predicts that depression reduces individuals' abilities to react in culturally ideal ways (i.e., disrupting European Americans' abilities to expres…
Self-focused attention and emotional reactivity: The role of culture
Research conducted with European Americans suggests that attention to the individual self intensifies emotional reactivity. We propose, however, that cultural models of the self determine which aspect of the self (individual vs. relational), when attended to, intensifies emotional reactivity. In 3 studies, we predicted and observed that attention to individual aspects of the self was associated with levels of emotional reactivity that were greate…
Models of Cultural Orientation: Differences Between American-Born and Overseas-Born Asians
Emotional expression and physiology in European Americans and Hmong Americans
Ethnographic and clinical observations suggest that Asians are less expressive than European Americans. To examine whether this difference emerged in online emotional responding, 50 Hmong Americans (HAs) and 48 European Americans (EAs) were asked to relive past episodes of intense happiness, pride, love, anger, disgust, and sadness. Facial behavior and physiological reactivity were measured. For most emotions, more cultural similarities than diff…
Self-focused attention and emotional reactivity: The role of culture
Research conducted with European Americans suggests that attention to the individual self intensifies emotional reactivity. We propose, however, that cultural models of the self determine which aspect of the self (individual vs. relational), when attended to, intensifies emotional reactivity. In 3 studies, we predicted and observed that attention to individual aspects of the self was associated with levels of emotional reactivity that were greate…
Let Me Tell You What to Do: Cultural Differences in Advice-Giving
Although few decisions are made without seeking advice, advice can challenge the autonomy of its recipient. As a result, it is viewed as potentially intrusive and is enacted cautiously. In part, these findings may reflect European American culture, which fosters respect for personal autonomy. Cultural models of social relationships can affect advice-giving. In contrast to European American cultural context, Russian cultural context fosters an emp…
Emotion regulation strategies and psychological health across cultures
Emotion regulation is important for psychological health and can be achieved by implementing various strategies. How one regulates emotions is critical for maximizing psychological health. Few studies, however, tested the psychological correlates of different emotion regulation strategies across multiple cultures. In a preregistered cross-cultural study ( N = 3,960, 19 countries), conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, we assessed associations b…
From culture to symptom: "Testing a structural model of "Chinese somatization
Chinese somatization" has been frequently discussed over the past three decades of cultural psychiatry, and has more recently been demonstrated in cross-national comparisons. Empirical studies of potential explanations are lacking, however. Ryder and Chentsova-Dutton (2012) proposed that Chinese somatization can be understood as a cultural script for depression, noting that the literature is divided on whether this script primarily involves felt …
Further evidence for the cultural norm hypothesis: Positive emotion in depressed and control European American and Asian American women
How does culture shape the effects of depression on emotion? A previous study showed that depression dampened negative emotional responses in European Americans, but increased these responses in Asian Americans (Chentsova-Dutton et al., 2007). These findings support the cultural norm hypothesis, which predicts that depression reduces individuals' abilities to react in culturally ideal ways (i.e., disrupting European Americans' abilities to expres…
Why the West Minds and the East Behaves: An Integrative Review of the Cultural Evolution of Mind–Behavior Orientations
One fundamental characteristic of humans is that we have both “exteriors” (i.e., behavior) and “interiors” (i.e., mental states). This distinction between the mind and behavior is critical for understanding human nature, with implications for morality, social functioning, human development, clinical practices, and everyday life. Culture influences the extent to which people prioritize mental states versus behaviors. In this review, we propose tha…
Models of Cultural Orientation: Differences Between American-Born and Overseas-Born Asians
Emotional expression and physiology in European Americans and Hmong Americans
Ethnographic and clinical observations suggest that Asians are less expressive than European Americans. To examine whether this difference emerged in online emotional responding, 50 Hmong Americans (HAs) and 48 European Americans (EAs) were asked to relive past episodes of intense happiness, pride, love, anger, disgust, and sadness. Facial behavior and physiological reactivity were measured. For most emotions, more cultural similarities than diff…
Further evidence for the cultural norm hypothesis: Positive emotion in depressed and control European American and Asian American women
How does culture shape the effects of depression on emotion? A previous study showed that depression dampened negative emotional responses in European Americans, but increased these responses in Asian Americans (Chentsova-Dutton et al., 2007). These findings support the cultural norm hypothesis, which predicts that depression reduces individuals' abilities to react in culturally ideal ways (i.e., disrupting European Americans' abilities to expres…
Self-focused attention and emotional reactivity: The role of culture
Research conducted with European Americans suggests that attention to the individual self intensifies emotional reactivity. We propose, however, that cultural models of the self determine which aspect of the self (individual vs. relational), when attended to, intensifies emotional reactivity. In 3 studies, we predicted and observed that attention to individual aspects of the self was associated with levels of emotional reactivity that were greate…
Let Me Tell You What to Do: Cultural Differences in Advice-Giving
Although few decisions are made without seeking advice, advice can challenge the autonomy of its recipient. As a result, it is viewed as potentially intrusive and is enacted cautiously. In part, these findings may reflect European American culture, which fosters respect for personal autonomy. Cultural models of social relationships can affect advice-giving. In contrast to European American cultural context, Russian cultural context fosters an emp…
Power Plays: Expressive Mimicry of Valid Agonistic Cues
Both transient and stable facial cues have evolved as essential features of social communication in humans. Accumulating research links actual and perceived aggression to a higher ratio between the height and bizygomatic width of a person’s face (facial width-to-height ratio [WHR]) and shows that digitally increasing this ratio can alter apparent aggressiveness. We present evidence that facial behaviors associated with anger—the state most closel…
Listen to your heart: The cultural shaping of interoceptive awareness and accuracy
West African cultural contexts foster higher levels of attention to the bodily signals compared with the European American contexts. Interoception, or the processing of signals from the body, is a key component of emotional reactivity. Interoceptive awareness (i.e., the self-reported tendency to attend to physiological changes) and accuracy (i.e., the ability to accurately detect physiological changes) are distinct aspects of interoception. Does …
I felt sad and did not enjoy life: Cultural context and the associations between anhedonia, depressed mood, and momentary emotions
The meanings of "anhedonia" and "depressed mood," the cardinal emotional symptoms of major depression, may be shaped by cultural norms regarding pleasure and sadness. Thirty-two European Americans, 26 Hispanic Americans, 33 Asian Americans, and 20 Russian Americans provided reports of (a) depressive symptoms, (b) momentary emotions and pleasure, and (c) global subjective well-being. Momentary reports were collected over 10 days using handheld per…
From culture to symptom: "Testing a structural model of "Chinese somatization
Chinese somatization" has been frequently discussed over the past three decades of cultural psychiatry, and has more recently been demonstrated in cross-national comparisons. Empirical studies of potential explanations are lacking, however. Ryder and Chentsova-Dutton (2012) proposed that Chinese somatization can be understood as a cultural script for depression, noting that the literature is divided on whether this script primarily involves felt …
Feelings in the body: Cultural variations in the somatic concomitants of affective experience
Affective science research has investigated how the sociocultural context shapes the bodily experience of emotion. Similarly, in the culture and mental health literature, there is a history of research on cultural variations in the presentation of somatic symptoms. A well-known example of the latter is the finding that Chinese depressed patients report more somatic symptoms compared to their "Western" counterparts. The present study represents a …
Ethnic variation in gratitude and well-being
Gratitude is positively associated with health and well-being. Past studies of gratitude have primarily focused on the distinct cultural context of European Americans. The current studies aimed to extend gratitude research to Latino and East Asian Americans, 2 collectivistic contexts known to differently value positive emotions. Two studies explored whether Latino and East Asian Americans varied in gratitude experience and whether the disposition…
Emotions in Cultural Dynamics
Cultural models of normalcy and deviancy
In this article, we argue that the cultural models approach provides a useful framework for cultural‐clinical psychology. We begin with a brief review of this approach before presenting the distinction between cultural models for normalcy and deviancy. As well, we consider how both normalcy and deviancy can be culturally valorised or devalorised. Given that mental disorders do not always neatly fit with available cultural models, we offer evidenc…
Who emphasizes positivity? An exploration of emotion values in people of Latino, Asian, and European heritage living in the United States
Emotion values vary within and between individualistic and collectivistic cultural contexts. The form of collectivism prevalent in Latin America emphasizes simpatía, a cultural model that stresses the relational benefits of positivity but also the costs of negativity. This model was predicted to engender a pattern of emotion values distinct from that of the more commonly studied collectivist group, people of Asian heritage (PAH), among whom an em…
What can we learn about pleasure from the study of religion
Human emotions are emergent properties of biological, psychological, and cultural factors that influence and constrain each other. Natural selection shaped our emotional tendencies to maximize our
And they all lived unhappily ever after: Positive and negative emotions in American and Russian picture books
The U.S. and Russian cultural contexts are thought to foster different models of emotion, with the former emphasizing positive emotions more and negative emotions less than the latter. Little is known about the ways in which parents transmit these models of emotions to children. Cultural products, such as popular storybooks, may serve to provide important tools of transmission. Two studies examined similarities and differences in the extent to wh…
Within- and between-group heterogeneity in cultural models of emotion among people of European, Asian, and Latino heritage in the United States
Research on cultural variation in emotion values and beliefs has usually explained this variation in terms of individualism and collectivism, typically comparing European American against East Asian cultural contexts. This study examined emotion model variability across as well as within cultural contexts in a large sample of young adults of Latino heritage along with people of European and East Asian heritage. Using latent class analysis, we cha…
Emotion regulation strategies and psychological health across cultures
Emotion regulation is important for psychological health and can be achieved by implementing various strategies. How one regulates emotions is critical for maximizing psychological health. Few studies, however, tested the psychological correlates of different emotion regulation strategies across multiple cultures. In a preregistered cross-cultural study ( N = 3,960, 19 countries), conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, we assessed associations b…
Motivated to feel better and doing something about it: Cross-cultural differences in motivated emotion regulation during Covid-19
Emotion regulation is linked to adaptive psychological outcomes. To engage in such regulation, people must be motivated to do it. Given that people in different countries vary in how they think about unpleasant emotions, we expected motivation to decrease unpleasant emotions to differ across countries. Furthermore, given that emotion regulation strategies operate in the service of motivation, we expected people who are less motivated to decrease …
Rumination in Daily Life Is Linked to Poorer Psychological Health in the United States Than in Japan
Rumination has been linked to worse psychological health. Yet, some cross-cultural research suggests that associations between trait rumination and psychological health may be stronger in Western than East Asian cultures. This investigation tested, for the first time, whether using rumination to regulate emotions in daily life is differentially linked to psychological health in different cultural contexts. In two preregistered studies that involv…
Why the West Minds and the East Behaves: An Integrative Review of the Cultural Evolution of Mind–Behavior Orientations
One fundamental characteristic of humans is that we have both “exteriors” (i.e., behavior) and “interiors” (i.e., mental states). This distinction between the mind and behavior is critical for understanding human nature, with implications for morality, social functioning, human development, clinical practices, and everyday life. Culture influences the extent to which people prioritize mental states versus behaviors. In this review, we propose tha…
Developmental exposure to the physical and social world and responses to risk among college students from four cultural contexts
What are the psychological implications of developmental exposure to the physical and social environment of one's community, with its threats and rewards? The cultural shaping of enacted autonomy-or self-reliance in an environment that includes real and perceived threats-has largely been overlooked despite historical changes in this domain. Responses to risk are thought to depend on experience-dependent calibration in teens and young adults. It i…
Relational Compartmentalization: How Culture Keeps Our Social Worlds Apart
Segregation of social networks has been studied primarily at the macro level in disciplines such as sociology. The present research introduces the concept of relational compartmentalization to examine this phenomenon at the level of individual behavior through a cultural–psychological lens. Across two studies, we investigated relational compartmentalization using a mixed-methods approach and complementary measures: a novel behavioral paradigm and…
Psychology (20 works) · Social Psychology (18 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (15 works) · Developmental psychology (12 works) · Social Psychology (10 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Anger (5 works) · Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes (5 works) · Cognitive psychology (5 works) · Psychotherapist (5 works)