Comment by 47282847
3 days ago
> Emotions are not learned through narrative. They are innate regulatory systems shaped by natural selection.
Emotions are deeply shaped by culture. Infants need emotional mirroring, co-regulation, and guidance in how to deal with and “develop” emotions. In some cultures, emotions exist not isolated in individuals but only in relationships (never “I am angry”, but “there is anger between us”). In Asian cultures, you typically soak up that you cannot feel only joy from winning but at the same time feel grief because the other lost. Infants that do not receive adequate mirroring develop long term brain damage and other pathologies. The narrative is/becomes a crucial part of how we perceive ourselves and our emotions.
I should clarify a mistake in how I phrased this earlier. Emotions are shaped by both innate biology and environment. Early mirroring, co regulation, and social interaction are essential for normal emotional development. That evidence is well established. Where I disagree is the leap from that fact to the claim that narrative is a crucial or primary mechanism of emotional formation.
Emotional regulation and differentiation emerge long before narrative competence. Infants acquire affective patterns through direct interaction and embodied feedback, not stories or symbolic self models. Cultural differences reflect how emotions are framed and expressed, not that narrative creates them. Narrative comes later as a descriptive layer that organizes experience, but it is downstream of emotion, not its cause.