Comment by threethirtytwo

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.