Emotions are OURS (OUtside of us, Relational, and Situational), rather than MINE (Mental, INside of us, and Essential; essential meaning always the same) (as in the movie Inside Out). The concept of emotions as OURS has revolutionized my thinking about emotions and how I do my emotions! Dr. Batja Mesquita is the author of Between Us: How Cultures Create Emotions. A social psychologist, an affective scientist, and a pioneer of cultural psychology, she spent much of her life in the Netherlands before moving to the United States for her postdoctoral years at the University of Michigan, where she was part of the “culture and cognition group” that played a key role in the start of cultural psychology. She subsequently worked in North Carolina at Wake Forest University. Currently, she is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Leuven, Belgium, where she studies the role of culture in emotions, and of emotions in culture and society. She directs the Center for Social and Cultural Psychology in Leuven. She has numerous honors and awards; most recently receiving the Outstanding Contribution to Advances in Cultural Psychology Award by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in 2022. You can find more information at www.batjamesquita.com.
