Cultural models of emotion manifest in descriptions of everyday experience: A case study of the US and Belgium

Language provides a window onto how people conceptualize their subjective experiences, including emotions. Although rare, linguistic analyses that go beyond emotion words provide deep insights into emotional experience across cultures. In this study, we explored cultural models of emotions prevalent in the US and Belgium using verbal descriptions of recent emotional events collected from speakers of North American (US) English and Belgian Dutch in form of semi-structured interviews. We analyzed the interviews in three stages: 1) topic modeling to characterize content, 2) word counting to examine linguistic resources, and 3) inductive analysis to uncover broader themes. Our findings revealed notable cultural differences alongside some similarities. US English speakers used more first-person pronouns and emotion words, emphasized high-arousal emotions, and prioritized asserting personal achievements and openly expressing their feelings. In contrast, Belgian Dutch speakers’ descriptions reflected a more moderated approach to emotions, illustrating how social standards and broader worldviews gave meaning to the events, with use of fewer first-person pronouns and more language focused on relativization and comparison. Taken together, our observations are consistent with previous psychological research on US and Belgian culture. We evaluate our approach against other means of exploring the conceptualization of emotion across cultures.