Between us: How cultures create emotions

On 21 April, we will be welcoming professor Batja Mesquita, KU Leuven, for an invited conference entitled Between us: How cultures create emotions.

Batja Mesquita is a social psychologist, an affective scientist, and a pioneer of cultural psychology. She is a professor of psychology at the University of Leuven, Belgium, and director of the Center for Social and Cultural Psychology. . Before coming to Leuven, she was affiliated to Wake Forest University, the University of Michigan, Stanford University, and the University of Amsterdam. Batja is one of the world’s leading authorities on the psychological study of cultural differences in emotions. Her most recent research focuses on the role of emotions in multicultural societies.

Batja will take us on the journey that her own research has taken her to show that emotions are not universal responses coming from within, but that we craft our emotions to attune them to the values, norms, and practices of the cultural worlds outside our individual selves. Emotions are learned and co-constructed in the course of our many everyday social interactions. What makes us human is not that emotions are identical for all but that they connect us to others, in our direct environment and in our broader cultural context. She argues that appreciating that emotions are fundamentally linked to our outside worlds – and that we have a role in creating and changing them – is a bridge to more effective relationships in all of the many multicultural spaces in our communities.

Organisator: Pr. Fanny Meunier, ILC/TEAMM

Registration is closed as we have reached the maximum number of participants. Additional information (exact location/room) will be communicated by e-mail closer to the date. We are looking forward to welcoming you!