Collective and Personal Processes in Regulating Emotions: Emotion and Self in Japan and the United States

In recent years, a number of researchers have emphasized social and intelligent aspects of emotion (e.g., Damasio, 1994; Frank, 1988; Frijda, 1986; Frijda & Mesquita, 1994; Kitayama, Mesquita, & Karasawa, 2002; Mesquita & Ellsworth, 2001; Nassbaum, 2001; Oatley, 1992; Salovey & Mayer, 1990). They argued that emotion may be best seen as nature’s way to help the self navigate in uncertain terrains of daily social life in more or less adaptive ways, According to

this view, emotions serve as indispensable “pathfinders” for the self (Damasio, 1994).