Socializing Emotions in Childhood: A Cross-Cultural Comparison Between the Bara in Madagascar and the Minangkabau in Indonesia

This article addresses the interdependency between child-rearing goals and values, emotionally arousing child-rearing practices, and the socialization and development of so-called socializing emotions. The latter are assigned a general psychological control function that enables children to adjust their behavior and emotions to the normative prescriptions of their culture. It is assumed that they are inculcated by means of emotionally arousing strategies such as frightening, corporal punishment, mocking, shaming but also praising, encouraging, or cherishing (Quinn, 2005) and that—in line with Vygotsky's genetic law of development—they become internalized so effectively that they can exert their control function already without prior disciplining.