How induced self-focus versus other-focus affect emotional recognition and verbalization

Research finds that people from individualistic cultures prioritize individual emotional expression and recognition compared to collectivistic cultures. Moreover, those with more independent self-construals self-report less difficulty in identifying and describing their emotions (i.e. lower alexithymia). However, it is unclear whether one aspect of self-construal (i.e. self-focus and other-focus) actually causes changes in emotion recognition and emotion expression, or whether there are third variable explanations for the previous correlational research. Therefore, in the current paper, we experimentally manipulated self-focus and other-focus, and examined how this affected participants’ emotion recognition and emotion verbalization. Based on previous research, we predicted that temporarily inducing a state of high self-focus may improve emotional skills, while inducing high other-focus may impair them. Across three studies, participants were exposed to self-focused, other-focused, or control stimuli. They then completed standardized tasks assessing emotion recognition (all studies) and verbalization (Study 2), in both an individualistic and collectivistic culture (Study 1), with one study using a pre-post experimental design that controlled for baseline competencies (Study 3). A mini meta-analysis of the three studies found that high self-focus improved emotional skills, but there was no overall effect of high other-focus. We discuss potential explanations, implications, and limitations of the current findings