Trying to lift a friend’s mood is not a universal instinct of the same strength everywhere. People in more individualist cultures are more motivated to make others feel better than people in more collectivist ones, and they go about it differently.
The study, led by Shir Ginosar Yaari of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem with Maya Tamir and dozens of collaborators across several continents, was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on June 30, 2026.
Three studies across cultures
The team ran two multicountry surveys, one with 3,154 people in 13 countries and another with 3,503 people in 17 countries, and a daily diary study of 243 people in two countries. Participants reported how motivated they were to change emotions, and which strategies they used, both for other people and for themselves.
Comparing the two targets let the researchers check whether cultural differences were special to social situations or simply reflected how people handle feelings in general.
Care versus suppression
Cultural gaps were larger when people were influencing someone else’s emotions than their own. Members of more individualist cultures were more motivated to make others feel better, though not themselves. They were more likely to express care, and less likely to encourage others to suppress their emotions or to dwell on them.
These habits were linked to an index of relationship closeness in an individualist culture, but not in a collectivist one. In other words, the comforting style common in Western settings seemed to pay off socially only where it is the norm.
The authors conclude that helping others feel better may not be equally desirable everywhere, a point that matters for advice on support and relationships that is often built on Western assumptions.
Study Details:
- Title: People in more individualist cultures are more motivated to make others feel better
- Authors: Shir Ginosar Yaari, Yulia E. Chentsova-Dutton, Michaela Riediger, Antje Rauers, Min Young Kim, Yuri Miyamoto, Allon Vishkin, Julia Anne Freitag, Jan Cieciuch, Mariana Gurevich, Maria Padun, Nevin Solak, Xiaoqin Wang, Jiang Qiu, Aldo Alvarez-Risco, Alessandro Alberto Rossi, Yaniv Hanoch, Yukiko Uchida, Claudio Vaz Torres, Thiago Gomes Do Nascimento, Asghar Afshar Jahanshahi, Rakesh Singh, Babita Singh, Shanmukh V. Kamble, Sieun An, Vivian Afi Abui Dzokoto, Adote Anum, Stefania Mannarini, María Isabel Huerta-Carvajal, Erika Galindo-Bello, Verónica Janneth García Ibarra, Arobindu Dash, Maya Tamir
- Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publication Date: June 30, 2026
- DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2533994123