Mesquita was born in Amsterdam in 1960 to Jewish Dutch parents who had survived the World War II in hiding.[2] Her father, Albert Gomes de Mesquita was a class mate of Anne Frank.[3] Her mother, Lien de Jong, was orphaned in the war.[4] Both parents were educated, and the family lived a comfortable middle-class life. Mesquita has two younger brothers.
Mesquita obtained a bachelor's degree in psychology and a bachelor's degree in philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. She obtained a master's degree in experimental psychology from the same university, focusing her master thesis on gender differences in emotions. During her Ph.D. in psychology, she developed her initial insights in the role of culture for emotions. Mesquita spent her postdoc years at the University of Michigan,[5] where she was part of the ‘Culture and Cognition group’.[6] This group combined psychological perspectives with those of neighboring disciplines as anthropology and sociology to learn how individual psychological processes are shaped through socio-cultural participation.
Career
Interested by the contrast between the ethnographic findings of marked cultural differences in emotions[7] and psychological research that yielded universality,[8] Mesquita set out to understand the role of culture in emotions. In an extensive literature review that appeared in Psychological Bulletin,[9] she and Nico H. Frijda arrived at a synthesis of the research findings from different disciplines, which challenged the notion of universal basic emotions. They concluded that, while some aspects of emotions may be universal, other aspects are cross-culturally different.[9] In later work, Mesquita found that cultural differences in emotions are systematic and meaningful, and can be understood from cultural differences in self and relationship models (e.g., Mesquita, 2003[10]). The finding of systematic and meaningful cultural differences led Mesquita to formulate a socio-cultural theory of emotions. According to this theory, emotions emerge from interpersonal interactions that are bound and guided by cultural meanings and practices.[11] Her current research focuses on unveiling the interpersonal processes that give rise to cross-culturally different emotions.[12] In another line of research, Mesquita and her colleagues study the consequences of cultural differences in emotions for the multicultural society. They have yielded evidence for emotional acculturation: Emotions change as a result of contact with another culture. The work on acculturation shows the role of culture in producing and reproducing emotions, even beyond their initial socialization.[13] It has also led to a cultural psychological theory of acculturation, in which ‘deep’ psychological processes, such as emotions, change upon contact with another culture.[14] Mesquita’s research interests include the consequences of emotional misfit of immigrant minorities for their belonging to and inclusion in majority culture. The recently published book, Between Us, highlights precisely this theory. It combines a diversity of psychological research and intimate personal stories from different cultures.[15] Notwithstanding, Between Us was nominated for The Next Big Idea. It was also part of the Behavioral Scientist's Summer Book List 2022 and reviewed by Science and The New Yorker.[16]
In 2020, Batja received an Advanced Grant, funded by the European Research Council under the H2020 programme, for the project called EmotionAcculturation.[17] The Advanced Grants support Principal Investigators that have established excellent research achievements.[18] The project is responsible for investigating how emotions, as crucial interaction processes, reflect on immigrant minorities’ social inclusion and wellbeing.
Flanagan, O., LeDoux, Bingle, B., Haybron, D., Mesquita, B., Moody-Adams, M., J., Ren, S., Sun, A.X., Wilson, Y.Y. (in press). The happiness agenda: Why happiness is not the answer. New York: Columbia University Press.
Mesquita, B. (2022). Between Us: How Cultures Create Emotions. NY: Norton. ISBN9781324002444
Uskul, A., Gobel, M., Benet-Martinez, V., & Mesquita, B. (Eds.) (2018) Special Issue on Europe’s culture(s): Negotiating cultural meanings, values, and identities in the European context. Journal of Cross-cultural Psychology, 49(6). https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0022022118779144
Mesquita, B, & Barrett, L.F. (Eds.) (2017). Emotion. Current Opinion in Psychology, 17, 1-194.
Mesquita, B., Barrett, L. F., & Smith, E. R. (Eds.) (2010). The Mind in Context. New York: Guilford. ISBN9781606235539
Kuppens, P., Stouten, J., & Mesquita, B. (Guest Editors) (2009). Special Issue on individual differences in emotion components and dynamics. Cognition and Emotion, 23. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930902985605
^ abMesquita, Batja; Frijda, Nico H. (1992). "Cultural variations in emotions: A review". Psychological Bulletin. 112 (2): 179–204. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.112.2.179. PMID1454891.
^Mesquita, B. (2003). Emotions as dynamic cultural phenomena. In R. Davidson, H. Goldsmith, & K. R. Scherer (Eds.), The handbook of the affective sciences (pp. 871-890). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
^Jozefien, De Leersnyder; Mesquita, Batja; Kim, Heejung (2013). "Emotional acculturation". In Hermans, Dirk; Mesquita, Batja (eds.). Changing emotions. New York: Psychology Press. pp. 127–133.