Context matters: Emotional fit of immigrant-origin adolescents and its implications for their well-being

Abstract

Normative emotional patterns vary across cultures, and emotional fit with a cultural norm is linked to well-being. Immigrant-origin minority adolescents often navigate multiple cultural contexts, such as school and home, where emotional patterns may differ. In a daily diary study, we examined whether minority adolescents exhibited context-congruent emotional fit – dynamically aligning their emotional experiences with the pertinent cultural norms of each context – and how context-congruent fit relates to well-being in positive and negative situations. Surprisingly, adolescents’ emotional fit with both minority and majority norms was consistently higher at home than at school, providing only partial support for context-congruent emotional fit. Additionally, context-congruent emotional fit was positively associated with well-being in positive situations but negatively in negative situations. These findings suggest that immigrant-origin adolescents’ well-being depends on both emotional fit and situational valence, underscoring that their daily emotional lives reflect complex cultural dynamics rather than a simple minority-majority dichotomy.