Hugo Sanchez Hernandez presented his work, titled Capitalization Regulation a Consequence of Social Mobility? An Examination of First-Generation College Student Experiences, on March 30, 2023, at the 2023 Society for Affective Science (SAS) conference as part of the symposium HOW CULTURE SHAPES AFFECTIVE PROCESSES IN CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS, alongside notable emotion researchers such as Dr. Jeanne L. Tsai and Dr. Shelly Gable.
The aim of this work was to explore how experiencing upward social mobility shapes how emotion and behavioral norms are navigated. Through ongoing thematic analysis of 32 one-on-one interviews with first-generation college students at the graduate level, two novel findings emerged. First-generation college students were found to engage in capitalization regulation – thoughtful consideration of how and with whom academic achievements are shared across lower and higher social status worlds – and to report expressing pride and gratitude concomitantly. This work contributes to the field’s understanding of how emotions and behaviors are managed across social hierarchies.
