Film Reception, Emotion Regulation, and Cultural Identity in Kazakhstan: A Three-Pathway Conceptual Model
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Objective: This article aimed to develop a non-clinical conceptual model explaining how film reception may create conditions for emotion regulation, autobiographical meaning-making, and cultural identity negotiation in Kazakhstan.
Methods and Materials: A theory-building critical narrative synthesis was conducted. The review integrated 63 sources, including 50 interdisciplinary sources and 13 sources focused on Kazakhstan or Central Asia. Sources were identified through targeted searches in Scopus, Web of Science, PsycINFO, and JSTOR, supplemented by citation tracing. Selection was based on conceptual relevance, credibility, and contribution to model constructs, pathways, moderators, boundary conditions, or adverse alternatives. Conceptual saturation was reached when additional sources no longer changed the model. No participants, interventions, clinical procedures, or new empirical data were involved.
Findings: The synthesis proposed a parsimonious three-pathway model. Film reception begins with perceived narrative and form and passes through a reception gateway involving narrative engagement and viewer stance, including identification, resistance, irony, or moral distance. Three conditional pathways were identified: an affective-regulatory pathway, an autobiographical-narrative pathway, and a cultural-relational pathway. These pathways may contribute to proximal psychosocial integration, defined as viewing-related change in meaning coherence, self-understanding, and relational or cultural belonging. The model also includes three moderator clusters: film and viewing conditions, viewer resources and history, and sociocultural-linguistic position. Positive, null, and adverse outcomes, including distress, rumination, avoidance, stereotype reinforcement, and alienation, are treated as theoretically meaningful.
Conclusion: Film reception should not be assumed to produce therapeutic benefit or uniform identity change. The proposed model offers a bounded, testable framework for future audience research in Kazakhstan.
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