Culture and Emotion

Question 1

What is culture?

Answer 1

Culture evolved to help humans survive within a group - working in groups helped achieve greater survival
Culture is a universal mechanism that allow different groups to adapt to common social challenges
People can fit into more than one culture/sub-culture
Allows us to share resources within a group, and protect from rival groups (outgroups)

Question 2

Culture is specific

Answer 2

A culture is specific and is defined by the particular structure, time, traditions, place, values..
e.g. hunter-gatherer had different challenges to agricultural groups
This results in core ideas, norms and values that lead to institutions that enforce such (e.g. police, church)

Question 3

Culture at different levels

Answer 3

SOCIETAL FACTORS AND IDEAS
– what is good/moral
INSTITUTIONS
– political
– educational
DAILY LIFE
– home
– work
– school
SELF
– perception
– cognition
– emotion
– action

Question 4

Individualism

Answer 4

Centralises the individual
Social structures support individual goals and the development of an individual self (e.g. learn to cook to provide for the self)

Question 5

Collectivism

Answer 5

Centralises group relations and bonds
Social structures support group resources, relatedness and the interdependent self (e.g. learn to cook to provide for family)

Question 6

Socially engaging emotions

Answer 6

Promote relatedness and connectedness to others and are more intense when other-focused
More prevalent in collectivism

Question 7

Socially disengaging emotions

Answer 7

Promote autonomy and are more intense when self-focused
More prevalent in individualism

Question 8

Furukawa et al. - Shame- vs. pride-pronness

Answer 8

Used Japanese, Korean and USA children
Japanese reported feeling more shame in daily situations, and the tendency to feel pride was correlated with more shame
– other-focused culture - should take pride in others achievements not your own

Question 9

Osch et al. - Value of self-pride

Answer 9

Chinese and North American students
Rated the extent to which they valued pride in personal achievements (self-pride), pride in others achievements (other-pride), and the desirability of expressing pride in personal achievements
Chinese felt more pride in others, Americans felt more pride in self
Chinese students had much less desire to express personal pride

Question 10

Culturally normative emotions

Answer 10

Culturally normative emotions (emotions that fit into the values of our culture) correlate with wellbeing
May be due to better fitting into an ingroup and responding to you more positively
Japan: wellbeing associated with socially engaging emotions
USA: wellbeing associated with socially disengaging emotions

Question 11

Ideal affect (arousal) across cultures

Answer 11

Individualistic countries value high arousal positive states that activate and serve the self
Collectivist countries value low arousal positive states that maintain harmonious relationship

Question 12

How did Ekman test the universality hypothesis?

Answer 12

Matched scores should be higher than chance recognition (around 70-90%), and invariant across different cultures, languages and experimental designs

Question 13

Flaws in Ekman’s testing?

Answer 13

Anything higher than chance counting as a match is not constructually valid - if it isn’t exact how does that prove universality and an innate affect program?
Only used Caucasian people - outgroups - would not have evolved to these unfamiliar faces
Issue of translation - some words may not be directly translatable - interpreting response in ways that confirm our ideas - subject to confirmation bias (assumption, e.g. content could be neutral or happy)

Question 14

Methology and design effect on universality?

Answer 14

Constrained emotions lead to increased recognition of emotions across cultures
– only studies with strong support were very constrained
Free labelling significantly reduced recognition - contrasting universality
– if it is an innate affect program we should be able to do so freely without aid - methods affected scores
Also varied a lot between different type of emotion - happiness consistently higher, anger/fear less so
This doesn’t completely dismiss BET but suggests that there’s more going on than simply a universal affect program

Question 15

Cultural in-group advantage

Answer 15

Better at recognising emotions displayed in the style of your ingroup (due to display rules)
Even when controlling for language differences

Question 16

Dialect Theory of Emotion

Answer 16

Argues for a universal emotion program that is universal and genetically hardwired into humans
Dialects (different cultures) have different things that can activate elements of that core affect, interpreting other peoples expressions (decoding rules)

Question 17

Decoding rules

Answer 17

Cultural norms that govern the perception of emotion expressed - inhibit emotions disruptive to cultural norms or harmony

Question 18

Ekman - Trobrianders

Answer 18

Investigated BET in Papua New Guinea
Used images produced by Fore people to Trobrianders - two different cultural tribes but had similar racial features
Ekman labelled for predicted emotions
Showed 5 images of spontaneous expressions produced by Fore people and labelled by Ekman
Conducted studies in Trobrianders language
Trobriander agreement was low with Ekman’s predicted labels

Question 19

Limitations of images for emotion

Answer 19

Often use a face with no context around it - we use more than the face when emoting (e.g. body posture) and percieving the context of an emotion
We do not view emotions in a static image - in reality it is a dynamic process, e.g. constantly moving, different angles - such as sadness being associated with lowered head, happiness or surprise with raised

Question 20

Trobrianders and core affect - Crivelli et al.

Answer 20

Showed Trobrianders same 5 spontaneous Fore emotions Ekman showed and asked to freely label their valence (positive or negative) and arousal (high or low)
Attribution of valence and arousal were similar to US Americans - but not identical (argument for display rules and decoding rules - they don’t completely inhibit/exacerbate our expression or perception of emotions but to smaller degrees - may explain this higher but not perfect correlation)
BUT the task may have been easier (less to choose from than 5 different emotions)
4

Question 21

New Basic Emotions Theory - Ideas

Answer 21

Emotional expression coordinates social interactions by conveying information and evoking responses in others
– we can modify depending on social situation
Emotion expressions can signal multiple things aside from internal affect state - intentions, traits
– communicative
Emotional expressions are multimodal, dynamic patterns of behaviour - involve vocalisation, facial action, bodily movement, gaze, gesturing, head movements, touch …
– expressions of emotin are not limited to the face

Question 22

New Basic Emotions Theory - Explanation of cross-cultural similarities and differences

Answer 22

Emotions manifest some degree of cross-cultural universality in both production and recognition
International core sequences:
Culturally varying sequences (including dialect theory): emotions are categorical and these categories are recognisable WITHIN cultures

Question 23

Keltner and Cordaro - Dynamic emotions across cultures

Answer 23

Showed ppts from 10 different countries (with 5 different cultures) static images of American actors while conveying dynamic aspects of 21 specific emotions (head position, gaze, face touching)
All 5 cultures recognised the same core facial and bodily patterns for the corresponding emotion, but with many smaller variations
- these variations could be due to display and decoding rules
Could also redo with corresponding ethncities/cultures - or possibly like an intermix of different ethnicities - e.g. same amount of ones as assessed

Question 24

fMRI - categorical AND dimensional

Answer 24

Matsuda et al.
Used fMRI to scan while people viewed facial expressions
Morphed 6 basic emotions along a continuum
Evidence that we process emotions both along a dimension and in categories - and different regions of the brain activated depending on if we process along a dimension or categorical
– we may use both systems to create an emotional experience and perceive such