Emotions and Culture Flashcards
What are theoretical perspectives on cultural differences in emotion?
Universalist views - even though cultures different, at fundamental level humans experience emotions in the same way, and therefore everyone experiences emotion the same.
Constructivist views - agree some emotions have biological basis, but these are influenced by social cultures and norms. To experience shame, have to understand you are violated some sort of norms.
What did Ekman (1972) find?
Six basic emotions are universally recognised from facial expressions - anger, fear, disgust, surprise, happiness, and sadness. Found these to have distinct and unique characteristics. Tend to be associated with unique events.
How do we earn facial expressions?
Matsumoto and Willingham (2009) studied athletes’ facial expressions after winning or losing Judo matches at the 2004 Olympic and Paralympic games. They found no differences between blind and sighted athletes, or across cultures. Suggest there are basic universal emotions.
Do emotional experiences differ across cultures?
Basic emotions are expressed similarly across cultures, and are universally recognised across cultures (Elkman and Friesen, 1971). But, just because humans have the potential to experience the same emotions doesn’t mean they actually have the same emotional experience (Menquita et al). Doesn’t mean all cultures experience the same amount of happiness/sadness.
What is evidence that emotional experiences do differ across cultures?
Americans report a higher frequency of positive than negative emotions, whereas Japans report equal frequencies (Kitayama et al, 2000). The emotions that are ‘normal’ in a given culture will influence what’s perceived as ‘abnormal’: sadness is especially noticeable in a culture that values happiness (Mesquita and Walker, 2003). People in Western cultures more likely to experience positive emotions.
What is evidence that emotional experiences can differ within cultures?
Lower-class individuals experience more negative emotions (anxiety, sadness, anger) than upper-class individuals (Gallo and Matthews, 2003). Higher class people are more likely to express anger in Japan, less likely in America (Park et al, 2013). People in both cultures able to experience anger, but culture differs how it is expressed.
How do emotion concepts differ across cultures?
May not be unique emotions - may just be variations on universal emotions. Can also be the same emotion by due to different causes. Cultures think of emotions in different ways, and have different words to describe these emotions, e.g. ‘hygge’. Do labels we have for things change our emotional experiences?
What is the importance of emotions in different cultures?
Cultures vary in the number of terms they have for particular emotions: an emotion with many different labels is hypercognised (Levy, 1984), e.g. the Chinese language has 113 terms for shame (Li et al, 2004). When a person speaking Chinese puts a label on their shame, they’re being much more specific than someone speaking the English language.
Does the way we label an emotion influence what we feel?
It’s been argued that the experience of feeling an emotion occurs when a person categorises their internal state (Feldman-Barret, 2006). This is a version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: that the structure of a language determines how speakers categorise and perceive the world. This suggests that language and concepts shape emotion, and people with different labels might actually experience emotions differently. Used a visual illusion - use past experience to change our perception.
What is Feldman-Barrett’s Theory of Constructed Emotion? (2006)
Suggests may not be any universal emotional experience: they are things we construct based on knowledge and past experience. Put discrete labels based on our personal experience.
How do emotion preferences differ across cultures?
Certain emotions may be valued/not in certain cultures. Think of it different in terms of valence - think of emotions as different on whether they are positively valenced or negatively valenced. Different cultures value and reward emotions differently.
What are cultural differences in facial expression of emotion?
Jack et al. (2012) recorded people from Western and East Asian cultures expressing basic emotions. While the basic units of the expressions were the same, people from East Asian cultures ere more likely to use their eyes to express emotion intensity.
What are cultural differences in textual expressions of emotions?
Jack et al (2013) how people expressed emotions of tweets. Eyes changing in the emoticons to express emotions in Asian emoticons, where in Western emoticons the mouth was changed to express emotions.
What are cultural differences in interpretation of facial expressions?
Yuki et al (2007). When asked “how happy or sad is this expression”, American and Japanese participants gave different ratings: Japanese participants based judgements more on the eyes, Americans on the mouth.
How does culture influence how people behave after being insulted?
Cohen and Nisbett (1996) when insulted, walked closer to the confederate and displayed more aggression.
