Culture and Emotion

• Zunera Tariq
• Visiting Faculty Lecturer
• COMSATS University, Lahore Campus
What are emotions?

• Although there has been disagreement among psychologists

regarding how best to define emotions, most believe that emotions
consist of at least 2 components:
• a physiological component and
• a subjective component.
• Many psychologists also believe that emotions consist of a third
component: a cognitive component.
• Emotions are a universal psychological phenomenon that is based in
evolution

• There is considerable universality in emotion appraisal, expression,

physiology, and recognition of emotions in others

• These emotional universal processes allow humans to adapt, respond,

and cope with problems in social lives
Similarities & Differences in expression of
Emotions
• A comparison of emotional facial expressions of people from Western
industrialized countries and non-Western settings showed significant
resemblance (Ekman, 1980)
• Researchers found universal patterns in the vocal expression of
emotion (Van Bezooijen et al., 1983)
• Cross-cultural invariance in the behavioral expression of complex
emotions such as jealousy and envy (Hupka et al., 1985)
• People in both Western and non-Western countries displayed the
same general expression patterns with regard to emotions.
• Men as a group are prone toward the expression of anger, while
women as a group are prone toward the expression of sadness and
fear
• Emotion recognition – Similarities exist in the process of
identification, description, and explanation of an emotional
expression
Universal facial expressions.
• Paul Ekman theorized that some basic human emotions
(happiness/enjoyment, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust and
contempt) are innate and shared by everyone, and that they are
accompanied across cultures by universal facial expressions.
• Smiling is universally understood as a sign of happiness and lowered
eyebrows as a sign of anger or domination.
• Mixed emotional expressions, such as shame and frustration, are also
easily recognizable across countries.
• People typically identify the speaking person’s emotion in a recording
of a speaker using a foreign tongue.
 Universalist vs. cultural constructionist
debate regarding emotions
• Universalist position:

• emotions are experienced similarly across cultures.

• common emotions have evolved among humans because they serve
adaptive functions.
• Cultural constructionist position: 
• emotions are experienced differently across cultures.
• emotions are largely determined by our appraisals of antecedent
events.
• Research evidence provides support for both positions.
• Cultural constructionist position - Evidence support the cultural constructionist
position on emotion:
• Display rules
• Rules we learn in the course of growing up about who can show which emotion
to whom, and when.
• According to Ekman (1973), display rules dictate how universal emotions are
expressed, are learned early in life, and become automatic determinants of
emotional expression by adulthood.
• Since display rules operate primarily in public, this would explain why
expressions would appear culturally different (due to display rules) especially
when observed by outsiders in social situations. 
• Ekman and Freisen (1969) identified 6 display rules: 
• Amplification,
• deamplification,
• neutralization,
• qualification,
• masking, and
• simulation.
• Researchers have examined cultural differences in the tendencies to
amplify, deamplify, neutralize, qualify, mask, and simulate emotional
expression.
• (a) the American participants had higher expression and amplification
scores than the Japanese and Russian participants.
• (b) the Japanese participants had higher deamplification and qualification
scores than the American and Russian participants.
• The tendency to “control” emotional expression through the use of
deamplification, neutralization, qualification, and masking was positively
correlated with collectivism.
• In collectivistic cultures, the tendency to control the expression of negative
emotions (e.g., anger) was greatest when interacting with ingroup members
(e.g., family).
• In contrast, in individualistic cultures, the tendency to control the
expression of negative emotions was greatest when interacting with
outgroup members (e.g., strangers). (Matsumoto et al. 1998).
Cultural Differences in Expressive Behavior: Display
Rules

• The Original Display Rule Study:

• Ekman (1972), Friesen (1972): American and Japanese

participants viewed highly stressful films in two
conditions
Condition Americans Japanese

Alone Showed disgust Showed disgust

With Experimenter Showed disgust Smiled

 Recent Cross-Cultural Research on Display Rules
Cross-cultural study in 30 countries

Type of culture
Individualistic Collectivistic
Self-Ingroup Relations Okay to express Suppress expressions
negative feelings; less of negative feelings;
need to display positive more pressure to
feelings display positive feelings
Self-Outgroup Suppress expressions Encouraged to express
Relations of negative feelings; negative feelings;
okay to express suppress display of
positive feelings same positive feelings
as toward ingroup reserved for ingroups
• We share a great deal in common with others, regardless of our
cultural origins.
• We react to external events and bodily signals with essentially similar
facial expressions, physiological changes, mixed feelings, and
subjective experiences of pleasure or displeasure.
• Cross-culturally, individuals are emotionally sensitive to the loss of
relatives and friends, the birth of their children, the victories of their
favorite sports team, and criticism from others.
• Across cultures, sadness evokes crying, anger provokes aggression,
and joy helps people embrace and forgive others.
• Emotion is a multicomponential process. It generally includes the following
components: preceding event, physiological response, assessment, expressive
behavior, and change in some element of cognitive functioning.
• Cross-culturally, specific types of elicitors mark basic emotions.
• Despite tremendous individual variations, some cultural norms and conditions
regulate emotional experience.
• Some cultural differences may still be found in the different degrees to which
certain emotional responses are tolerated or valued.
• Human emotional expression is generally acquired in the process of
socialization. Cultural differences may result in differences in emotion-related
cognitive processes.
 Cultural Differences in Emotions

• Cultural groups differ with respect to the frequency and significance of common emotional
reactions.
• On average, European Americans report being happier than Asian Americans, Koreans, or Japanese.
However, European Americans become emotionally distracted by negative events (getting a parking
ticket or receiving a bad grade) and recover from these setbacks more slowly than their
counterparts of Asian ancestry.
• Alternatively, Koreans, Japanese, and, to a lesser extent, Asian Americans report that they are less
happy in general but “recover” to their normal emotional state faster than European Americans.
• The researchers found that European Americans needed nearly two positive events to return to
their normal level of happiness (e.g., getting an encouraging call or earning an A). The Koreans,
Japanese, and Asian Americans, on average, needed only one positive event to recover emotionally
Meaning of Preceding Events
• Cultural differences exist in frequencies of antecedents or the meanings associated
with them that bring about an emotion

• In all cultures, the most important event categories were birth and death, good and bad news,
acceptance or rejection in relationships, meetings with friends, dates, temporary and permanent
separation, listening to music, sexual experiences, interaction with strangers, and success or
failure that evoke the six basic emotions.
• Cultural Differences
• Death of family/close friends, physical separation from loved ones, and world news triggered
sadness for Europeans and Americans more frequently than it did for Japanese; Problems in
relationships triggered sadness more frequently for Japanese

• Situations involving relationships triggered anger more frequently for Americans than Japanese;
Situations involving strangers triggered anger more frequently for Japanese
• Same situations can be interpreted differently across cultures and therefore lead
to different emotions
• Most Europeans, as well as North and South Americans, for instance, consider the
number 13 as unlucky, and some are even afraid to live in an apartment numbered
13 or on the thirteenth floor. People of many other ethnic groups, on the contrary,
would pay little attention to this number.
• People in Russia, for example, are afraid to keep an even number of flowers in a
vase: An even number of flowers is typically brought to a funeral.
• Chinese students were found to experience higher levels of anxiety in mathematics
compared to students from Germany. They were also found to experience more
enjoyment, pride, and shame, as well as less anger than German students
 Cultural Differences in Emotion Appraisal

• Cultural differences also exist in appraisal processes requiring

judgments of fairness and morality.

• African countries appraised situations as more immoral, more unfair, and

more externally caused than other countries

• Latin America appraised situations as less immoral than other countries

Cross-cultural differences in recognition accuracy rates?

Americans are better at recognizing anger, disgust,

fear, and sadness than Japanese

• Cultural source of these differences may be individualism.

• Individualism is associated with better recognition of anger, fear, and

happiness.
 Cultural Differences in
Judging Emotions in Others

• Decoding rules: rules on how emotional expressions are

recognized.
• Ingroup advantage: ability to recognize emotions of others of
same culture better than those from different culture.
• Currently no empirical evidence

• Cultural differences exist in inferences about emotional

experiences underlying expressions
Cultural Differences in the Concept and Social Meaning
of Emotion

• The Categories of Emotion

• Many English emotion words have no equivalent in other languages.
• Emotion words in other languages have no exact English equivalent
Ex) German word: Schadenfreude (deriving pleasure from the
misfortunes of others)
• This does not mean that these emotions don’t exist in other cultures.
• Suggests different cultures divide their world of emotion differently.
Cultural Differences in the Concept and Social Meaning
of Emotion

• The Location of Emotion

• In US, place emotion and inner feelings in the heart.
• Japanese place emotion in gut or abdomen.
• Chewong of Malay place emotion in liver.

• This indicates that emotions are understood differently and have

different meanings in different cultures.
 Cultural Differences in the Concept and Social Meaning
of Emotion

• The Meaning of Emotions to People and to Behavior

• In US, emotions inform oneself about self.
• In other cultures, emotions are statements about relationship between people
and environment.

• The very concept, definition, understanding, and meaning of emotion

differ across cultures..
Cultural constructionist approach to emotion

• Emotions are a set of “socially shared scripts” that are inextricably

linked with culture and develops as individuals are enculturated into
culture.

• Emotion reflects cultural environment, and is a integral part of culture.

• Culture shapes emotion.

• Challenges universality or biological innateness of emotions.

• There are universal and culture-specific aspects of
human emotions.

• Basic emotions are universal.

• Subjective experience and emotion language may be

culture-specific.
• Although some researchers adhere to the universalist position on
emotions and other researchers adhere to the cultural constructionist
position on emotions, there are an increasing number of researchers
who recognize that the two positions are not mutually exclusive.
• Their views are consistent with the Neurocultural Theory of Emotional
Expression, first proposed by Ekman in the 1970’s.
• “Universality may be limited to a rather small set of basic emotions,
which serve as platforms for interactions with learned rules, social
norms, and shared social scripts, resulting in a myriad of more
complex culture-specific emotions.” Matsumoto (2004, p. 259)
• Human beings have the potential to experience the same basic
emotions. However, our cultural differences and subsequent
socialization practices encourage us to experience particular emotions
and suppress others and to be emotionally involved in particular
issues to which other people remain indifferent.
• Therefore, psychologists should gain knowledge about cultural norms,
display rules, and specific and universal antecedents of various
emotions and examine them within particular cultural contexts.