Culture of Emotions

As we study emotions, we notice that the same emotions are experienced by all human beings; however the events that evoke them or the reactions they cause differ as we cross the cultural and gender lines. Culture and gender, likewise, play a role in the emotions we feel, how they are evoked, or how we express them. Although emotion recognition was thought of as largely universal, we have noticed differences between the way males and females display emotions. Usually, people of both genders feel the same types of emotions and the same intensity in during the same events, but it is the way we express them that differs across the gender line of one culture, and this causes a lot of stereotypes. It is not that women do not feel the same range of anger as men, but they are thought to not express such emotion. When angry, for example, women are then more likely to cry then to show any other more aggressive behavior. In the March 2000 issue of Psychology of Women Quarterly, studies are explained that work as evidence for this gender bias in emotions. The studies identified gender stereotypes of emotions, and the relationship between gender stereotypes and the interpretation of emotionally expressive behavior. Participants of these studies believed women experienced and expressed majority of the emotions studied - such as sadness, fear, sympathy - more often than men. Exceptions included anger and pride, which were thought to be experienced and expressed more often by men. In another study discussed in the issue, participants interpreted photographs of adults’ uncertain anger/sadness facial expressions in a stereotype-consistent manner. The results found that women were rated as sadder and less angry than men. Even definite anger expressed by women was rated as a mixture of anger and sadness. The discussion of these studies focused on the role of gender stereotypes in adults ’interpretations of emotional expressions, and the implications to social relations. Gender bias plays a huge role in the difference of emotion in genders. The two examples above, show two of the important roles and display rules that we feel we need to follow. The first example shows us that even though we feel the same emotions and at the same rate, we are often labeled differently on how often we feel a specific emotion compared to the opposite gender. On the other hand, when presented with an emotion that could be described as anger or sadness, women are stuck and labeled as sad, while men are labeled as angry. (Plant, Hyde, Keltener and Devine)                                                    

Emotional differences occur not only between males and females, but between different cultures and ethnic backgrounds as well. In order to explore how differences across cultures may affect the universal processes involved in expressing and understanding emotions, in 1972 Ekman conducted his  five-culture study. Participants viewed photographs expressing emotions, and for each they selected an emotion that they thought was the correct answer - from six possible choices. Although this study is not the strongest evidence, as guessing entirely at random would yield one correct answer out of six, it provides us with plenty of support and new ideas that started out the current research on this topic. We could notice an interesting fact from this experiment, the group with the highest performance is also the same group from which the experimental stimuli originated. All participants  in the study viewed photographs of American facial expressions, therefore  Americans were the only participants of the study to view members of their own cultural group (in-group). Everyone else in the study judged expressions from a foreign group (out-group). It was interesting that the South American participants were only slightly less accurate than U.S. participants, whereas the difference in performance was larger for the Japanese, who were the most culturally distant. Therefore, the in-group advantage is lower when groups are nearer geographically or have greater cross-cultural contact with each other,. The implication that comes from this is that over time, participants appear to learn how to understand the emotions of people from foreign cultures, the more they interact with them.   

Another example is a research conducted recently, which is holds a better argument for culture diversity in emotions. A study published in the April 2007 issue of The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology is a result from a collaborative study between Masaki Yuki (Hokkaido University), William Maddux (INSEAD) and Takahiko Masuda (University of Alberta). This study reveals that in cultures where it is normal to have your emotions under strict control, such as Japan, focus is placed on the eyes to interpret emotions. On the other hand, in cultures where emotion is openly expressed, such as the United States, the focus is on the mouth to interpret emotion. Across two studies, computerized icons and human images were used to compare how Japanese and American cultures interpreted images, which conveyed a range of emotions. Findings go against the popular theory that the facial expressions of basic emotions can be universally recognized. Culture plays a very strong role in determining how people perceive emotions, and this fact needs to be considered when interpreting facial expression.

A very interesting point brought up by the study is present below:

"These cultural differences are even noticeable in computer emoticons, which are used to convey a writer's emotions over email and text messaging. Consistent with the research findings, the Japanese emoticons for happiness and sadness vary in terms of how the eyes are depicted, while American emoticons vary with the direction of the mouth. In the United States the emoticons : ) and : - ) denote a happy face, whereas the emoticons :( or : - ( denote a sad face. However, Japanese tend to use the symbol (^_^) to indicate a happy face, and (;_;) to indicate a sad face."