Emotions are an important cultural cue that help us understand others and aides communication. But do we recognise emotions in the same way? Research says it is unlikely. The language we speak, the cultural norms we ascribe to, ethnic diversity and other contextual information all shape the way we perceive emotions says Rafi Ahmed (studying BSc Psychological and Behavioural Science).

Consider the emotions shown above depicted in Paul Ekman’s classic study on basic emotions: happiness, sadness, surprise, fear, disgust and anger. You probably guessed what emotion each facial expression is referring to. The emotions displayed are thought to exist in every culture. However, the way we view these stereotyped, and more subtle, expressions varies from culture to culture.

We are not born with a specific template to recognise different emotions. Three-year-olds will only be able to categorise “pleasant” and “unpleasant” emotions in facial expressions. They can only understand the valence (positive or negative) and the arousal level of emotions. Extracting specific emotions from valence and arousal requires the use of emotion concepts.

Emotion concepts are our mental representations of emotions. For instance, how do we know that disgust is different from anger? Is he mildly irritated or fuming? Emotion concepts aid us in perceiving emotions in others and in ourselves.

Does culture have a role in all this? Let’s find out!

Language

Language increases our speed and accuracy in understanding emotions by aiding the development of different emotion concepts. In an experiment, participants were told to repeat a word referring to an emotion 30 times until it lost its meaning. They were slower and less accurate in matching facial expressions to the emotion word than people who were told to repeat the word thrice. In a different trial, patients with semantic dementia (i.e. a disorder that permanently damages our ability to access the meaning of words) could separate facial expressions in terms of their valence, but not to the emotions they represent.

Emotion concepts affect how we categorise different facial expressions. In a study, people who spoke Herero, a dialect spoken by a remote African Himba tribe, did not follow the “universal” pattern of sorting facial expressions in the way English speakers did. This is because the former labelled facial expressions in terms of physical actions (e.g. laughing), whereas the latter sorted them via mental state words (e.g. concern, fear).

However, the phenomenon of emotions exists globally regardless of language: Tahitians and the Ifaluks of Micronesia express emotions even though they do not have a term for emotion.

There is a bigger picture here.

Context matters! (To some more than others)

One study found that the Japanese determined someone’s emotion by their facial expression in the context of others. However, Westerners did not. For instance, the Japanese judged a smiling person to be less happy if the surrounding people depicted negative emotions. In Japan, “emotion” is a metric to judge the relationship between oneself and others.

In Western countries, this context is not so influential. We can note this distinction through the lens of how collectivist or individualistic a culture is. Individualistic cultures prioritise the self over the group and collectivist cultures do the opposite. East Asians countries are thought to be more collectivist and Western countries, more individualistic.

Cultural norms in such countries dictate how we express our emotions. The Japanese show more socially engaging emotions than socially disengaging ones since the latter can ruin the harmony of the group. Studies have also shown that collectivist cultures show less expression as a norm, particularly with people of a higher status, than individualistic cultures.  It is therefore easier for an in-group member to perceive their emotions than an out-group member, due to difference in norms. A study showed that Japanese people were more accurate at predicting the intensity of emotions displayed in faces of other Japanese people than the Dutch.

However, individualism and collectivism are a subset of the bigger framework of ethnic diversity and migration. Long-term exposure through migration to people of other cultures can help us become attuned to the subtleties of facial expressions. A research paper found that people were better at expressing emotions in places with a history of long-term migration and high ethnic diversity over time. They used body language to overcome language barrier for effective communication.

Research has also shown that we subconsciously associate other forms of body language (e.g. posture) and visual backgrounds with facial expressions while perceiving emotions.

Emotion perception IS important

The ability to perceive emotions through facial expressions can help us know the thoughts and feelings of others, aiding communication. Emotions are also important cultural cues that helps us understand and assimilate to other cultures more broadly. Expressing anger, a socially disengaging emotion, might make your American peers listen to you but will not go down so well with East Asian peers.

Expressive emotions are more culturally valued in individualistic countries. A study showed that European American lenders were more likely to lend money to borrowers who showed “excited” versus closed “calm” smiles in their profile pictures than Korean lenders who preferred the latter. An “excited” smile was associated with trustworthiness amongst European Americans. This alludes to how we are more willing to share resources and interact with those who follow our cultural norms regarding emotion displays.

The ability to perceive emotions cross-culturally is also one way of understanding the cultural meaning of different events. For instance, people in the Amazon eat their deceased rather than burying them on the ground. Rather than being disgusted by the practice, they embrace it because they think it’s the highest form of respect. They can justify the treatment of the deceased since the ground is viewed as polluting. On the other hand, Americans and Europeans elicit sadness more with global crises while East Asians express more sadness with problems in relationships. Why do you think that’s the case?

So, close your eyes. Imagine you are talking with someone from another side of the world.

What do you see?

Read more:

The Countries Where People Are the Most Emotionally Complex

You Aren’t at The Mercy of Your Emotions – Your Brain Creates Them

The Changing Geopolitics of European Emotion

Notes:

• This blog post expresses the views of its author(s), not the position of The Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science or the London School of Economics.
• This blog post was originally written as part of PB101: Foundations of Psychological Science, a compulsory course on the BSc Psychological and Behavioural Science programme in the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science at LSE. It has been published with the permission of the author. Visit the PBS website for more information on studying in the department: https://www.lse.ac.uk/PBS/Study.
• Featured image courtesy of Nicholas Green via Unsplash

References

**all images (expect the first one) have been used from Shutterstock, an online platform with access to royalty-free photos.

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