100% satisfaction guarantee Immediately available after payment Both online and in PDF No strings attached
logo-home
Problem 4 of CCP minor $3.87   Add to cart

Class notes

Problem 4 of CCP minor

 21 views  0 purchase
  • Course
  • Institution

Problem 4: Emotions How emotions are expressed and interpreted across cultures.

Preview 2 out of 9  pages

  • October 7, 2020
  • 9
  • 2020/2021
  • Class notes
  • Unknown
  • All classes
avatar-seller
3.1 P4: Emotions

Heine: Emotions in Cultural Psychology

What is Emotion?
James-Lange theory
- Emotions are physiological responses – e.g. person sees bear, experiences fear
because their heart beats faster (+ other autonomic changes)
- Body responds to environmental stimuli by preparing us to react in order for survival
(e.g. running away from bear), and emotions are bodily cues that signal how we
should behave
+ support: some distinctive physiological patterns correspond to certain emotions
Schachter-Singer: Two-Factor theory of emotions
- Autonomic nervous system too clumsy & slow
- Instead, emotions based on 2 factors: 1) Physiological responses and 2) Interpretation
of those responses
- Person sees bear  physiological response  interpret this physiological response 
fear
- Experiment:
 participants interpret feelings as either euphoria or anger. Confederate in euphoria
condition played around, was happy, in anger condition tried to incite anger in
participants by complaining about questions in questionnaire
 physiological arousal: participants given injection. Placebo condition, epinephrine-
informed condition (told that epinephrine shot would increase arousal) vs.
epinephrine-uninformed condition (told epinephrine shot would not increase arousal)
– participants would feel physiological arousal but not know where it was coming
from and would look to situation to interpret their feelings.
 strongest emotions experienced by epinephrine-uninformed condition
 placebo condition experienced little arousal, therefore little emotion
Comparing the 2 theories
- James-Lange: emotions are based on physiological responses, therefore evolutionary
origin, emotions are a survival mechanism  suggests that people in all cultures
would have same emotional experiences.
- Two-factor theory: emotions are interpretations of physiological signals & emotions
are constructed from the belief systems that shape people’s interpretations 
emotions differ across cultures

Varieties of Emotional Experience

Emotions & Facial Expressions
Evidence for cultural universality:
- Darwin  emotional facial expressions common to all people around the world
Various facial expressions evolved as a product of natural selection, form of
nonverbal communication
- Ekman & Friesan  took many photos of people making 6 different emotional
expressions: happiness, disgust, surprise, sadness, anger and fear
Participants had to match photo w/emotion. They identified emotion correctly 80-90%
of the time.
- similar responses may be because the 5 cultures weren’t that different from each
other – all industrialised, exposed to the same media images

,  To address this problem, they chose sample from Papua New Guinea, not
influenced by Western media.
 PNG sample still smiled, frowned, etc. the same – shows that certain facial
expressions are universal
 Proposed that there are 6 basic emotions: happiness, surprise, sadness, anger,
disgust, fear (some evidence that pride might be a basic, universal emotion too – but
pride involves whole body, not just the face)
Evidence for cultural variability:
- People from some cultures perform better than others at identifying emotions –
success for identifying American-posed faces was better for English speakers than for
speakers of other European languages (e.g. Swedish, Greek, Spanish) and non-
European languages (e.g. Japanese, Turkish) and all these groups performed better
than preliterate societies (e.g. Papa New Guinea sample). Americans performed the
best at identifying emotions of American-posed faces.
- Elfenbein & Ambady: meta-analysis on cross-cultural recognition of facial
expressions
 People more accurate at judging facial expressions of people from their own
culture than from other culture
 People are best at recognising emotional expressions of those who they’ve had the
most exposure
 Therefore: faces are interpreted to indicate similar emotions across cultures, but
degree to which each expression is recognised varies
 People can also guess where person is from, from their facial expressions, cannot
make same distinctions if they are showing neutral faces
 People from lower socioeconomic background are more accurate at identifying
emotions in facial expressions – people w/lower social status pay closer attention to
possible thoughts & feelings of those of higher status
 Parts of face being observed: Japanese more likely to conceal emotions they feel
are disruptive, but that is hard to hide around eyes/mouth
Study: top half of face had different emotion to bottom half, participants were asked
to say what emotion was being expressed – Japanese were more influenced by top of
the picture (the eyes) than Americans, who looked at bottom of the picture (the
mouth)


Cultural Display Rules
- Display rules = culturally specific rules that govern which facial expression is
appropriate in each situation – therefore, people vary across cultures how strongly
they express emotions, but they may be experiencing the same feeling
- Immigration history: heterogeneous cultures (e.g. USA) because of people
immigrating, other cultures homogeneous (e.g. Korea) share more accumulated
knowledge, so they can infer meanings from each other w/o need for explicit
communication. In heterogeneous cultures, people share less knowledge, so have to
communicate more openly to be understood. Having cultural display rules that
encourage emotional expressivity is one way people can clearly communicate their
feelings.
- Can influence gestures & facial expressions:
When Americans feel embarrassment, they turn away, but Indians often express
embarrassment by sticking out their tongue
The expression on the left is recognised by both cultures as embarrassment, but only

The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:

Guaranteed quality through customer reviews

Guaranteed quality through customer reviews

Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.

Quick and easy check-out

Quick and easy check-out

You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.

Focus on what matters

Focus on what matters

Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!

Frequently asked questions

What do I get when I buy this document?

You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.

Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?

Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.

Who am I buying these notes from?

Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller akiestudholme. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.

Will I be stuck with a subscription?

No, you only buy these notes for $3.87. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.

Can Stuvia be trusted?

4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)

83637 documents were sold in the last 30 days

Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy study notes for 14 years now

Start selling
$3.87
  • (0)
  Add to cart