Emotions (Ch 7 from Berry et al., Cross-cultural Psychology, 2002)

1
Emotions(Ch 7 from Berry et al., Cross-cultural
Psychology, 2002)

• Ype H. Poortinga (Prof Em)
• Tilburg University, Netherlands
• University of Leuven, Belgium

2
Outline
Understanding cultural "others" Universality of
emotions Emotions as culture-specific
experiences Componential approaches to emotions
Conclusions
3
Understanding cultural "others"
The Greeks refer to themselves as
philotimous Can we really understand the
meaning of this? The answer in the chapter is
based on research by Osgood in 30 populations
Starting point was the distinction between
denotative and connotative (or affective) meaning
of words in the USA three connotative
dimensions Evaluation, Potency, and Activity

• Steps followed in each of the countries
• - 100 (common) nouns,
• - adjectives associated with these nouns,
• - extraction of 50 bipolar pairs of adjectives in
  each country,
• - 100 respondents rate the 100 nouns on the fifty
  scales
• - pancultural factor analysis -gt three
  dimensions within and across countries
• translation (only now!) showed similarities in
  meaning for each dimension
• Conclusion there is similarity in the space of
  affective meaning, we can have an idea what
  Greeks experience with philotimo

4
Universality of emotions
Recognition of facial expression Ekman examined
"basic" emotions, derived from facial muscular
patterns happiness, sadness, anger, fear,
surprise disgust and (later) contempt, with
Western and illiterate groups. He sees observable
differences mainly as a matter of display rules
(when to express what) NB This evidence for
universality of basic emotions has been
questioned by others like Russell, favoring a
dimensional approach rather than a
typology Recognition of vocal expression Emotions
in the tone of voice tend to be recognized
everywhere, although not as good as in ones own
language Non-verbal communication Gestures
include adaptors (or body manipulators),
regulators, illustrators and emblems. The latter
consist of referential and conventional
emblems There is evidence of substantial cc
agreement even in the meaning of conventional
emblems, although there is complete
non-understanding of some emblems (when based on
a culture-specific symbol)
5
Emotions as culture-specific states
The meaning of emotion is constructed on the
basis of social roles or scripts An example is
the description by Lutz of the emotion song
(justified anger) among the Ifaluk The meaning
of emotions is linked to language, with
culture-specificity and (sometimes, e.g.,
Wierzbicka) underlying universal meaning
categories
6
Componential approaches to emotions

• Components include
• - antecedent events
• - event coding
• - appraisal (e.g., valence, blame, control)
• - physiological reaction patterns
• - action tendencies
• - emotion behavior (e.g., expressions)
• regulation
• social sharing
• According to leading reviewers each component
  shows cross-cultural differences as well as
  similarities

7
An experiment on cultural specificity   "One can
assume that there exist words ('emotion words')
that dictate the way things are seen or one can
assume that there exist things ('emotions') that
are given names and thus have words assigned to
them" (Frijda et al., 1995)   Culture-specific
emotions have been inferred from emotion terms
for which there is no translation equivalent,
e.g., "Schadenfreude" "song" (justifiable anger
among the Ifaluk, Lutz, 1988), or "liget" (anger
associated with head hunting among the Ilongots,
Rosaldo, 1980) How can one conduct research
relevant to this controversy?
8
A test case Are emotions culture-specific?
A rather strict test of identity of emotions,
independent of emotion terms, was possible among
the Rarámuri, an isolated group in Mexico, where
a term for guilt as distinct from shame is
absent in the language.   1. Emotion eliciting
situations were collected among Rarámuri and
among rural Javanese (see Breugelmans
Poortinga, JPSP, 2005) 2a. Guilt-rated as well
as shame-rated situations were found among the
protocols of the Rarámuri, with Dutch and
Indonesian raters
2b. The ratings were used to select
shame-eliciting and guilt-eliciting situations as
stimuli   3. Rarámuri and Javanese rated the
situations on 29 emotion components that
previously had been found to differentiate
between shame and guilt in an international
student sample   4. For most components, a
similar pattern of differentiation as among the
students was found both for the Javanese and for
the Rarámuri
9
(No Transcript)
10
(No Transcript)
11
Conclusions
The reported outcomes of research on emotions, as
in other areas of ccp, tend to be dependent on
the perspective of the researcher Those believing
in the primacy of culture in human behavior find
important differences those believing in the
primacy of humans as organisms find much evidence
for cultural invariance of psychological
processes and functions