An emotion is a conscious, intentional response directed toward an object; is dependent on cultural, biological, and psychological factors; and is observer-dependent—emotions exist only in the minds of individuals. Emotions are both intrapersonal and interpersonal phenomena, are often conveyed behaviorally (e.g., facial expressions, body postures, inflections), and are almost always felt physiologically (e.g., increased heart rate). People around the world experience emotions, and thus how emotions are experienced, expressed, perceived, and regulated varies greatly. Enculturation, or the socialization of a developing human mind to a particular culture context, is the platform from which variation in emotion emerges.
Human neurology can explain some of the cross-cultural similarities in emotional phenomena, including certain physiological and behavioral changes. However, the way that emotions are expressed and understood varies across cultures. Though most people experience similar internal sensations, the way these are categorized and interpreted is shaped by language and social context. This relationship is not one-sided – because behavior, emotion, and culture are interrelated, emotional expression can also influence cultural change or maintenance over time.
There are three main perspectives on how emotions occur, and the relative importance of biology and culture. Discrete emotion theory takes a categorical approach, suggesting there is a universal set of distinct, basic emotions that have unique patterns of behavior, experiences, physiological changes, and neural activity. Social constructionist theories suggest emotions are more deeply culturally influenced, shaping our perception and experience of the world according to the language, norms, and values within a given social context. The final perspective takes an integrated approach, exploring the interaction of biology and culture to explain the social influences on the categorization and subjective experience of emotion.
Early research Charles Darwin was among the first to study emotion and culture in his book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, suggesting emotions and their expression are universal and evolutionary. Darwin considered the face to be the primary medium of emotional expression in humans, capable of representing both major emotions and subtle variations within each one. Though he argued facial expressions were universal, gestures were considered culturally specific. Since then, the idea of the seven basic emotions (i.e., happiness, sadness, anger, contempt, fear, disgust, and surprise) has ignited debate about the origins of emotion.
In the early 1960s, Silvan Tomkins' Affect Theory built upon Darwin's research, arguing that facial expressions are biological and universal manifestations of emotions. In 1971, psychologists Paul Ekman and Carroll Izard explored the universality of emotions, creating sets of photographs displaying emotions that were recognizable to Americans. These photographs were recognized as expressing the same feelings by cultures in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and South America. From this, the researchers concluded that facial expressions were universal, innate, and based in evolution.
In addition to pioneering research in psychology, ethnographic accounts of cultural differences in emotion began to emerge. Gregory Bateson, an English anthropologist, used photography and film to document his time with the people of Bajoeng Gede in Bali. He observed cultural differences in Balinese mothers' muted emotional responses to their children's intense emotions, and mother-child displays of love and anger did not follow Western social norms. The fieldwork of anthropologist Jean Briggs details her almost two-year experience living with an Utku Inuit family in her book Never in Anger: Portrait of an Eskimo Family. She described the culture as particularly unique in emotional control – expressions of anger or aggression were rarely observed, and resulted in ostracism.
The term emotive, coined by anthropologist William Reddy, attempts to distinguish societal emotional values and expressions from individual's emotional experience. In The Making of Romantic Love, Reddy argues that romantic love is a 12th-century European construct, built in response to the parochial view that sexual desire was immoral, and was not present in cultures outside of Europe at the time. Reddy suggests that the distinction between sexual passion and love was not present in Heain Japan or the Indian kingdoms of Bengal and Odisha. These cultures did not view sexual desire as a form of appetite, unlike the view popularized by the Christian Church. Sexuality was not spiritually distinct from love: indeed, sex was often used as a medium of spiritual worship, emulating the divine love between Krishna and Radha. Sexual desire and love were inextricable from one another.
Cultural norms of emotions
Culture guides our understanding, expectations, and interpretations of human emotion and behavior. Cultural expectations of emotion are sometimes referred to as display rules, internalized through a socialization process. The social consequences and valuation of different emotions also vary across cultures. Ekman and Friesen suggest that display rules vary across cultures, genders, or backgrounds, shaping emotional expression accordingly. A cultural syndrome, as defined by Triandis, is a "shared set of beliefs, attitudes, norms, values, and behavior organized around a central theme and found among speakers of one language, in one time period, and in one geographic region". Because culture is a shared experience, there are social implications for emotional expression and experiences that vary between situations and individuals. Hochschild discusses the role of feeling rules, which are social norms that prescribe how people should feel in different situations. These rules can be general (how people should express emotions overall) and also situational (how people should express emotions during specific events).
Cultural scripts are cultural norms that influence our expectations for emotional regulation and experience. They shape the perceived value and desirability of different emotions, influencing ideal affect (what people want to feel). The dominant cultural script in Western cultures is to maximize positive emotions and minimize negative emotions. In Eastern cultures, the dominant cultural script is based in dialectical thinking and seeks to find a balance between positive and negative emotions. Cultural influences on ideal affect can be detected very early. Children are socialized to learn ideal affect through cultural products such as storybooks, showing cross-cultural differences by preschool age. European American preschoolers preferred excited smiles and activities over calm ones, and perceived an excited smile as happier than Taiwanese Chinese preschoolers did. This is reflected in best-selling American books containing more exciting content than their Taiwanese counterparts.
Happiness is generally valued across cultures, but it is viewed in subtly different ways. In individualistic cultures, happiness is viewed as infinite, personally attainable, and experienced internally. In collectivistic cultures, happiness is relational, based on social and external factors, and experienced alongside other people. Uchida, Townsend, Markus, and Bergseiker suggest that Japanese contexts reflect a conjoint model of agency, meaning that emotions are formed within a relational context. In American contexts, emotions are experienced individually and through self-reflection, reflecting a disjoint model. When Americans are asked about emotions, they are more likely to have self-focused responses, whereas a typical Japanese reaction would reflect emotions between the self and others.
Culture and emotion regulation Emotions play a critical role in interpersonal relationships and how people relate to each other. Emotional exchanges can have serious social consequences that can result in either maintaining and enhancing positive relationships or becoming a source of antagonism and discord (Fredrickson, 1998; Gottman & Levenson, 1992). Even though people may generally "want to feel better than worse" (Larsen, 2000), how these emotions are regulated may differ across cultures. Research by Yuri Miyamoto suggests that cultural differences influence emotion regulation strategies. Research also indicates that different cultures socialize their children to regulate their emotions according to their own cultural norms. For example, ethnographic accounts suggest that American mothers think that it is important to focus on their children's successes while Chinese mothers think it is more important to provide discipline for their children. To further support this theory, a laboratory experiment found that when children succeeded on a test, American mothers were more likely than Chinese mothers to provide positive feedback (e.g. "You're so smart!"), in comparison to Chinese mothers who provided more neutral or task relevant feedback (e.g. "Did you understand the questions or did you just guess?"; Ng, Pomerantz, & Lam, 2007). This shows how American mothers are more likely to "up-regulate" positive emotions by focusing on their children's success whereas Chinese mothers are more likely to "down-regulate" children's positive emotions by not focusing on their success.
Americans see emotions as internal personal reactions; emotions are about the self (Markus & Kityama, 1991). In America, emotional expression is encouraged by parents and peers while suppression is often disapproved. Keeping emotions inside is viewed as being insincere as well as posing a risk to one's health and well-being. In Japanese culture, however, emotions reflect relationships in addition to internal states. Some research even suggests that emotions that reflect the inner self cannot be separated from emotions that reflect the larger group. Therefore, unlike American culture, expression of emotions is often discouraged, and suppressing one's individual emotions to better fit in with the emotions of the group is looked at as mature and appropriate.
Emotional perception and recognition While traditionally emotional perception and recognition was thought of as identical processes across groups that relies on interpretation of standard sets of facial expressions, more recent research suggests the cultural context of upbringing can affect emotional perception and recognition of people in significant ways. Cultural context serves as important frameworks for the perceiver to allocate attention when attempting to attribute emotions.
A cultural effect on the perception of facial expression is observed across different groups, emotions such as startled and sneers in a Western Caucasian context are expressed generally across the face are instead interpreted as surprise and anger by Asian participants due to a stronger focus on eyes when assessing emotional expression. Identical sets of facial expressions have also been seen to reflect distinct emotions in different cultural groups. Furthermore, certain cultural groups seem to disregard facial expressions in emotional perception in favor of inferences based on actions. A difference in the neuronal correlate of emotional perception is also seen, distinct brain activities have been observed in participants of different cultural groups when asked to perceive the emotions of ingroup and outgroup members and certain facial expressions associated with emotions.
On the level of social context, while surveyed and accounted for by individuals across cultures, a more pronounced emphasis its utilization in emotional perception is observed in individuals that belong to a collectivist cultural group.
Individualistic vs. collectivistic cultures