Ch. 10 Emotions

Display Rules

Rules that are culturally specific and govern which facial expression are appropriate in a given situation and how intensely they should be exhibited - presuppose that emotional experiences are unaffected by facial expressions (therefore the experience of the basic emotion is more or less constant across cultures)

Does Money Make You Happy?

Same pattern is very robust - Curvilinear pattern: as wealth goes up, happiness goes up - It matters when basic needs are not being satisfied but when they are, it's hard to differentiate between the countries

Study: Oishi, 2002 - Asian-American and Euro-American ratings of their satisfaction

There were no cultural differences in actual daily reports of satisfaction - however, there were pronounced cultural differences in people's retrospective reports - Retrospective accounts are influenced largely by people's theories of what they think their life is like - Euro-Americans are more likely than Asian-Americans to possess a theory that they are happy, even when their daily reports might not be

Do physiological sensations/muscle movements vary across cultures?

These sensations and muscle movements associated with emotions do not vary much across cultures - there is more emotional variability across cultures in people's interpretations of those sensations

Cultural Variation in Intensity of Emotional Experiences

• Cultural display rules governing the de-amplifying or masking of emotions in East Asia might be leading East Asians to experience fewer and less intense emotions than Americans • Since some cultures encourage people to express emotions (American cultures), whereas some cultures encourage people to exert considerable control over their emotional expressions (Japan) • Inhibition of anger leads to cardiovascular stress - therefore in cultures where one is encouraged to inhibit these emotions, it would seem that people would suffer from more heart disease

Paul Ekman and Colleagues

• Explored how similarly people made emotional expressions around the world - They initially found much similarity across industrialized countries However, this could be due to shared cultural learning - It is important to test people from an isolated culture: the Fore of New Guinea - Haven't had much encounters with the industrialized world - Shared cultural learning or shared biological heritage? • Participants were asked to show their expressions imagining if a number of different events had happened to them • A lot of similarity between the expressions the Fore made and what the westerners make

James-Lange Theory of Emotions

• He argued that emotions are our physiological responses to stimuli • These feelings and responses are products of our autonomic nervous system (ie. stomach churning, feeling our heart beating) Carl Lange: proposed that these physiological responses were products of the autonomic nervous system (changes in heart rate, breathing etc.) • If we didn't have such physiological sensations = we would feel emotionless This theory suggests that people in all cultures should have the same emotional experiences

What Makes Life Satisfying?

• One study compared dozens of countries on their individualism, their life satisfaction scores, their overall positive affect and the extent to which people felt they were living up to cultural norms • Most individualistic countries: life satisfaction was more strongly predicted by people's overall level of positive affect • In the least individualistic countries, life satisfaction was more strongly predicted by the extent to which people felt they were living up to cultural norms

Emotion and Language

• People categorize their emotions in very different ways • Tremendous diversity in emotional experience across cultures in terms of how it is described in words, but whether this diversity is captured in people's own thoughts and internal states remains debatable

Individualistic vs. Collectivistic Cultures

• People in individualistic societies were far more likely than those in collectivist societies to base their life satisfaction on how many positive emotions they were experiencing • People in collectivistic cultures showed a higher correlation between their life-satisfaction scores and being respected by others for living up to cultural norms when compared with people from individualistic cultures

Russians compared to Americans (how much they tend to brood)

• Russians reported brooding more than Americans they identified more with the ruminating target • Americans who ruminated were more depressed than those who didn't • There was no difference in depression levels between ruminating and non-ruminating Russians

Are people more accurate at recognizing expressions made by people form their own culture compared with other cultures?

- About 58% of recognition of facial expressions reflects universal expressions, whereas 9% reflects culturally specific expressions - People do better at the "Eyes Test" measure of autistic tendencies when they're judging people from their own cultures compared with those from other cultures - Don't pick up on all the non-verbal cues - People are more skilled at accurately identifying those expressions when they are made by people who are more familiar to them

Cultural Variation in Kinds of Emotional Experiences

- Differences in those from a more collectivistic or individualistic cultures - emotional experiences of those who are more interdependent are more interpersonally engage than the emotional experiences among more independent individuals - study done with turkish immigrants of Holland and Dutch citizens of Holland Japanese: emotions are experienced more as interpersonal states that connect people to each other Americans: emotions are experienced more as personal states that lie within individuals

Study: Between Japanese and Americans and photos of target's emotions

- Japanese and Americans were shown photos of expressed emotions, and guessed the target's emotion - Reliable difference: Japanese view the target's emotion as happier than Americans if the eyes were expressing a happier emotion than the mouth - in contrast, the Americans judged the target to be happier if the mouth was expressing a happier emotion than the eyes (Yuki, Maddux, & Masuda) - Because of this cultural difference in facial perception = Japanese anime characters typically have much bigger eyes than do mouths

Study: UBC students to choose between tasks (Falk, Dunn, 2010)

- Participants decided between two puzzle games - One game: described as fun, the other described as boring but would improve thinking skills Which Game to Choose? - Euro-Canadians showed an overwhelming preference for the fun game - Among Asian-Canadians the decision was much closer - Similar findings emerged for studies where people chose hypothetical university courses

Comparison of similar cultures even show difference in subtle "emotional ascents"

- People can guess better than chance who is from their own culture when they are making an emotional expression but NOT when they are showing a neutral expression - People of low SES are more accurate at identifying facial expressions of emotions, indicating that those who have relatively less status must attend more closely to what those of relatively higher status might be thinking and feeling

Cultural Variability in Facial Expressions

Although the basic emotional expressions are universally recognized, there is also some important cultural variation • Cultures vary in terms of "display rules" of emotional expressions • They vary in the intensity of their expressions, as well as in "ritualized displays" Ie. Expressions not made universally (ie. biting the tongue)

Ideal Affect

Cultures also differ in the kinds of positive emotions that people want to pursue - cultural variation is more pronounced for the kinds of affect that people want to have than for their actual affect - East Asians prefer low arousal positive states (ie. calm, peaceful, relaxed) compared with North Americans, who tend to prefer high arousal positive states (ie. enthusiastic, excited) - East Asian: ie. music with slower tempos, leisure passive activities, and use more drugs that elicit calm states - Chinese magazine ads contain more calm smiles and fewer excited smiles than American magazines

Cultures and Intensity of Experiencing Emotions

Cultures vary in the intensity with which they report experiencing emotions - some studies have found that Italians and those of jewish backgrounds reported being in pain more often and talked about it more openly than people of other backgrounds ie. East Asians report experiencing less intensely, and for shorter periods of time than do Westerners - Americans are able to detect an "embarassed" look quite accurately, however the tongue bite is recognized by Indians but not Americans (therefore this is voluntarily produced rather than reflexively generated)

Does Dwelling on Negative Feelings Produce Negative Outcomes?

Cultures vary to the extent that people strive to enhance positive feelings and avoid negative feelings - For North Americans, the more positive feelings they experience the less depression they report - For East Asians, the amount of positive feelings and risk of depression is uncorrelated - Russians are famous for apparently wanting to wallow in their despair (wanting to suffer and focus on the hardships of life, and talk about the negative feelings)

What does Happiness Mean?

Early English definitions of happiness emphasized that it was the result of good luck • A recent analysis of dictionaries from 30 different countries found that definitions of happiness includes a definition involving luck in 24 of them (but no longer in English) The expression "happy person" has become more common over time, and "happy nation" has become less common in published American books - Happiness has become more of an individual concept in English

Ritualized Displays

Facial expressions that differ from the ostensibly universal facial expressions identified by Ekman and Colleagues

Capilano Suspension Bridge Study

Findings: - Participants were especially likely to call the RA if she was female and they had met her on the bridge - Apparently, the men misattributed their arousal from the bridge to be due to their attraction to the RA - the same physiological arousal can be interpreted as two very different emotions - don't always know where our feelings are coming from

"Anger Paradigm" with Chinese-Canadians and Euro-Canadians

Findings: All participants showed physiological responses consistent with anger (their systolic blood pressure increased), but there were differences in how quickly their anger dissipated - The Chinese-Canadians systolic blood pressure returned to baseline levels more quickly than did the Euro-Canadians - This suggest the Chinese-Canadians resolved their anger faster (not persisting as long) - Partly due to putting less blame on the source (the experimenter) Thus, cultural display rules alter the ways that people express their emotions, which, in turn, can potentially alter their emotional experiences

Ranking of Countries by Subjective Well-Being

General Pattern Stays the Same - Highest End: Northern Europe or Latin American, Wealthy, Respect Human Rights - Lowest End: less wealthy, fewer human rights, less income equality

Two-Factor Theory of Emotions

In response, Schacter and Singer argued that emotions were our interpretations of our physiological responses and have some sense making as to why you're having this response - They did a study and found that the strongest emotions were experienced by those in the epinephrine-uniformed condition because they were feeling a great deal of arousal but they had no explanation for it (they came to interpret their arousal by looking to the situation they were in) • People look to cues from their environment to help them label their physical sensations • Interpretation often isn't important, because usually it is clear what caused this response But sometimes the source of our feelings isn't so clear to us Two-Factor theory of emotions: redirected the focus of emotions away from the physical body and into the mind

Liget and Gathering Tribes in Northern Philippines

Liget in English = "Anger, passion, and energy" - Would sometimes be in the form of semen - therefore males were told they had more Liget - experienced when one is insulted, disappointed or irritated but especially when one is envious of another - they were also involved in head hunting and after this raid you would have more Liget

Facial Expressions of Emotions

Originally Darwin noted that facial expressions from other animals seemed to parallel those made by humans - Facial expressions often appear to be rather reflexive: same facial expressions that adults make are the same made by very young infants - suggests that expressions are part of our biological makeup

Facial Feedback Hypothesis

Proposes that one source of information we utilize when inferring our feelings is our facial expressions Pen in lips or pen between teeth study Pen-in-teeth group found the cartoons to be more amusing than the pen-in-lips group - Inferring how amused they were by considering what their facial muscles were doing

TED Talk: Daniel Kahneman (The Riddle of Experience vs. Memory)

Traps: Experiencing Self: Lives in the present and knows the present Remembering Self: keeps score, maintains the story of our life - it's a story teller, it's our memories that tells us stories Remembering Self is the one that makes the decisions - we choose between memories of experiences (therefore experiencing self has no voice)

Basic Emotions (proposed by Ekman and Colleagues)

Which are reflexively reproduced and recognized for all humans - Happiness, fear, sadness, surprise, disgust and anger • Pride also is a universally recognized expression, although the expression involves a bodily posture

Cultures also vary in the aspects of face that they consider when judging another's emotions

ie. In Japan, cultural display rules more often require that people conceal potentially disharmonious emotions - because it is more difficult to control the muscles around your eyes than it is around your mouth, Japanese are more likely than Americans to judge people's emotions by looking at their eyes