culture and psychology III

In all cultures, the most important categories were similar or different

-there were cultural differences -Japanese experienced more sadness with problems in relationships -Japanese were more angry at situations regarding strangers -Americans displayed more anger when dealing with familial situations

Holophrase

-12 months -sentence like words - mommy (accompanied with arms out streatched) meaning come get me mommy

Scherer et al. (1983; 1994) Studied 3000 in 37 countries (duration, intensity etc) What were the results

-7 universal emotions -cross cultural similarity of physiological response for example all cultures showed an increase in heart rate when experiencing fear

Ekman criticism

-All participants were from modern cultures exposed to people of different cultures -Exposed to similar pictures or learned how to interpret the expressions of individuals of other cultures -these critics didn't know or ignored 1969 study

Phonemes

-Smallest units of sound. -All babies including deaf ones use 100's of sounds -sounds get lost if not heard

Conclusion Facial expressions are influenced by what

-Universal biological factors -culture specific "learned" display rules *most display rules about how to behave in public

How many facial expressions of emotion are universal?

-anger -fear -happiness -surprise -sadness -disgust

Prespeech

-before 1 -cooing and babbling -babbling contains all sounds in languages of the world -ma ma, da da

Individualistic groups and in and out group members

-distinction between in and out group members less important *not a lot of empirical research but some studies suggest individualistic cultures are better at recognizing negative emotions

Whorf (1956) Hopi Indians

-had no general notion as time as a flowing continuum -had no linguistic or grammatical label of time so they had a different understanding of time than English speakers

Collectivist groups and in and out groups members

-in group harmony important -distinguishing between in and out group members is important

Where do emotions reside? For Americans

-in the heart and gut -similar in other cultures but there are differences

Emotional expressions serve what kind of purpose?

-innate -serve an adaptive purpose Ex: When you are fearful your body readies for fight or flight w/faster heartbeat and adrenaline rush

Morphemes

-smallest unit of meaning Ex. Cup

Is language innate or learned

-some aspects are innate -some are learned -across cultures children learn their native fluently no matter adult influence (exposure to language is necessary)

People in other cultures try to refrain from expressing what type of emotion in public (Heijo-shin)

-some cultures refrain from all public displays of emotion to maintain social decorum -Heijo-shin=ordinary state of mind

Adult-like structures

-by 6 kids are phonologically developed -by 8 can pronounce all words in language -vowel shifting rule takes awhile -development of pragmatics

Personal Distance

1 ½ - 2', normal conversations with friends, people we know and are comfortable with

Public Distance

12' and on, space given to public figure or a at formal occasions

Social Distance

4 - 12', distance used to converse with strangers and conduct business

Do Americans have this duality

A little. Joyful Public Display

When do they become automatic

Adulthood

Gazing

Affiliation, nurturing (think baby looking @ parent while feeding)

Status and gaze

Americans expect low status people to maintain gaze even if higher status person does not return gaze Example-When you are talking to your boss they might be looking at computer screen but if boss is talking to you, you stop to return gaze. The opposite is true in Asian cultures

Americans experienced joy and anger more or less often than Europeans

Americans experienced joy and anger more than Europeans

Americans felt emotion for longer or shorter durations and at greater or lesser intensities than participants from other countries

Americans felt emotions longer and more intensely than other countries

Scherer et al. (1988) Participants were asked to describe a situation that had caused them to feel one of which three emotions

Anger sadness happiness

Chomsky - Language Acquisition Devise

Area of brain that allows all humans to learn language

Gaze across cultures

Asians gaze less than Americans, African Americans gaze less than European Americans, Arabs gaze more than Americans

Danger of emblems

Because the definition of emblems can vary from culture to culture, an emblem that is a positive symbol in one culture can also be rude or obscene in another culture

Culture-Affiliation Hypothesis

Bilingual people behave more like the culture in whichever language they are using

Conventional Gestures

Body movements that have to be learned and can vary cross-culturally. (middle finger or okay sign)

Display Rules

Center on the appropriateness of emotions in a given social context (environment) -Most are rules on what shout NOT be displayed

Darwin -expression of man and animals

Chimps and humans have similar expressions *basic human expression are similar because they serve an adaptive purpose

Jones (1971) criticism

Class and ethnicity became a confounding variable, the children were of different SES so couldn't tell what was affecting distance preferences

Watson and Graves

Compared Arabs and Americans, Arabs toughed more, more visual contact, more face to face, louder, less distance

Scherer (1974)

Compared lower SES African and Anglo American children and found-no main (difference) for race, there was a main effect for SES, M idle class kids took greater distance than lower SES kids, Kids that took the most distance=Middle class Anglo kids, Least distance=African American low SES kids

Other research that supports Ekman

Congenitally blind- couldn't learn because

Matsumoto (1996) Maintain status

Differences

Contact Cultures

Engage in more gazing, touching, less personal space *There are rules regarding touch even in high contact cultures (gender, status)

What are antecedents

Events or situations that elicit an emotion

Fear and disgust as protection

Example: Yucky smells keep us from eating rotten food

The words and concepts we have for emotions vary across cultures. E.g.

German word Schadenfreude: Pleasure derived from another's misfortune

Non-verbal Behaviors

Facial expression, hand gestures, posture & body orientation, vocal characteristics (tone, pitch, volume) interpersonal space, touching, gaze

Ekman, 1973 Japanese and American students were shown stressful films When subjects were alone, did the American and Japanese students respond similarly or differently? What were the results

Great similarity when they were alone between the two groups

Matsumoto (1996) Maintain group

Harmony. Even when you feel bad you should only display positive emotions

Syntax and Grammar Rules about

How words should be strung together

Matsumoto (1996) Differentiate between

In and out groups. In the US we think that everyone should be treated the same

Honne

In my heart

Watson (1970) Visual attention

Studied contact (touching during interaction) and non-contact Example of low contact-Asain cultures High contact-Arabic

How is this dividing of their emotional life into public and private realms is made evident

Japanese division of emotional life into public and private realms

Large agreement or variation was found between cultures, as well as within cultures

Large agreement across cultures as well as within the cultures -there is a cross cultural similarity regarding emotional antecedents

Itoshi

Longing for a loved one

Semantics_________________ of words

Meanings

Results

Navajo children used shape to classify objects more often than or the same as English-speaking children. What was an alternative suggested: -The kids experience with the object influenced the answer - gave African American and Euro. American kids toys and they showed similar classification techniques supporting Language difference

Carrol and Casagrande (1958) Hypothesis

Navajo-speaking children would use_______ to classify objects more than English-speaking children: Shape

People in some cultures have strong sanctions against the display of what kind of emotions in public

Negative emotions are discouraged in public interactions

Tatemae

On my face

Reciprocal Gaze

People are more comfortable when gazing is reciprocal (someone gazes as much or little as you)

Hall's hypothesis on personal space

People of low contact cultures will want more space, people of high contact will require less personal space

Ekman (1972)Experiment: Interviewed and tested participants from 22 countries, including the South Fore people in Papua Guinea, who have had no prior contact to western culture.

People with different cultural background chose the same facial expression for their emotions. This suggests that our basic emotional life may be innate and has been formed by natural selection

Ethnic groups and Distance conclusions

Personal space may function as a function of ethnic groups. Some support for Hall's hypothesis that differences in space are a function of culture

Phonology Rules of

Pronunciation

Jones and et al. (1973) Children study

Studied children found that 1st grader African American children stood closer than their Anglo classmates but this difference was not present in the 3rd and 5th graders

Matsumoto (1996) Consider future

Relations. Be polite if future relations are possible. Indifference is acceptable when no future relationships will occur

Linguistic Relativity Implies what about characteristics of a language and ways of thinking

Relationship between characteristics and thought, different languages lead to different ways of thinking

Staring

Signals aggression, threat

How are display rules learned

Socialization

Song

Sometimes anger or sadness

Matsumoto (1996) Maintain one's own

Status. Given your status dictates the appropriate emotional display. You can show anger but not sadness to a lower status person

Baxter's Ethnic group studies First results

Studied dyads (pairs) at Houston Zoo , observed Anglo, African and Mexican Americans. Saw that Mexicans=closest, Anglo=Medium, African=farthest

Jones (1971)

Studied people in New York and found no difference cross culturally in personal space preference

Portinga et al. Emblematic gestures

Studied: Kurdistan, China and Netherlands looked at Referential gestures and conventional gestures Concluded: Not entirely universal or culture relative

Referential Gestures

Such as holding a fist to an ear to indicate "telephone" or miming eating. Can be understood universally

When another person was present what emotion did the Japanese students display and what did they do

The Japanese students repressed negative emotion and even smiled because Japanese display rules state that displaying negative emotions in front of a higher status person (the researcher that was present during viewing) would be considered rude

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis suggests that speakers of different languages think differently because of

The differences in their language Example- sense of time among Hopi

Display rules regarding gazing/stares

There are strict display rules because group affiliation and lack of aggression are important to group stability

Emotional antecedents are similar or different across cultures

They are similar across cultures

Brandt & Boucher (1985) These stories were presented to other people who were asked what

They were asked what emotion were being conveyed

Brandt & Boucher (1985) Participants from what three countries wrote stories about an event causing an emotion

U.S.A., South Korea and Samoa

Japanese Display Rules Matsumoto (1996) Emotions are

Thought to be shared by the group regardless of what the individual feels

Pragmatics Rules about how language is

Used in a social context EX-irony (hardest parts of language)

Lexicon _______________ contained in a language

Vocabulary

Baxter's Ethnic group studies second results

When gender was taken into account the results changed. In Anglo and African American. groups= female and male pairs stood closest and when the pair was two men they had most distance. In the Mexican American group, the pairs with two females stood closest and the pairs with 2 men had the most distance

Gaze and negative attributions

When someone doesn't make eye contact we attribute the behavior to- not listening, anger, lying

More complex grammatical changes and word categories

Where is daddy

Does Culture Have Any Effect in How Emotions are Experienced

Yes

Multiple-word sentences

about 2 -where daddy is

Hall (1966) Interpersonal space

coined term proximecs, said there were 4 distance zones - intimate, personal, social, and public

types of gestures

emblems, illustrators

Gaze & visual Behavior - Research with non-human primates

found staring and aggression staring universal across species

Watson and Vinsel

found three or four studies that support Hall's hypothesis

Proximecs

measurable distance between people interacting

Influence of non-verbal behavior

most reliable information comes from non-verbal behavior

Illustrators

nonverbal behaviors that accompany and support verbal messages EX: Hand movements

Emblems

nonverbal gestures that have well-understood definitions within a given culture; they usually have direct verbal translations, such as the "OK" sign or the middle finger

Ekman (1969)Showed pre literate tribes in New Guinea pictures and had same results suggesting

universality -Took pictures of tribe members making the 6 universal expressions and showed them to Americans who guessed the correct expression further supporting universality of these 6 emotions

Intimate Distance

up to 18" reserved to close people, family, people we trust, comfort, lovemaking, caring, nurturing, feeding

Two-word sentences

where daddy

Units of Language

Phonemes Morphemes Multiple Words Sentences