Cultural Understandings of Emotion - Coursework Example

Cross-cultural psychology: Cultural understandings of Emotion Student’s Name Institution Cross-cultural psychology: Cultural understandings of Emotion Culture can be defined as numerous features of groups of individuals, which includes customs behaviors, attitudes, and values, which are transmitted from generation to another (De Leersnyder, Mesquita & Kim, 2011). Throughout the world, cultures share similarities, but in most cases, they are marked by differences. For instance, even though individuals of every culture experience happens, how such a feeling is expressed always vary across cultures (Safdar, Friedlmeier, Matsumoto, Yoo, Kwantes, Kakai & Shigemasu, 2009). The objective of cross-cultural psychologists is looking at both the unique behaviors and universal behaviors to identify ways in which c8ltyre affects behavior, education, social experiences, life, and others. Beliefs in Cultural Differences and the Transmitted Emotion Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952) claimed that cultural ideas are normally reinforced and reflected by institutions, products, and practices, (Tsai, Sims, Thomas & Fung, 2013). This can be illustrated by the bestselling children storybooks in the US, which have less calm content and more exciting content (activities and smiles) than the storybooks in Taiwan. The investigators assigned randomly the preschoolers of the Asian American and Taiwanese Chinese who were read the stories with an exciting or calm content. Across every culture, the children who were read the stories with the content that is exciting were more probably to be in the excited states afterward while the ones who were read the stories that have calm content likely valued calm states (Curhan, Sims, Markus, Kitayama, Karasawa, Kawakami, . . . Ryff, 2013). After they heard stories, the children previously toys list and they were asked to pick their favorites. The ones who were read the exciting stories preferred to play with the arousing toys such as a drum, which beats fast and loud. Such findings did suggest that irrespective of the ethnic background direct exposure to the content of a story ok alter the idea affect f the children. Understanding the cultural differences and similarities in emotion is important in understanding emotions generally and emotional processes flexibility specifically (Yuki, Maddux & Masuda, 2007). With the important role which emotions play in human interactions, understanding cultural differences and similarities are critical especially in reuniting the potential harmful miscommunications (Perunovic, Heller & Rafaeli, 2007). Even though misunderstandings are always unintentional, they may lead to negative consequences. For instance, across many settings of North America, Asian Americans are mostly characterized as people who are ‘too reserved and quiet’ and such reduced arousal states are most often misunderstood as an expression of boredom or disengagement—instead of ideal calmness (Tsai, Sims, Thomas & Fung, 2013). Accordingly, Asian Americans can be perceived as stoic, cold, and friendly which fosters stereotypes of Americans of Asian origin as the perpetual strangers (Perunovic, Heller & Rafaeli, 2007). Actually, such can be among the many reasons, Asian American are overlooked mostly for the positions of top leadership. ‘Self’ Cultural Models in East Asian North American Contexts Many social scientists have spent a lot of time studying the East Asian and North American contexts since they differ in common ways, which include, religions, geographical locations, and languages (Yuki, Maddux & Masuda, 2007). Also, since 1980s many studies have shown that East Asian and North American contexts vary in overall attitudes and values— such as the prioritization of group needs vs. personal needs (collectivism vs. individualism) (Perunovic, Heller & Rafaeli, 2007). Despite the fact that North American contents normally encourage their members to prefer their own needs over the group needs (that is being individualistic), the contexts of East Asia have always encouraged its members to prioritize the group needs over the personal ones (that is being collectivistic). Markus and Kitayama (1991) proposed previous seen differences in collectivism and individualism translates into various self models—or a person’s personal concept of who they are (Yuki, Maddux & Masuda, 2007). In particular, researchers claimed that in contexts of North America, the dominant self model is an independent one where being an individual entails being different from other and behaving accordingly across the various situations. In the context of the East Asian, conversely, the distinct self model is the one that is interdependent where a person entails being essentially connected to people and becoming reactive to the situational demands (Yuki, Maddux & Masuda, 2007). For instance, a study where Japanese and American students were given a 20 statements test and they were required to complete this sentence: “I am ______,” for twenty times (De Leersnyder, Mesquita & Kim, 2011). The participants from the US were most likely to complete the sentence with the psychological attitudes such as cheerful and friendly while Japanese participants, conversely, were probable to complete the sentence with the references to the social responsibilities and roles such as student and daughter (Perunovic, Heller & Rafaeli, 2007). Such various models of ‘self’ leads to various principles for interaction with other people. An independent self model teaches people to try and influence other pople and express themselves such as changing their environmental settings to be consistent with their own desires and beliefs (Yuki, Maddux & Masuda, 2007). On the other hand, an independent self model teaches individuals to subdue their own desires and beliefs and adjust to those of others such as fitting in with their setting. Physiological Responses to the Emotional Events Many researchers always wonder whether individuals across different cultures interpret emotions in similar ways (De Leersnyder, Mesquita & Kim, 2011). In cross-cultural phycology field, Paul Ekman conducted a research to examine the judgments in the facial expression across cultures. In his study, he incudes participants from 10 different cultures who were told to indicate emotions and the intensity of every emotion based on procedure of people expressing the different emotions (Yuki, Maddux & Masuda, 2007). The study result revealed that there was a big agreement across the cultures about which emotions most and second most intense. The findings revealed a view that there are always some universal facial expressions. However, it is critical to understand that in this study, some differences in ways in which the participants across the different cultures rated the intensity of emotion were noted. Despite the fact that there are universally recognized facial expressions, Yueqin Huang and colleagues carried out research to find out how culture can apply various labels to some emotions expressions (De Leersnyder, Mesquita & Kim, 2011). In particular, the researchers compared the American vs. Chinese of expression of facial emotions. They realized that the Chinese participants were less skilled compared to the America participants at perceiving universal expression of emotions of individuals coming from a different culture than their won (Yuki, Maddux & Masuda, 2007). The findings supported the cross-cultural differences notion in the emotional judgment. The researchers suggested that Asians could use various cues on the face in interpreting emotional expressions. Moreover, since each culture has different norms and values, it is significant to analyze such differences so that to gain a better understanding of the reason some emotions are interpreted differently or not interpreted at all (Perunovic, Heller & Rafaeli, 2007). For instance, it was pointed out the researchers that, it is common for the negative emotions to be shunned in most Asian cultures (Yuki, Maddux & Masuda, 2007). Such information can be important in understanding the cross-cultural difference between American and Asian judgments of the expression of the universal emotions. Furthermore, the studies of the emotional response seem to be focusing on their components: that is, subjective experience (such as feeling intensity sad or happy), facial expressive behavior (such as frowning or smiling) (Perunovic, Heller & Rafaeli, 2007). Even though there are only few studies that have measured the 3 different aspects simultaneously, the ones that appear to spot the similarities than variances in the physiological reactions between different cultures (Sims, Tsai, Wang, Fung & Zhang, 2013). In short, people appear to respond in similar manner, in terms of boldly or physiological expression regardless of culture. At a physiological level arousal (such as heart rate), there were zero variances in the manner in which the participants responded (Perunovic, Heller & Rafaeli, 2007). Nonetheless, the facial expressive behavior revealed a different story, events that are reliving which elicited happiness, love, and pride, European American said smile more commonly that the Hmong counterparts—even though every participant reported feeling happy, in love, and proud at the same intensity levels. Moreover, similar patterns are emerging in studies that compare the Chinese Americans with European Americans during the tasks that are emotion-eliciting (Yuki, Maddux & Masuda, 2007). Therefore, even though the emotional responses psychological aspects to be same across cultures, their facial expression that common are much culturally unique. Similarly, such facial expressions differences during the events of positive emotion are consistent with the findings of the display rules across cultural studies and stem from self-description models aforementioned (De Leersnyder, Mesquita & Kim, 2011). In the contexts of North America, which promotes the independent self, people tend to be expressing their emotions to effect other people. On the other hand, in the contexts of East Asia, which enhance an interdependent self, people seem to suppress and control their own emotions to regulate other people. Emotions are always suppressed across Different Cultures, but Culture Impacts the Suppression Consequences for the Psychological Well-Being In North American cultural ideal is expressing oneself, which means that suppressing emotions that are not showing how a person feels must have negative effects (De Leersnyder, Mesquita & Kim, 2011). Such is an assumption that underlies emotion models: the notion that the repression and suppression of emotions impair the mental functioning. Actually, some research reveals that emotion suppressions can have undesirable consequences for the psychological wellbeing in connect of North America (Soto, Perez, Kim, Lee & Minnick, 2011). However, research has found out that relationship between psychological wellbeing and suppression differs by culture. With the European Americans, emotions suppression is linked to higher depression levels and reduced life satisfaction (Yuki, Maddux & Masuda, 2007). Conversely, because the Hong Kong Chinese have to adjust to others by suppressing their emotions, it is normal to them and therefore it is not linked with life satisfaction or depression. Such findings are found to be consistent with research that suggests that clinical depression varies between Asian American and European Americans. European Americans who are diagnosed with depression reveal muted or dampened emotional responses (De Leersnyder, Mesquita & Kim, 2011). For example, when showing amusing or sad film videos, the unhappy European Americans will always respond less strongly as compared to non-depressed counterparts. Conclusions Apart from averting the cultural miscommunications, understanding the cultural differences and similarities in the emotion can provide insights into different paths of psychological wellbeing and health. It is clear in most studies that the calm states are normally easier in eliciting excited states, which suggests that one of the ways to increase happiness in different cultures, can be by increasing the value placed on calm state. Nevertheless, there is a need for more studies to assess whether the same process takes place when adults and children are exposed to different culture in products chronically. Moreover, the future studies need to examine different ways the cultural ideas that regard emotion and how they are normally transmitted such as via interactions with teachers and parents. References Curhan, K., Sims, T., Markus, H., Kitayama, S., Karasawa, M., Kawakami, N., . . . Ryff, C. (2013). Negative affect predicts worse physical and mental health in the U.S. than in Japan. Manuscript under review. De Leersnyder, J., Mesquita, B., & Kim, H. S. (2011). Where do my emotions belong? A study of immigrants‚Äô emotional acculturation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37(4), 451–463. Perunovic, W., Heller, D., & Rafaeli, E. (2007). Within-person changes in the structure of emotion: The role of cultural identification and language. Psychological Science, 18, 607–613. Safdar, S., Friedlmeier, W., Matsumoto, D., Yoo, S. H., Kwantes, C. T., Kakai, H., & Shigemasu, E. (2009). Variations of emotional display rules within and across cultures: A comparison between Canada, USA, and Japan. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science/Revue canadienne des sciences du comportement, 41(1), 1–10. Sims, T., Tsai, J., Wang, I., Fung, H. H., & Zhang, X. L. (2013). Whether you experience the bad with the good depends on how you want to feel: Understanding cultural differences in the relationship between positive and negative affect. Manuscript in progress. Soto, J., Perez, C., Kim, Y. H., Lee, E., & Minnick, M. (2011). Is expressive suppression always associated with poorer psychological functioning? A cross-cultural comparison between European Americans and Hong Kong Chinese. Emotion, 11(6), 1450–1455. Tsai, J. L., Sims, T., Thomas, E., & Fung, H. H. (2013). Ideal affect across the life span: A comparison of European American, Chinese American, and Hong Kong Chinese. Manuscript in progress. Yuki, M., Maddux, W. W., & Masuda, T. (2007). Are the windows to the soul the same in the East and West? Cultural differences in using the eyes and mouth as cues to recognize emotions in Japan and the United States. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43(2), 303–311. Read More

For instance, across many settings of North America, Asian Americans are mostly characterized as people who are ‘too reserved and quiet’ and such reduced arousal states are most often misunderstood as an expression of boredom or disengagement—instead of ideal calmness (Tsai, Sims, Thomas & Fung, 2013). Accordingly, Asian Americans can be perceived as stoic, cold, and friendly which fosters stereotypes of Americans of Asian origin as the perpetual strangers (Perunovic, Heller & Rafaeli, 2007).

Actually, such can be among the many reasons, Asian American are overlooked mostly for the positions of top leadership. ‘Self’ Cultural Models in East Asian North American Contexts Many social scientists have spent a lot of time studying the East Asian and North American contexts since they differ in common ways, which include, religions, geographical locations, and languages (Yuki, Maddux & Masuda, 2007). Also, since 1980s many studies have shown that East Asian and North American contexts vary in overall attitudes and values— such as the prioritization of group needs vs.

personal needs (collectivism vs. individualism) (Perunovic, Heller & Rafaeli, 2007). Despite the fact that North American contents normally encourage their members to prefer their own needs over the group needs (that is being individualistic), the contexts of East Asia have always encouraged its members to prioritize the group needs over the personal ones (that is being collectivistic). Markus and Kitayama (1991) proposed previous seen differences in collectivism and individualism translates into various self models—or a person’s personal concept of who they are (Yuki, Maddux & Masuda, 2007).

In particular, researchers claimed that in contexts of North America, the dominant self model is an independent one where being an individual entails being different from other and behaving accordingly across the various situations. In the context of the East Asian, conversely, the distinct self model is the one that is interdependent where a person entails being essentially connected to people and becoming reactive to the situational demands (Yuki, Maddux & Masuda, 2007). For instance, a study where Japanese and American students were given a 20 statements test and they were required to complete this sentence: “I am ______,” for twenty times (De Leersnyder, Mesquita & Kim, 2011).

The participants from the US were most likely to complete the sentence with the psychological attitudes such as cheerful and friendly while Japanese participants, conversely, were probable to complete the sentence with the references to the social responsibilities and roles such as student and daughter (Perunovic, Heller & Rafaeli, 2007). Such various models of ‘self’ leads to various principles for interaction with other people. An independent self model teaches people to try and influence other pople and express themselves such as changing their environmental settings to be consistent with their own desires and beliefs (Yuki, Maddux & Masuda, 2007).

On the other hand, an independent self model teaches individuals to subdue their own desires and beliefs and adjust to those of others such as fitting in with their setting. Physiological Responses to the Emotional Events Many researchers always wonder whether individuals across different cultures interpret emotions in similar ways (De Leersnyder, Mesquita & Kim, 2011). In cross-cultural phycology field, Paul Ekman conducted a research to examine the judgments in the facial expression across cultures.

In his study, he incudes participants from 10 different cultures who were told to indicate emotions and the intensity of every emotion based on procedure of people expressing the different emotions (Yuki, Maddux & Masuda, 2007). The study result revealed that there was a big agreement across the cultures about which emotions most and second most intense. The findings revealed a view that there are always some universal facial expressions.

Read More