Abstract
Facial expression is an essential form of non-verbal communication, especially as it relates to the expression of emotion. The following study is designed to describe the correlation between self-identified cultural influence and recognition of emotion. Literature will be organized and discussed as it relates to the cultural differences between facial expression recognition. A correlation study will then be conducted to determine whether certain facial expressions are more universal than others, especially as it relates to decoding facial expressions that relate to specific emotion. The study anticipates that happiness is more universal than most other facial expressions, while anger, irritation, and fear are more ambiguous, or culturally derivative.
Facial expressions are a very important form of communication, which is more significant than verbal communication when it comes to expressing emotional experiences to others. However, there is significant debate and conflicting evidence as it relates to whether facial expressions, or expression of emotion is innate, and therefore universal, or culturally determined, and therefore culturally exclusive in their meaning. The following study will work to determine how culture determines facial expression and recognition of emotions expressed nonverbally though facial expression. The following paper will use a literature review to organize a greater understanding of past studies regarding this issues, especially as it relates to the cultural differences in the recognition and interpretation of facial expressions. The researcher will then use a correlation study to statistically determine whether certain facial expressions are more universal than others, especially as it relates to decoding facial expressions that relate to specific emotion. The study concludes that happiness is more universal than the other studied facial expressions, while anger, irritation, and fear are more ambiguous, or culturally derivative. All of the studied expressions, however, were recognized by the majority of participants from each of the cultures, suggesting that while there may be subtle differences in interpretation, the emotional expressions of these, major, categories of experience, largely transcend cross cultural differences.
Literature Review
Literature regarding the issues of culture and expression of emotion, especially facial expression, has a long but divided history. The first scientific mind to consider the expression of emotion, and its biologic or cultural ties was Charles Darwin, in 1872 (Cherry, 2014). He argued that the ways in which humans express emotion are both innate and universal. This was supported by the significantly later work of Eckman who found that facial expressions, specifically used to emote on a basic level, were essentially the same across multiple cultures (British Council N.d. ). He specifically identified six emotions universally expressed and read by mankind: happiness, surprise, anger, sadness, fear, and disgust (British Council N.d.). However, later researchers have challenged his position, by determining
The importance of facial expression to communication
More specifically, according to an article by Kendra Cherry(2014), Ecker determined that emotion is an important part of life, and more specifically of human interaction, because they create a significant connection between people. More specifically our interactions are in part dictated by the way we witness emotions in others, the way we react to what we see, and the way that we express our own emotional experiences. Further, emotions have been studied significantly by those in the field of psychology and sociology, especially as it relates to our ability to read, interpret and react to facial expressions (Cherry 2014; APA, 2011; Dorbin, 2013).
Arguments for Universality
In keeping with Ecker’s research, a variety of researchers’ findings have supported the concept that facial expressions, and their interpretation are universal. As a reminder, Ecker found that facial expressions are predominately universal. Generally evidence suggests that there are more than 7,000 facial expressions with various meanings, and while some of the expressions, including six key expressions, are universal, others, which are more subtle are more culturally determined (Cherry, 2014).
Ekman specifically worked to prove this theory, by studying the facial expression neonates and determining whether they express patterns or are randomly expressed (Dorbin, 2013). Because infants are capable or expressing displeasure, pain, and other facial responses to stimuli, Ekman determined that these were innate (Dorbin, 2013). This is further demonstrated by the fact that blind children are capable of expression emotion via facial expressions.
Cultural Determination of Facial Expression
In contrast, while historically facial expressions have generally been considered a universal or cross cultural or universal method of communication. According to the American Psychological Association, it is now determined that people from different cultures perceive even the most basic emotions, like happiness and sadness in unique and culturally specific ways (APA, 2011)
Evidence also suggests that there are significant variation in emotional expression as it relates to the display rules that apply to culture (Cherry, 2014). This means that the emotions that it is appropriate to express in the Japanese culture, are not appropriate in America and vice versa. Further, emotional expression is impacted by social pressures, cultural pressures, and past experience.
Racheal Jack of Glasgow states that East Asians, specifically, and Western Caucasians think about facial representation of emotion in different ways and so the features that they look for when interpreting happiness or anger is different (APA, 2011; British Council, N.d.) More specifically, his research team used their research to establish a set of tool to aid cross cultural empathy development. The study considers the fact that people from different cultures focus on different parts of the face when decoding facial expressions (British Council, n.d.). They determined that there are only four basic emotions expressed through the face, and that how the emotions are read by viewers is determined largely by cultural background and experience. This suggests that facial expressions have been generated as the result of a combination of biology and social influence, and as a result some emotions, or expressions of emotions are shared, and others are not. This can create challenges in communicating as we become an increasingly global culture (British Council, n.d.).
Earlier research had suggested that facial expressions were innate and experienced the same cross culturally. However, a deeper study of image processing and perception of facial expressions have proven that this is not the case (British Council, n.d.). Instead, the most recent study has demonstrated that Chinese participants focused most on the eyes when interpreting facial expression’s meaning, while those from western culture used eyebrows and the mouth to make determinations (British Council, n.d.).. This means that non-verbal, facial, cues could be misrepresented by people from alternative cultures, in a cross cultural communication situation.
Similarly, in a study published by Boundless (2016), it was determined that culture can have a significant impact on how one demonstrates, understands, and experiences emotion. The study demonstrates that the culture we live in creates a clear sets a framework, and a set of expectations that instruct the ways in which we understand and respond to emotions or facial expressions. As such, the “cultural display rule” is a set of standards that are culturally specific, which determines what emotions it is socially appropriate to display publically in any given culture (Boundless, 2016).
These cultural guidelines also determine how positive or negative emotions are displayed and understood, and how people personally regulate their emotional experiences. Cultural understanding of emotion also provides the context by which people work to interpret the emotional displays and facial expressions of others (Boundless, 2016). As a result, people for various cultures experience and respond to emotional displays of others as an interpretation of their social context, and thus in very different ways. However, despite this clear cultural tie, the rules for displaying emotion, and our ability to produce and relate to basic emotion is universal (Boundless, 2016).
The existence of a Gradient: Universality Vs Cultural Expression
The truth likely falls somewhere in between these two extremes. This is to say that while some expression may be largely similar, or shows evidence that it can transcend cultural norms, the nuances of the way emotion is facially expressed is likely culturally tied.
Dorbin (2013) created a through summary of previous study on the universality of facial expressions. Evidence demonstrates that facial expression are, at least to some extent, universal. The work of Ekman shows that when images of facial expressions are shown to pre-literate Africans, and members of wester society, more than 90% of both groups correctly identify faces representing happiness, disgust and contempt (Dorbin, 2013). This suggests that the ability to express emotion through facial expression, and more significantly the ability to read expression is biologically based, rather than culturally learned, while also demonstrating that there is some variance that can be correlated between cultures. (Dorbin, 2013).
This is resolved, to some degree, by the work of Haidt and Kltner (1999) who suggest that facial expression recognition and response is not universal or cultural, but rather falls along a gradient where different expressions fall along a spectrum between the two.
More specifically, Haidt and Kltner (1999), in their study “Culture and Facial Expression: Open-ended Methods Find More Expressions and Gradient of Recognition,” set out to determine how facial expression is recognized cross-culturally, and whether or not previous research forced the findings of universality among certain expressions. As such, they posed two basic research questions: What facial expression are cross-culturally recognized, and how does the phenomenon they define as “forced-choice” impact the findings of universality. They define forced choice as limiting responds to a specific list of options, such as a multiple choice response, in which “none of the above” is not an option (231). They accomplish these research goals, by conducting five similar experiments, each of which manipulate conditions to lessen the impact of forced choice, while still measuring the cultural impact on facial expression recognition.
The study considered a group of 40 Indian participants who were asked to identify facial expressions, by telling an anecdote about what happened to the person that caused them to make the face in question. The social situation described by the response was then measured for effect. This experiment demonstrated a very high level of universality for most expressions, though levels of recognition did vary, with some proving more universal than others. These findings were replicated, or supported by the subsequent tasks with varying levels of forced choice. They finally determined that facial expressions belong along a gradient between cross culturally recognizable, or universal, and cultural derived meaning, depending on the emotion conveyed by the expression.
Method
The following correlation study has worked to determine if those of different cultures perceive the emotions communicated by facial expressions in different ways. The study was conducted online over a ten-day period, through the survey service provider Mturk. First, participants were asked to answers a short survey about their self-reported cultural heritage and demographics (appendix A). They were then directed to look at a series of seven pictures, and asked to assign one of seven emotional labels to each image. The information was then studied, statistically, to determine if there is a correlation between the interpretation of emotion in the images, and the culture of the viewer. This will also be used to determine if certain expressions are more culturally derived, while others are more universal.
A total of 127 samples were selected over the ten day period, with 19% of respondents reporting that they are Caucasian/western, 17% African American, 13% Latin American, 6% Indospheric, 5% Sinospheric, 13% Islamic, 11% Arab, 4% Tibetan or 12% Other. Limits were set on participants so that no single group could exceed 25 % of the total study population.
Results
The study determined that 97% of all respondents correctly identified the “happiness” photo while all other emotions were significantly harder for the culturally diverse to correctly identify. Caucasian/western participants were able to identify all the corresponding emotions including: anger, irritation, fear, excitement, love, and hurt, with a 94% accuracy, but the other cultures varied in their response from 60 to 91%, as specifically demonstrated in the table in Appendix B. From this correlational relationship, it can be determined that happiness is more cross-culturally representative, or universal, than other emotion as it relates to facial expression. Though, sadness/hurt was also more readily readable across all cultures. In comparison, love, excitement, and irritation were the least universal of the studied factors. The research, which is represented linearly in Appendix C, supports the findings of Haidt and Kltner who determined that the expression of emotion falls along a gradient that ranges from innate to culturally derived, depending on the emotion begin expressed.
References:
American Psychological Association. (2011). Perception of facial Expressions Differs Across Cultures. APA News Room. Available from http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2011/09/facial-expressions.aspx
Boundless. (2016) “Influence of Culture on Emotion.” Boundless Psychology. Boundless, 08 Jan. 2016. Retrieved 27 Feb. 2016 from https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/emotion-13/influence-of-culture-on-emotion-411/influence-of-culture-on-emotion-263-12798/
British Council. (N.D) Facial expressions, cultural differences and empathy. The British Council’s Cubed. Retrieved from https://www.britishcouncil.org/cubed/science-breakthroughs/empathy
Cherry, K. (2014). The Expression of Emotion. About.com Psychology Retrieved from http://psychology.about.com/od/emotion/fl/The-Expression-of-Emotion.htm
Dorbin, A. (2013). Facial Expressions: Universal Vs Cultural. Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/am-i-right/201306/facial-expressions-universal-vs-cultural
Haidt, J. & Keltner, D. (1999). Culture and facial expression: Open-ended methods find more expressions and gradient of recognition. Cognition and Emotion 13(3), 225-266.
Appendix A:
MTURK ID:
Age:
Gender:
Cultural Affiliation:
Caucasian/western
African American,
Latin American
Indospheric
Sinospheric,
Islamic,
Arab
Tibetan
Other
Appendix B:
Appendix C:
Consent Form
You have been invited to participate in an online, web base, survey through survey monkey, relate to the identification of facial expressions, as it relate s to personal beliefs and experiences. This project is conducted by [NAME] as a part of the completion of the course work for [degree] at [university]. It should take approximately 25 to 35 minutes to complete.
Participation:
Benefits:
There is no compensation for participating in the study. So there is no direct benefit for participating in the study, by it can help us better understand the way people non verbally communicate with others who are culturally different from themselves.
Risks:
There are no foreseeable risks to participating in the current survey. No personal identification will be give, all answers are provided anonymously, and there is no sensitive information covered.
Confidentiality:
Not only is this survey anonymous, they are also tracked through Mturk, which is dedicated to protecting your personal information and a trusted member of the Amazon family.
Electronic Concept: Please select below, and print a copy for your records.
I have read the above information
I voluntarily consent to use of my answers in the current study
I am over the age of 18
Agree
Disagree
Debriefing
Thank you for your participation in the current study. The purpose of this research is to determine how cultural heritage is tied to interpretation of emotion through facial expression.
If you are concerned about the material you have submitted or need to contact the researcher for any reason. Feel free to contact the research at CONTACT INFORMAITON
