We present here new evidence of cross-cultural agreement in the judgment of facial expression, Subjects in 10 cultures performed a more complex judgment task than has been used in previous cross-cultural studies. Instead of limiting the subjects to selecting only one emotion term for each expression, this task allowed them to indicate that multiple emotions were evident and the intensity of each emotion. Agreement was very high across cultures about which emotion was the most intense. The 10 cultures also agreed about the second most intense emotion signaled by an expression and about the relative intensity among expressions of the same emotion. However, cultural differences were found in judgments of the absolute level of emotional intensity.

In his earlier works, one of the present investigators attempted to show that psychologically disturbed persons may be characterized by their tendency to induce their social partners to reveal relatively stable and constant leitmotivs, inclinations to react, emotions and fantasies; hence, it should be possible to describe psychological illnesses by means of the patient's specific interaction strategies (Krause 1988; Krause and Lütolf 1988). We assume that this process of induction is neither deliberate nor self-reflective. Inductive modes of behavior are viewed as part of an unconscious process of problem solving--a process, however, which is unsuccessful, since it is no longer appropriate to the reality of the adult patient. The present paper is part of a more comprehensive research project, the object of which is to account for these kinds of interactive strategies.

This paper is part of an extensive research project that is trying to examine transference and countertransference processes objectively. We have used a methodology that describes and analyzes interactive behavior patterns observed between different groups of patients with psychic disturbances and their interaction partners, who are uninformed about their problems. Thus far, we have completed several studies centered around the question of whether it is possible to identify specific interaction strategies in groups of patients of different nosological categories. Related to this question was the investigation of the specificity of the response patterns of their interaction partners. The patients consisted of stutterers (stuttering openly or not, Krause 1982a), schizophrenics (Krause et al. 1989), and psychosomatic patients (Sänger-Alt et al. 1989). This line of inquiry has rather severe consequences for the research strategies, which have been described elsewhere (Krause et al. 1989). In this paper, we will present for the first time a synopsis of patterns of facial behavior observed in different groups of patients and their healthy partners, and in healthy subjects interacting with each other.

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