Body Sensations Associated With Emotions in Rarámuri Indians, Rural Javanese, and Three Student Samples.

Abstract

Cultural variations in the associations of 12 body sensations with 7 emotions were studied in 2 rural samples from northern Mexico (n = 61) and Java, Indonesia (n = 99), with low exposure to Western influences and in 3 university student samples from Belgium (n = 75), Indonesia (n = 85), and Mexico (n = 123). Both parametric and nonparametric analyses suggest that findings from previous studies with only student samples (K. R. Scherer & H. G. Wallbott, 1994) were generalizable to the 2 rural samples. Some notable cultural deviations from common profiles were also identified. Implications of the findings for explanations of body sensations experienced with emotions and the cross-cultural study of emotions are discussed.

Temperature-Based Metonymies for Emotions in Children and Adults

“…These changes in bodily sensation experienced with emotion are fairly consistent across cultures (Breugelmans, Poortinga, Ambadar, Setiadi, Vaca, Widiyanto, et al, 2005). However, some cultures choose to emphasize different aspects of bodily experiences, leading to some variability in metaphors and metonymies for emotion across cultures.…”

Development of the Ghent Multidimensional Somatic Complaints Scale

“…Finally, nine symptoms, all related to emotional experiences, were included in the questionnaire. Emotion literature has repeatedly shown that psychological distress can be expressed in the form of somatic complaints (Breugelmans et al, 2005;Roseman, 2001). This item selection procedure resulted in a 63 item scale which covered the somatic complaints domain.…”

Culture in Embodied Cognition: Metaphorical/Metonymic Conceptualizations ofFEARin Akan and English

“…The existence of major similarities and variations in the conceptualizations of basic emotion concepts within and between cultures has been documented extensively in cognitive linguistic research and social anthropology (Breugelmans et al, 2005;King, 1989;Kövecses, 2000Kövecses, , 2005Lutz, 1988;Matsuki, 1995;Taylor & Mbense, 1998;Yu, 1995). Often discussed in terms of conceptual metaphors in cognitive linguistics, the similarities of conceptualization of emotion concepts across cultures have been explained in terms of the embodied cognition thesis.…”

“…Evidence from more recent cross-cultural studies on the conceptualization of basic human emotion concepts (Breugelmans et al, 2005;Kövecses, 2000Kövecses, , 2005Lutz, 1988;Maalej, 1999Maalej, , 2004 suggests that indeed, each of these views is right in its claims to a certain degree. These researchers have proposed the embodied cultural prototype view (Kövecses, 2000(Kövecses, , 2005Maleej, 2004), to synthesize the two diverging prototype views.…”