Constants across cultures in the face and emotion.

Abstract

This study addresses the question of whether any facial expressions of emotion are universal. Recent studies showing that members of literate cultures associated the same emotion concepts with the same facial behaviors could not demonstrate that at least some facial expressions of emotion are universal; the cultures compared had all been exposed to some of the same mass media presentations of facial expression, and these may have taught the people in each culture to recognize the unique facial expressions of other cultures. To show that members of a preliterate culture who had minimal exposure to literate cultures would associate the same emotion concepts with the same facial behaviors as do members of Western and Eastern literate cultures, data were gathered in New Guinea by telling subjects a story, showing them a set of three faces, and asking them to select the face which showed the emotion appropriate to the story. The results provide evidence in support of the hypothesis that the association between particular facial muscular patterns and discrete emotions is universal.

Cardiovascular costs of emotion suppression cross ethnic lines

“…Third, we used instructed suppression, a "response-focused" emotion regulation strategy, versus the types of "antecedent-focused" strategies (e.g., situation selection, attentional deployment, reappraisal) where cultural variation may be even more likely to emerge (Levenson et al, 2007). Having said this, it is important to note that cross-cultural consistencies in the realm of emotional behavior and physiology, which first came to the fore in field studies of emotional facial expressions (Ekman & Friesen, 1971;Izard, 1971) and appeared again in field (Levenson, Ekman, Heider, & Friesen, 1992) and laboratory (Soto, Levenson, & Ebling, 2005) studies of emotional behavior and physiology, continue to be the rule rather than the exception.…”

The development of facial emotion recognition: The role of configural information

“…They were informed about the emotional categories and were given a sheet of paper with the name of each category followed by a sentence (derived from Ekman & Friesen, 1971) describing the emotional state (e.g., his/her child is sick, and he/she feels very sad). The experimenter read the names and sentences with the participants to ensure that they understood the emotional states described.…”

Why some surprises are more surprising than others: Surprise as a metacognitive sense of explanatory difficulty

“…Though surprise clearly involves an emotional reaction (often accompanied by a startle response), it also seems to serve a strategic, cognitive goal, as it directs attention to explain why the surprising event occurred and to learn for the future (e.g., Macedo, 2010;Maguire, Maguire & Keane, 2011;Ranganath & Rainer, 2003). Originally conceived of as a "basic emotion" (e.g., Darwin, 1872;Ekman & Friesen, 1971;Izard, 1977;Plutchik, 1991;Tomkins, 1962), more recently surprise has been re-appraised as a cognitive state because, unlike most emotions, it can be either positively or negatively valenced (Ortony & Turner, 1990; see also Kahneman & Miller, 1986;Maguire et al, 2011). Indeed, nowadays, cognitive aspects of surprise are routinely mentioned in the affective literature; for instance, Wilson and Gilbert (2008) explicitly discuss explanatory aspects of surprise in affective adaptation.…”