Cross-Cultural Differences in Emotive Image Assessment: Comparison Between Russian and Azerbaijani Samples

Abstract

This paper investigates the mediating influence of culture on emotions evoked by visual stimuli. It explores differences between Russians and Azerbaijanis in assessment of emotionally charged photos. The stimuli came from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). Having seen photos of objects and situations on their screens, the respondents assessed their emotional response to the stimuli by the valence scale (positive/negative), activation scale (stimulating/soothing) and dominance scale. Both samples showed no difference in the general direction of the given scores. This may speak about universality of emotions evoked in response to emotionally charged images. However, quantitative properties of the given answers also showed several significative differences between the Azerbaijani sample and the Russian one. The Azerbaijani scores of emotional experience valence are polarized, i.e., Azerbaijanis assess negative emotions as more negative and positive emotions as more positive. The Russian sample gravitated towards mean scores. The Russian sample overrated the activating effect of stimuli that invoked negative emotions. The Azerbaijani sample was significantly more restrained in assessing this effect. In addition, Azerbaijani respondents unlike Russian respondents assessed emotions invoked as a response to negative images as more controlled. The results of the study indicate a cultural contribution to the level of the emotive impact as well as to the cognitive processing character of this impact.