© 2013 Cengage Learning

Outline
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The Evolution of Human Emotion
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Emotions as Evolved, Information Processing
Systems
Different Categories of Emotion
 The Cultural Calibration of Emotions
The Biological Bases of Emotion – Basic
Emotions
 The Original Universality Studies
 Research on Facial Expressions of Emotion After the
Original Universality Studies

Outline (cont’d.)
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The Biological Bases of Emotion – Basic
Emotions (cont’d.)
 Other Sources of Evidence for the Universality of
Basic Emotions and Their Possible Biological Bases
 Summary
Cultural Regulation of the Basic Emotion System
 Front-end Calibration of the Basic Emotion System:
Cultural Differences in Emotion Antecedents and
Appraisals
 Back-End Calibration of the Basic Emotion System:
Cultural Display Rules

Outline (cont’d.)
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Cultural Regulation of the Basic Emotion System
(cont’d.)
 Cultural Calibration of Emotion Judgments
The Cultural Construction of Emotional
Experience
The Cultural Construction of Concepts,
Attitudes, Values, and Beliefs About Emotion
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Concepts of Emotion
Categories of Emotion
The Location of Emotion

Outline (cont’d.)
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The Cultural Construction of Concepts,
Attitudes, Values, and Beliefs About Emotion
(cont’d.)
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Attitudes, Values, and Beliefs About Emotion
Summary
Conclusion

T HE E VOLUTION OF H UMAN
E MOTION

Emotions as Evolved, Information
Processing Systems
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Emotions give meaning to events
Feelings: subjective experience/affect; part of emotion
Emotions: transient, neurophysiological reactions to events
 When emotions are triggered, they recruit coordinated system of components to prepare for dealing with event
Emotion is a human universal

Different Categories of Emotion
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Basic emotions: triggered by biologically-innate system in our brains
Self-conscious emotions: associated with selfreflective processes
 Shame
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Guilt
Pride
Embarrassment

The Cultural Calibration of Emotions
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Culture provides necessary coordination and organization of social complexities
Cultures create rules, guidelines, values, and norms concerning regulation of emotion
Cultural regulation of emotion occurs via:
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Regulating our biologically-based basic emotions
Helping to construct unique emotional experiences going beyond basic emotions
Helping to construct unique concepts, meanings, attitudes, values, and beliefs about emotion

T HE B IOLOGICAL B ASES OF
E MOTION
– B
ASIC E MOTIONS

The Original Universality Studies
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Darwin: facial expressions of emotion have both communicative and adaptive value
Universality studies:
 Universal emotions identified: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise
Judgments of expressions posed by preliterate tribes consistent with industrialized nations
Spontaneous facial expressions of emotion consistent between Americans and Japanese

Source: Paul Ekman

Research on Facial Expressions of Emotion after the Original
Universality Studies
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Universal signals found in babies: smiling, distaste, disgust, and crying
Perfect correspondence between facial behaviors produced between blind and sighted individuals
Morphological similarities between human expressions of emotion and nonhuman primate expressions displayed in similar contexts

Figure 8.5.
Comparison of Blind and Sighted Athletes Who Just Lost a Match for a
Medal . Photos Copyright Bob Willingham (Reprinted with Permission)

Other Sources of Evidence for the
Universality of Basic Emotions and their Possible Biological Bases
 Universality in:
 Emotion recognition
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Physiological responses to emotion
Subjective emotional experience
Coherence among emotion response systems
Emotion antecedents
Emotion appraisal processes

Figure 8.6. The Seven Basic Emotions and their Universal Expressions
Source: David Matsumoto, Ph.D.

Summary
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Emotions are universal psychological phenomenon based in evolution of species
Innate emotions allow us to appraise events and situations in reliable and predictable ways
Emotions trigger host of responses part of universal emotion package
Recognition of emotions in others has important social meaning
Universal processes allow us to adapt, respond, and cope with problems regardless of culture

C ULTURAL R EGULATION OF
THE B ASIC E MOTION S YSTEM

Cultural Regulation of the Basic
Emotion System
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Cultures influence a core, biologically-based basic emotion system in order to regulate emotions and ensure social coordination
Cultural calibration of innate emotion and expression system allows for regulation of culturally-appropriate emotional responses
 Allows for culturally-appropriate behavioral responding, social coordination, prevention of social chaos

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Front-End Calibration of the Basic
Emotion System: Cultural
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Differences in Emotion Antecedents and Appraisals
Cultural differences exist in relative frequencies of various antecedent events to bring about an emotion
Many appraisal processes appear to be universal
Cultures influence what events their members become emotional about in first place, and how to interpret those events

Back-End Calibration of the Basic
Emotion System:
Cultural Display Rules
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Cultural display rules: govern how universal emotions can be expressed
Display rules can modify expressions:
 Express less than actually felt (deamplification)
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Express more than actually felt (amplification)
Show nothing (neutralization)
Show emotion but with another emotion to comment on it (qualification)
Mask or conceal feelings (masking)
Show emotion when not felt (simulation)

A Worldwide Mapping of Display Rules

Cultural Calibration of
Emotion Judgments
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Cultures calibrate how individuals perceive emotions in others
Decoding rules: culturally dependent rules learned early in life that govern how emotional expressions are recognized
Cultural differences exist in inferences about emotional experiences underlying facial expressions of emotion

C ULTURAL C ALIBRATION OF
E MOTION J UDGMENTS

Cultural Calibration of
Emotion Judgments
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Cultures calibrate how individuals perceive emotions in others
Individualistic cultures associated with higher recognition rates for certain facial expressions
Emotion recognition rates are influenced by culturally learned decoding rules
Cultural differences in inferences of emotional experiences underlying facial expressions
Ingroup advantage: ability to recognize emotions of those with same culture better than others

T HE C ULTURAL
C ONSTRUCTION OF
E MOTIONAL E XPERIENCE

The Cultural Construction of
Emotional Experience
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Cultures construct and mold emotional experiences in different ways
Socially engaging emotions: friendliness, respect, sympathy, guilt and shame
Socially disengaging emotions: pride, selfesteem, sulkiness, or frustration
Emotional complexity: co-occurrence of both pleasant and unpleasant emotions
Cultural differences linked to dialectical thinking

T HE C ULTURAL
C ONSTRUCTION OF
C ONCEPTS , A TTITUDES ,
V ALUES , AND B ELIEFS ABOUT
E MOTION

Concepts of Emotion
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How American society values and structures people's feelings and emotions is directly related to values fostered by American culture
The way American culture understands and defines emotion may not be same in other cultures
Not all cultures have a word for emotion

Categories of Emotion
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Hypercognize emotions: variations of emotions are identified and words created for these variations
Hypocognize emotions: relatively fewer variations of emotions exist
Types of words cultures use to identify and label emotion
 Gives clues about the way different cultures structure and mold emotional experiences of their people

The Location of Emotion
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Different cultures locate emotions in different places
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Americans: heart
Japanese: hara — gut or abdomen
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Chewong: liver
Tahitians: intestines
Ifaluk: "our insides"
Emotions are understood differently and have different meanings for different peoples

Attitudes, Values, and Beliefs about Emotion
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Cultures facilitate different values about emotion
Cultural values about emotion are about how people want to feel (ideal affect), different than how people actually feel (actual affect)
Temperament and personality traits, not cultural values, predict actual affect better than cultural values
Cultural values predict ideal affect better
Cultures facilitate construction of beliefs about emotions

Summary
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Many of culturally-constructed emotions are emotions other than basic emotions
More complex emotions may require more cognitive abilities than do basic emotions
Emotion-related processes that depend on those cognitive abilities are more heavily related to culture

C ONCLUSION

Conclusion
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Emotions are universally expressed and recognized
 Emotions elicit expressive behavior, physiology, cognitions, and action potential in all cultures
Cultures also exert profound influences on emotions
 Cultures regulate basic emotions by influencing relative frequencies, types of triggers, and dimensions
Some universal emotions biology-based; others require higher-order cognitive processes