[4] Human neurology can explain some of the cross-cultural similarities in emotional phenomena, including certain physiological and behavioral changes.
Though most people experience similar internal sensations, the way these are categorized and interpreted is shaped by language and social context.
[5][8] The final perspective takes an integrated approach, exploring the interaction of biology and culture to explain the social influences on the categorization and subjective experience of emotion.
[11] In the early 1960s, Silvan Tomkins' Affect Theory built upon Darwin's research, arguing that facial expressions are biological and universal manifestations of emotions.
These photographs were recognized as expressing the same feelings by cultures in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and South America.
In addition to pioneering research in psychology, ethnographic accounts of cultural differences in emotion began to emerge.
Gregory Bateson, an English anthropologist, used photography and film to document his time with the people of Bajoeng Gede in Bali.
She described the culture as particularly unique in emotional control – expressions of anger or aggression were rarely observed, and resulted in ostracism.
[17] Reddy suggests that the distinction between sexual passion and love was not present in Heain Japan or the Indian kingdoms of Bengal and Odisha.
[3][22] Ekman and Friesen[23] suggest that display rules vary across cultures, genders, or backgrounds, shaping emotional expression accordingly.
A cultural syndrome, as defined by Triandis, is a "shared set of beliefs, attitudes, norms, values, and behavior organized around a central theme and found among speakers of one language, in one time period, and in one geographic region".
[27] They shape the perceived value and desirability of different emotions, influencing ideal affect (what people want to feel).
[29] Children are socialized to learn ideal affect through cultural products such as storybooks, showing cross-cultural differences by preschool age.
[3] In collectivistic cultures, happiness is relational, based on social and external factors, and experienced alongside other people.
Emotional exchanges can have serious social consequences that can result in either maintaining and enhancing positive relationships or becoming a source of antagonism and discord (Fredrickson, 1998;[34] Gottman & Levenson, 1992).
"), in comparison to Chinese mothers who provided more neutral or task relevant feedback (e.g. "Did you understand the questions or did you just guess?
[41] While traditionally emotional perception and recognition was thought of as identical processes across groups that relies on interpretation of standard sets of facial expressions, more recent research suggests the cultural context of upbringing can affect emotional perception and recognition of people in significant ways.
[5][42][43] Cultural context serves as important frameworks for the perceiver to allocate attention when attempting to attribute emotions.
[5] Furthermore, certain cultural groups seem to disregard facial expressions in emotional perception in favor of inferences based on actions.
[45] This suggests that Japanese people believe emotions exist within the environment, between individuals, in line with collectivistic values.
Markus & Kitayama purport that emotions like friendliness and shame - which promote interconnectedness - are predominant in Asian culture.
[47] They are encouraged to embrace and even actively seek out negative emotional experiences, recognizing their potential for personal growth and meaningful function.
The article explanation is that Asian-Americans may engage in habitual suppression more often as negative emotions are seen to cause social disharmony and thus contradict cultural values.
[53] Research undertaken in the socialization of children cross-culturally has shown how early cultural influences start to affect emotions.
[54] Research by Friedlmeier et al., suggests children must be socialized in order to meet the emotional values and standards of their culture.
[55] Indeed, it was found that American preschoolers preferred excited smiles and perceived them as happier than Taiwanese children did, and these values were seen to be mirrored in storybook pictures.
[55] This shows that children are largely malleable in their emotions, and suggests that it takes a period of time for cultural values to become ingrained.
[57] By incorporating how emotional practices in global South have sought to reconcile human-nature relations, Badri shows that affective-relations play a critical role in dealing with the Anthropocene condition of today.
Currently, the research literature is dominated by comparisons between Western (usually American) and Eastern Asian (usually Japanese or Chinese) sample groups.
[60] Recently, the valence and arousal of the twelve most popular emotion keywords expressed on the micro-blogging site Twitter were measured using latent semantic clustering in three geographical regions: Europe, Asia and North America.