Emotions and Expressions across Cultures

Decades of cross-cultural research have revealed an interesting and important relationship between culture and emotion. The effects of culture are far-reaching, with emotion sensitivity and recognition affected by cultural familiarity, a type of ingroup advantage. This entry describes cross-cultural similarities and differences with regard to emotional expressions: how and when different emotions look and sound, as observed with a variety of stimuli. Recent investigations with emoticons have also provided insight into how emotional display rules differ in online venues. Applied research is presented to describe the effect of setting on these cross-cultural differences. Findings from small- and large-scale investigations demonstrate the many ways that culture influences how emotion is expressed between friends and family, with mental health professionals, and with coworkers. Both cross-cultural and emotion researchers alike stress the importance of sensitivity training to better understand the ways in which emotion is expressed and perceived.