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The Impact of Culture on the Identification and

Jacqueline Pendergast

School of Psychology, Western Sydney University

BEHV1016: Psychology: Behavioural Science

Miss Kit Wing Fu

25th September 2022

Abstract

The study’s aim was to discuss the extent of which specific cultured individuals can

recognise and perceive a range of emotions between their own, and differing cultures. This

was researched through 556 Western Sydney University students from diverse ethnicities and

their accuracy on determining a range of emotions of mothers from different ethnicities: East

Asian Australian and Caucasian Australian. Results supported previous findings throughout

literature, however, they only somewhat approved the formulated hypothesis that individuals

from a specific ethnicity will better recognise emotions from people of their own culture

rather than other cultures. This was seen as the emotion of anger was more easily identified

between the participants and the stimuli of the same ethnicity over differing ethnicities.

However, other emotions (happiness and surprise) had little to no difference in terms of

accurate identification across both ethnicities. This theorises that happiness and surprise may

be universal between these two ethnicities; however, individuals may be less efficient in

anger identification in cultures other than their own. Further studies should explore the effect

of emotional misidentification on individuals and the impact on cross culture/ethnic

relationships to reduce conflict between people of diverse cultures.

The Impact of Culture on the Identification and Perception of Emotions

Darwin’s evolutionary theory of emotion being of universal means has, and continues

to be proven outdated, highlighted by Chen & Jack (2017), who utilised the notion of cultural

tradition to question the universality of emotion. Thus, emotions may not be able to be

identified on a cross-cultural basis, depending on the type of emotion presented, as well as

how intense these emotions are (Fang et al, 2019), providing a basis for imperative research.

This same study reported that specifically, those of East Asian descent appeared to have

limited recognition of Western anger, disgust, and fear. It is identified that this could be due

to the lack of exposure to negative emotions within the culture, or the difference in focus on

different elements of emotion presented in the face, which Westerners tend to view the whole

face whereas East Asians interpret emotion from the eyes mainly (Fang et al, 2019). Through

the central idea of emotions lacking universality, the present experiment aims to examine this

perceivable difference in emotion recognition cross culturally.

Elfenbein (2003), emphasised that negative emotions are perceived differently across

cultures due to the four-dimensional theories of cultural differences introduced by Hofstede

(1983). Focusing on two of the theories, Power Distance, the acceptance of an unequal power

and tradition in power-based cultures, and Uncertainty Avoidance, the idea that individuals

will build a cultural institution based on safety, negative emotions present disrupt to these

orders. Therefore, individuals from cultures that hold these principles, such as China and the

Arab world, may have trouble identifying negative emotion from other nations due the

limited exposure. Thus, this study created a central idea of the institutional differences

between cultures, and how it created a division between emotion perception and recognition

due to the difference in governmental structure. In support of this, Marsh et al’ (2003)

conducted an experiment to rectify the idea of universality in emotion with a range of culture

diverse people in aim to identify differing emotions presented (anger, disgust, sadness, fear).
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Through this, Marsh et al. concluded that the accuracy of the four emotions identified

differed among all ethnicities tested (Caucasian, Asian and African American), which there

remained a large difference in accuracy identification for the emotions of fear, surprise, and

disgust, however the other emotions were consistent. Thus, this supports the idea that

between cultures, the most prominent difference in emotion recognition lies in mainly

negative emotions. However, a key limitation to this study is that all participants resided in

the US; the location of the participant’s upbringing was not disclosed. This extraneous

variable offers a discrepancy to the data, as it is not concluded whether the country that an

individual grew up in influences the physical characteristics of their emotions.

Culture has a vast impact on the way that this contextual information is perceived,

whilst Western Europeans follow analytic patterns of emotion, East Asians have a more

holistic pattern of attention (Masuda et al, 2008). Masuda (2008) showcased this difference in

contextual examination, comparing two experiments using both Western and Japanese

participants. The findings identified that the Japanese participants were more likely to be

attentive to contextual information when identifying emotion than the Western participants.

However, a noteworthy difference is that the Japanese participants were overall less accurate

in identifying anger on all accords. This study correlates with the idea that culture has a vast

impact on how emotion is both presented and perceived, adding additional information in

which East Asian individuals commonly view emotion as impacted through their

environment, supporting Hofstede’s (1983, 2001) theory of Power Distance and Uncertainty

Avoidance. However, one limitation present is that the emotions presented were in cartoon

form instead of a human depiction, which may skew the data due to the lack of real human

emotion.

The present study aims to encapsulate information to support the theory that culture

influences the recognition of emotion due to the innate differences in emotion presentation.
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However, contrary to the hypothesis, there were no notable findings on a difference of

identification between all emotions, which culture only showed a large impact on negative

emotions. No previous literature examined aimed to create an experiment that independently

researched the emotion perceived between individuals of different cultures, which many

included the use of the degree of intensity of emotions as well as the implementation of

contextual cues to aid their research. To eliminate this gap, an experiment was completed on

students from Western Sydney University identifying from a range of cultural backgrounds

who were instructed to identify emotions from a Caucasian mother, as well as an Eastern

Asian mother both residing in Australia. To ensure that the emotions were genuine and

consistent, the mother’s children were present as a stimuli to limit the fabrication of emotions

presented. The hypothesis created in response to this experiment was that individuals from a

specific ethnicity will better recognise emotions from people of their own culture rather than

other cultures. Thus, hypothesising that culture has a direct influence on the recognition of

emotion.
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Method

Participants

Five hundred and fifty-six participants participated in the study. Participants were first-year

students from diverse ethnic-cultural backgrounds at Western Sydney University. Data from students with

specific ethnic-cultural (Caucasian Australian, N = 241; East Asian (non-Australian), N = 35) backgrounds

were used for analysis. The two groups differed in both ethnicity and culture. The study was approved by

the Ethics Committees of Western Sydney University (H14705). Informed consent was obtained before the

commencement of the experiment to ensure voluntary participation.

Stimuli

Mothers from two ethnic-cultural (Caucasian Australian, (East Asian) Japanese) backgrounds

were invited for stimuli recording. To ensure unison and cohesion between stimuli recordings, all mothers

wore the same shirt and removed all accessories such as necklaces, and sat on a chair one meter away

facing the front of a camera against a white wall. Their infants were present during the recordings, sitting

on a baby chair between the camera and chair, but 45º lower than the camera and mothers’ heads such that

infants’ heads did not obstruct the stimuli recordings. Mothers were prompted to recall real-life scenarios

which lead to three types of spontaneous emotions (anger, happiness, and surprise) directed to their infants,

and their real-time emotions were recorded. Mothers unanimously expressed surprise to their infants as

agreeable surprise emotions rather than disagreeable, unpleasant surprise as shown in Chong et al. (2003).

As the human perception of spontaneous emotions was investigated, potential distracting facial features

such as hair in the external portion of the face were kept to retain stimuli authenticity (Jack et al., 2012;

Leitzke & Pollak, 2016). Illumination was kept constant across recordings. Static pictures showing anger,

happiness, or surprise of each mother were obtained from the recordings (Figure 1).

Figure 1

An Example of a Picture Captured From the Stimuli Recording.

Note. Emotion: Happiness; Ethnic-cultural background: Caucasian Australian.

Procedure

An online program, Qualtrics, was used to create the experiment. After informed ethics and

consent, participants filled in their demographic backgrounds and completed an image judgement task. The

demographic questionnaire collected information about participants’ individual ethnic-cultural

experiences. Afterwards, participants joined in an image judgement task, where they watched 18 still

images of mothers’ emotions in random order on their devices and chose one of the six basic emotions

(anger, happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise) for each image. The choices were recorded and later

transformed into accuracy. The choices that matched the emotions depicted in the images were deemed

accurate.

Results

The data were submitted to linear mixed-effects modelling (LME) analyses using the lme4 (Bates

et al., 2015) package’s lmer function in R (R Core Team, 2018). Participants’ accuracy responses when

identifying the emotions from the still pictures of mothers were set as the dependent variable. Their ethnic-

cultural background (two-level, Caucasian Australian, East Asian) was set as the independent variable.

Results showed that students with Caucasian Australian ethnic-cultural backgrounds exceeded those with

East Asian experiences in identifying anger (estimate = 0.1599, SE = 0.0499, z = 3.205, p = 0.0013)

expressed by Caucasian Australian mothers, whereas students with East Asian experiences outperformed

their Caucasian Australian peers in identifying anger (estimate = -0.1111, SE = 0.0499, z = -2.227, p =

0.0260) expressed by Japanese mothers. No other significant differences between Caucasian and East

Asian participants were observed in recognition accuracy for the rest of the stimuli (all ps > .05). Taken
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together, participants’ own ethnic-cultural experiences enhance their emotional recognition ability of anger

expressed from their corresponding ethnic-cultural backgrounds.

Discussion

In terms of the hypothesis, which is that individuals from a specific ethnicity will

better recognise emotions from people of their own culture rather than other cultures, the

results somewhat approve this idea. This is identified as Caucasian participants were more

efficient than the East Asian participants in identifying anger within their own culture, these

results were mirrored within the East Asian participants. This directly relates to Chen &

Jack’s (2017) study of non-verbal accents, showcasing that the perception of emotion differs

amongst cultures. However, the results indicate that there were no notable differences in

identification between the participants in terms of other emotions such as happiness and

surprise, supporting Elfenbein’s (2003) study on Power Distance impacting the perception of

negative emotions in hierarchical nations. Through the results, there is some difference

between cultures in viewing negative emotions, exposing a catalyst for further research to be

conducted on the impact of the misidentification of emotion across cultures.

This study presents some limitations that must be addressed to continue the research

on the impact of culture on emotional perception in addition to how that impacts cross culture

relations. The research conducted was only performed on two broad cultures, East Asian

Australian and Caucasian Australian, presenting direction for future research to be conducted

on other ethnicities and cultures. Additionally, it is not identified whether participants grew

up in the culture identified, introducing an extraneous variable as it is unknown if the country

that an individual grows up in has a direct impact on their perception of emotion. This

limitation can be amended through gaining inspiration from Masuda et al’s (2008) research,

as all participants identified as living in that country during the age of intellectual

development. Another limitation lies in the idea that both individuals from the stimuli

recording were female, which may impact the results through a lack of a male representation

of emotion. This extraneous variable may risk research, due to the confirmation that women
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are more accurate in emotion recognition (Lambrecht et al. 2014). Thus, the stimulus should

include a stereotypical female and male stimulant, to additionally research if gender impacts

emotion in differing cultures.

The present experiment aims to discuss the extent of which a person of a specific

culture can recognise and perceive a range of emotions between their own, and differing

cultures. Through subsequent research, this aim has been experimented, exposing that culture

has a direct influence on the perception and recognition on some emotions. However, further

research will need to be conducted on positive emotions independently to gather data on if

culture impacts all emotions. Additionally, through reviewing previous literature and

conducting an experiment, it is theorised that negative emotions are viewed differently within

opposing cultures through the absence of perceived negative emotions in power driven

countries, due to the lack of defiance that is taught. Additionally, the present experiment

offers knowledge on how other emotions have little differences amongst different cultures.

Thus, within a real-world setting, the difference in negative emotion perception in some

cultures may impact cross culture dialogue and relations, through a misunderstanding of

emotions conveyed through conversation, further leading to conflict.

References

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of emotion. Current opinion in psychology. 17, 61-66.

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Elfenbein, H.A., Nalini, A., (2003). Cultural similarity’s consequences: A distance perspective on

cross-cultural differences in emotion recognition. Journal of cross-cultural psychology. 34.1,

92-110. https://doi-org.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/10.1177/00220221022391.

Fang, X., Van Kleef. G.A., Sauter, D.A. (2019). Revisiting cultural differences in emotion perception

between easterners and westerners: Chinese perceivers are accurate, but see additional non-

intended emotions in negative facial expressions. Journal of experimental social psychology.

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