MATSUMOTO AND EKMAN ' S JAPANESE AND CAUCASIAN FACIAL EXPRESSIONS OF EMOTION ( JACFEE ) : RELIABILITY DATA AND CROSS-NATIONAL DIFFERENCES

Substantial research has documented the universality of several emotional expressions. However, recent findings have demonstrated cultural differences in level of recognition and ratings of intensity. When testing cultural differences, stimulus sets must meet certain requirements. Matsumoto and Ekman's Japanese and Caucasian Facial Expressions of Emotion (JACFEE) is the only set that meets these requirements. The purpose of this study was to obtain judgment reliability data on the JACFEE, and to test for possible cross-national differences in judgments as well. Subjects from Hungary, Japan, Poland, Sumatra, United States, and Vietnam viewed the complete JACFEE photo set and judged which emotions were portrayed in the photos and rated the intensity of those expressions. Results revealed high agreement across countries in identifying the emotions portrayed in the photos, demonstrating the reliability of the JACFEE. Despite high agreement, cross-national differences were found in the exact level of agreement for photos of anger, contempt, disgust, fear, sadness, and surprise. Cross-national differences were also found in the level of intensity attributed to the photos. No systematic variation due to either preceding emotion or presentation order of the JACFEE was found. Also, we found that grouping the countries into a Western/Non-Western dichotomy was not justified according to the data. Instead, the cross-national differences are discussed in terms of possible sociopsychological variables that influence emotion judgments. Cross-cultural research has documented high agreement in judgments of facial expressions of emotion in over 30 different cultures (Ekman, The research reported in this article was made supported in part by faculty awards for research and scholarship to David Matsumoto. Also, we would like to express our appreciation to William Irwin for his previous work on this project, and to Nathan Yrizarry, Hideko Uchida, Cenita Kupperbusch, Galin Luk, Carinda Wilson-Cohn, Sherry Loewinger, and Sachiko Takeuchi for their general assistance in our research program. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to David Matsumoto, Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132. Electronic mail may be sent to dm@sfsu.edu. loumal of Nonverbal Behavior 21(1), Spring 1997 ), including preliterate cultures (Ekman, Sorensen, & Friesen, 1969; Ekman & Friesen, 1971). Recent research, however, has reported cultural differences in judgment as well. Matsumoto (1989, 1992a), for example, found that American and Japanese subjects differed in their rates of recognition. Differences have also been found in ratings of intensity (Ekman et al., 1987). Examining cultural differences requires a different methodology than studying similarities. Matsumoto (1992a) outlined such requirements: (1) cultures must view the same expressions; (2) the facial expressions must meet criteria for validly and reliably portraying the universal emotions; (3) each poser must appear only once; (4) expressions must include posers of more than one race. Matsumoto and Ekman's (1988) Japanese and Caucasian Facial Expressions of Emotion (JACFEE) was designed to meet these requirements. JACFEE was developed by photographing over one hundred posers who voluntarily moved muscles that correspond to the universal expressions (Ekman & Friesen, 1975, 1986). From the thousands of photographs taken, a small pool of photos was coded using Ekman and Friesen's (1978) Facial Action Coding System (FACS). A final pool of photos was then selected to ensure that each poser only contributed one photo in the final set, which is comprised of 56 photos, including eight photos each of anger, contempt, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. Four photos of each emotion depict posers of either Japanese or Caucasian descent (2 males, 2 females). Two published studies have reported judgment data on the JACFEE, but only with American and Japanese subjects. Matsumoto and Ekman (1989), for example, asked their subjects to make scalar ratings (0-8) on seven emotion dimensions for each photo. The judgments of the Americans and Japanese were similar in relation to strongest emotion depicted in the photos, and the relative intensity among the photographs. Americans, however, gave higher absolute intensity ratings on photos of happiness, anger, sadness, and surprise. In the second study (Matsumoto, 1992a), high agreement was found in the recognition judgments, but the level of recognition differed for anger, disgust, fear, and sadness. While data from these and other studies seem to indicate the dual existence of universal and culture-specific aspects of emotion judgment, the methodology used in many previous studies has recently been questioned on several grounds, including the previewing of slides, judgment context, presentation order, preselection of slides, the use of posed expressions, and type of response format (Russell, 1994; see Ekman, 1994, and Izard, 1994, for reply). Two of these, judgment context and presentation order, are especially germane to the present study and are addressed here.