We present here new evidence of cross-cultural agreement in the judgment of facial expression, Subjects in 10 cultures performed a more complex judgment task than has been used in previous cross-cultural studies. Instead of limiting the subjects to selecting only one emotion term for each expression, this task allowed them to indicate that multiple emotions were evident and the intensity of each emotion. Agreement was very high across cultures about which emotion was the most intense. The 10 cultures also agreed about the second most intense emotion signaled by an expression and about the relative intensity among expressions of the same emotion. However, cultural differences were found in judgments of the absolute level of emotional intensity. In the last 10 years, opinion has shifted about whether facial expressions of emotion are universal. The earlier view that what a facial expression signifies is completely different from culture to culture (Birdwhistell, 1970; LaBarre, 1947; Leach, 1972) is no longer accepted within psychology, although it is still maintained by some anthropologists (Howell, 1985) . Those who have become persuaded by the evidence of universal facial expressions of emotion can cite consistent findings across three quite different types of research. Those who remain skeptical, however, can cite flaws in each. Our study was designed to remedy some of these flaws. We will consider the strengths and weaknesses in each type of research on the universality of facial expressions of emotion. In one type of investigation (Ekman & Friesen, 1971) bers of one culture were asked to show how their face would look if they were the person in each of a number of different emotional contexts (e.g., "you feel sad because your child died," "you are angry and about to fight"). Universality was demonstrated when observers in another culture did far better than chance in identifying which emotional contexts the expressions were intended to portray. This finding had unusual import because the persons displaying the expressions were members of a visually isolated New Guinea culture (the South Fore). The ability of Americans to understand these New Guinean expressions could not be attributed to prior contact between these groups or to both having learned their expressions from mass media models. Three problems limit these findings. First, there has been only one such study. It has not been repeated in another preliterate, visually isolated culture, nor for that matter in a literate, non-Western or Western culture. Second, not all six emotions portrayed were accurately recognized. Anger, disgust, happiness, and sadness were distinguished from each other and from fear and surprise, but the American observers could not distinguish the New Guineans portrayals of fear and surprise.
Since the early 1970s, the universality and cultural differences in facial expressions of emotions have been studied REF .
Universals and cultural differences in the judgments of facial expressions of emotion.
Journal of personality and social psychology
Journal of personality and social psychology
Psychology Medicine