Cultural Display Rules: Impact on Emotions and Communication - Essay Sample

Introduction

Culture provides guidelines, structures, rules, and expectations for portraying and interpreting emotions. Consequently, it has profound impacts on the way people define, perceive, and express feelings. Cultural display rules, specific to every community, are learned early in life, and they dictate the expressive behaviors depending on the social contexts (Matsumoto and Hwang 2013).Following these rules, every society has informal norms concerning the proper way to express emotions. Rapid technological changes have marked the last three decades, resulting in significant changes in communication approaches. The new patterns have increased the multiplicity of social contacts, resulting in extensive cultural changes (Tebhunen 2008). Therefore, the digital age has had significant changes in how people define, perceive, and express emotion. The cultures discussed in this paper fall into two broad categories: individualist and collectivist (independence). America and Japan have individualist and collectivist cultures, respectively (Araki and Wiseman, 1997). Studies on two nations are representative of the cultural scripts and differences in expression of emotion. Cultural display rules in collectivist and individualist cultures influence how the people define, perceive, and respond to emotional changes.

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Anthropological Overview

Culture refers to a set of shared values, norms, attitudes, beliefs, and behavior found among speakers of a similar language, or those living within the same geographic location (Lutz 1983). These factors constitute a specific group’s way of life. Emotions are bodily feelings caused by environmental or biochemical influences (Lutz 1983).Cultural factors influence how people express, perceive, and experience emotions. This occurs by dictating how people should view and respond to positive or negative emotions, and how they should regulate their feelings.

Cultural display rules can sufficiently explain the connection between culture and emotions. These rules dictate the types of emotions a person within a given culture displays, and how he or she should regulate them (Matsumoto and Hwang 2013). Consequently, the influence emotional experiences, leading to broad differences in how people from different cultures perceive and express emotion. For example, in a study noted by Matsumoto and Hwang (2013), Japanese and American participants viewed stressful films with the experimenter, and in the other trial, alone. Japanese individuals expressed negative emotions such as anger, fear, sadness, and disgust while alone; when with company, most of them smiled (Matsumoto and Hwang 2013). On the other hand, the Americans continued did so both around the experimenter and when alone (Matsumoto and Hwang 2013). The outcomes of the experiment show that due to differences in cultural display rules, people are likely to de-amplify or hide their emotions in various social contexts, by expressing what they do not feel. The same rules might also make some more open about their emotions than others. For instance, in many cultures in the United States, masculinity norms hold that boys do not cry (Vogel, Heimerdinger-Edwards, Hammer, and Hubbard 2011). Hence, the expression of negative emotions by men through crying can result in self-stigma and social ostracism.

Cultural contexts determine how people interpret emotions. Consequently, people from different cultures may apprehend the same situation differently, depending on moral connotations. According to Mesquita, Leersnyder, and Boiger, emotions supported by cultural ideals are more prevalent and intense. Conversely, those that are not conducive to the culture are often suppressed. Taking the example of friendliness and shame, which are positive and negative emotions respectively, the former is readily accepted and understood in the Japanese culture since it is based on interdependence and harmony (Mesquita, Leersnyder, and Boiger).Additionally, emotional phenomena generally reflect the divergence of behavior models in different cultures. In the U.S. culture, which is independent, actions, thoughts, and feelings are thought to emerge from internal states (Mesquita, Leersnyder, and Boiger). Conversely, in Japan, which has a dependent culture, actions, thoughts, and feelings are seen to emerge from interactions between individuals (Mesquita, Leersnyder, and Boiger).

Modern technology has resulted in increased integration among cultures, leading to the development of more complex societies. According to Shank (2014), technology changes how people feel, and creates outlets for the expression of emotion, that were not traditionally available. Hence, technological developments have, to some degree, altered the predominant cultural display rules. Shank (2014) stated that in the digital era, people use computers and the internet to mediate emotions; the resultant social interactions have replicated and expanded traditional values, leading to new, transformative ones.

Emotions Culture in America and Japan

Americans and Japanese have varying levels of emotional expression. As noted before, the U.S. has an independent culture, which means that Americans prioritize individual self-promotion (Mesquita, Leersnyder, and Boiger). On the contrary, the Japanese have a dependent culture, meaning that they value social harmony rather than individualism (Mesquita, Leersnyder, and Boiger). Consequently, there are significant differences in how the two perceive and express emotions. In a study by Araki and Wiseman (1997), 111 American and 103 Japanese students were exposed to anger-eliciting scenarios. When anger was caused by a member of the respective groups to the peers, the experimenters noted that the level of expression for the Japanese students was significantly lower than the Americans’ (Araki and Wiseman 1997). The results shows that people from various cultures regulate their feelings about a given situation and control the expression of emotions differently. From the above case, the Japanese are better at regulating how they display negative emotions, compared to their American counterparts. According to Araki and Wiseman (1997), people control how they show their emotions to act per their cultural norms – the display rules. For example, in the U.S., boys avoid crying since the method of expression of emotion is associated with girls.

The display of negative emotions correlates with destroying or maintaining unity in an in-group (Araki and Wiseman 1997). The variations in the expression of emotions between the Japanese and Americans can be attributed to individualism and collectivism. Individualistic cultures emphasize the value of personal needs and interests rather than group goals. Consequently, the relations between people in this culture are unstable. Also, the members are better at mingling with outsiders and making new groups (Araki and Wiseman 1997). On the other hand, members of collectivist cultures prioritize interdependence over individual goals (Araki and Wiseman 1997). Consequently, they have more durable, stable in-group relations. Also, they form fewer in-groups and are aware of their difference with others. (Araki and Wiseman 1997). Both individualists and collectivists can control their expression of emotion. However, the two cultures view a member’s behavior towards the group differently (Araki and Wiseman 1997). Consequently, they express feelings differently. This explains why the American students in the study by Araki and Wiseman (1997) displayed more intense anger than their Japanese counterparts.

Following the above example, culture influences the expression of negative emotions. In collectivistic cultures, people avoid directly displaying negative feelings about an in-group member to prevent breaking the cohesion between them. Hence the control their emotions and suppress negative feelings more, compared to those from independent cultures. Conversely, those from individualistic cultures prioritize themselves over the wellbeing of the group. As a result, they express negative emotions about a group member without considering how their actions will affect their in-group integrity. In this culture, there is minimal control of the expression of such feelings.

People from individualist cultures are less likely to experience anger, and rarely like to experience interest. Also, they portray more emotional independence. On the contrary, people from collectivist cultures engage in activities out of interest, rather than an obligation (Araki and Wiseman 1997). They are also not good at expressing non-verbally – through body movements and facial expressions, for example. However, in collectivist cultures, there is a significant emphasis on decoding subtle verbal and nonverbal cues (Araki and Wiseman 1997). Hence, while collectivists such as the Japanese may not display their emotions like the individualists, they are better at defining and understanding emotional expressions.

Individualism and collectivism create sense of wellbeing in contrasting ways. In America, acting per the culturally scripted independence results in positive feelings; conversely, in Japan, interpersonal engagements result in the same outcome (Kitayama, Markus, and Kurokawa, 2000). Consequently, following cultural display rules results in positive feelings. In Japan, such feelings include being calm or elated, while in individualist cultures like America, successfully practicing the cultural scripts results in pride (Kitayama, Markus, and Kurokawa 2000). This is attributable to different intrapersonal expressions of emotions. In Japan, the feelings arise from social relations, in which individuals exchange behaviors and positive appraisals (Kitayama, Markus, and Kurokawa 2000).

Universal and Culture-Specific Emotions

The definition, perception, and expression of basic emotions is uniform throughout the world, despite differences in culture. Happiness, sadness, anger, contempt, disgust, and fright are independent of culture and language (Wierzbicka 1986). Each of these feelings is associated with a specific facial expression that is universally accepted and understood. However, there are other complex emotions, such as pride, jealousy, love, regret, and distress, whose interpretation is more likely to depend on cultural influences. Such feelings rely on the intensity of facial expressions, or the nature of body movements, subject to varying interpretations (Matsumoto et al. 2002).

Different emotions have different interpretations in various languages and cultures. Similarly, multiple cultures categorize emotions differently. For instance, there are words describing feelings that lack a clear translation in English. In German, the word schadenfreude, which represents the pleasure obtained from other people's displeasure, has no English equivalent (Russell 1991, p. 426). In Japan, an example of such emotion is itoshii, which describes the feeling associated longing to see an absent loved one (Russell 1991, p. 426). The above examples show that various cultures different ways of identifying and distinguishing emotions.

While the seven basic emotions that are universal, their description may vary from language to language. For instance, there is no Polish word corresponding to disgust (Wierzbicka 1986). Also, in aboriginal Australian Gidjingali, fear is indistinguishable from shame (Wierzbicka 1986). Therefore, from an ethnographic standpoint, language and culture blur the universality of fundamental emotions. Hence, a group can understand emotions in its terms, rather than the worldview. Else, societies would possess emotions with little knowledge of how to define them....