CHAPTER Cultural Differences in Emotional 15 Expressions and Body Language
Beatrice de Gelder and Elisabeth Huis in 't Veld
Abstract
As our environment becomes increasingly more international, we are interacting increasingly more with people from different cultures. During social interactions. it is important to respond appropriately to the cues that are relevant in a given situation. People are expected to behave in a suitable way to avoid offending other s. For example, an appropriate response to a greeting can avoid much misunderstanding. C ultural variat.ions have often been named as possible factors for explaining differences in processing emotions. Because culture is in part about regulating social interaction, one expects to find that cultural norms define display r ul es that are at least characteristic of the daily expressions of emotions. This chapter addresses w hether there are important cultural factors that determine whole-body expressions of emotion, how they are perceived, how they are displayed, and what they are.
i Key Words: culture, neuroscience, body express ions of emotion, social interactions. processing emotions
Cultural Perspectives on the Perception quescions of whether there are also imponant cui ofBody Expression rural factors thar determ ine whole body expressions With current communication technologies and of emotion, how they are perceived, how they are ~obal enterprises, our environment is becoming displayed, and what they are. :r.ore international eve ry day. -ll1is means rhar we are The few stud ies that ha ve investigated cul tural nteracting increasingly more with people from dif aspects of body expressions and emo tion have ;rrcnt cu ltures. During social i nreracrions, it is very examined facial expression recognition in different .r.1 ponam w respond appropriately to the cues that cultures. Again, rhe vast majority of resea rch articles 223 One might view this set of questions as belonging One important and well -studied phenom to the new field of cultural neuroscience, expecring enon in face recognition pertains to the idea that that they will be treated more systematically in the recognition of the face is more dependent on near future. Growing insight in the neurological hol istic, or configura!, processing than, for exam processes underlying face and emotion recognition, ple, object recognition (Tanaka & Farah, 1993). the inAuence of race and culture on these processes, Consequently, it has been surmised that the and cultural variations in display rules provides a other-race effect could be explained by improved framework for the much needed research on cul holistic processing for same-race faces (Michel, tural d ifferences in the bodily expressions of emo Rossion, Han, Chung, & Caldara, 2006). In our tion and social interactions. lab, we recently created the idemiry face-marching task as described previously with South Afri can Culture, Race, and Face Perception faces from a Xhosa population. Caucasian stu The main aspects of faces that have been studied dents performed the task with upright and inverted from a cross-cultural perspective are identity, expres Caucasian and South African faces. In line with the sion, and gaze direction. A fourth aspect is equally other-race effect, Caucasian participants showed interesring and concerns cultural differences in the higher accuracy rates and faster reaction times 011 way observers from d ifferent racial and cultural Caucasian than 011 South African faces. This task backgrounds take advantage of multiple and parallel also allows the creation of a measure of configura channels of social information input, such as recog tion processing as measured with the face-inversion nizing a person's emotion from his facial expressions effect (Farah, Tanaka, & Drain, 1995; Yin, 1969). as well as from his tone of voice. We brieAy review Interestingly, the inversion effect was comparable some relevant studies in each of these areas. for both Caucasian and South African faces, so the other-race effect as fou nd in this study could not Race and Person Identity readily be explained by an effect of race on con Face perception has been a topic of extensive figural processing. These res ultS are in line with research, and whether people perceive faces of their those of other studies that found evidence fo r the own race differently than those of other races has other-race effect even though no differences in con been of interest ro researchers for over 50 years. figural processing could be found, giving rise to The phenomenon known as the "other race effect" rhe idea that the other-race effect cannot be com refers to the fact that people are better at recogniz pletely explained by differences in holistic process ing faces from their own race than faces from other ing (Michel, Caldara, & Rossion, 2006; Mondloch racial groups (Lindsay, Jack, & Christian, 1991; et aL, 2010). In addition, these effects have been O'Toole, Deffenbacher, Valentin, & Abdi, 1994; studied using an evem-relared potential (ERP) for review, see Meissner & Brigham, 2001). Our known to be specifically involved in face processing, lab performed a few experiments on the other-race the N 170 (Eimer, 1998). The studies investigat effect using Chinese subjects who had no previous ing the face inversion effect show slightly different exposure to Caucasian faces . We used an extensive but, again, somewhat varied results, indicari ng that battery of tasks rhar were available from previous both same- and other-race faces are processed holis ex periments in our laboratory. The tasks had been tically, although it may be delayed for other races developed to invesrigare both neurologically intact (Wiese, Stahl, & Schweinberger, 2009) or increased and impaired observers, as well as various clinical for same-race faces (Caharel et al., 2011; Gajewski, populations. Therefore, these tasks raxed verbal Schlegel, & Stoerig, 2008; Montalan et al., 20 13; and cognirive functions (e.g., memory) as li ttle as Vizioli, Foreman, Rousselet, & Caldara, 2009). In possible. For example, during all match-to-sample contrast, Hahn, Jantzen, and Symons (20 12) found tasks, one picture was always presented on top, and that same-race faces were processed more holisti a marching picture had to be chosen from the two cally than faces from other races using a technique pictures below. One experiment focused on iden called "lhatcheriz.ation," rotating only the eyes and riry recognition and required marching the target mouth within a face. stimulus shown in fro ntal view to the correct foil Another important aspect in cross-racial facial shown in three-fourths profile. One block presented recognition is the extent to which people have Caucasian faces and the other Chinese. We did not experience with other races (Bukach, Cottle, find the other-race effect since our results showed no Ubiwa, & Miller, 2012; Rhodes et al., 2009; Srahl, difference between groups or stimuli (Si nke, 2012). Wiese, & Schweinberger, 2008). In addition to CULTURAL D I FFERENCES I N EMOTIONAL EXPRESSIONS AND BODY LANGUAGE 224 I 1he race of the perceived person, and the degree to for decades (see Nelson & Russell, 20 13; Scherer, which perceivers have experience with other races, Clark-Polner, & Morrillaro, 2011 ). Currently, how Michel, Corneille, and Rossi on (20 I O) showed that ever, many researchers take a position rhar is a sorr 1he degree to which the same, racially ambiguous of compromise berween the classical Ekman posi face is processed holistically depends on what the tion on universal emotions enshrined in rhe Ekman observer perceived to be the race of the stimulus. facial expressions and the realization rhar rhere is a Another explanation for racial d ifferences in holis measure of cultural relariviry. Iic processing may be baseline differences berween A modest position rhar only touches rhar debate people of different races. For example, there is rangentially concerns rhe influence of culture ar evidence that Asians may process fuces and other rhe level of rhe display rules for emotions. Culture stimul i more configurally rhan Caucasians (M ichel, provides va rious kinds of rules about which facial Caldara, et al., 2006; Tanaka, Kiefer, & Bukach, expressions to d isplay, when, and where. This is a 1004, for an overview, see Miyamoto, 2013). Our vast topic, and dealing with it systematically would lab recently conducted a part-to-whole marching require contributions from anthropologists and experiment in Japan. Participants marched eyes or sociologists, among others. To illusrrare, there is mouths to a picture of a whole Caucasian face, or cultural variability in rhe level of rhe display rules 1hey marched doors or windows ro a picwre of a fo r emotions. For example, Japanese people are per whole house. Accuracy scores and reaction rimes ceived as less likely ro show negative emotions such of 1he Japanese parricipams were similar to rhose as fear or anger bur more likely to express positive of a Dutch control group and, furthermore, they emotions (Hess, Blairy, & Kleck, 2000). At the least, showed the same pattern in face and object parr rec there are cultural differences in rhe appropriateness ognition as a Dutch control sample. Tn shorr, rhe of expressing certain emotions in certain sirua japanese participants d id nor show an other-race tions. Overall, Asians are less prone to express nega effect, which may be explained by these baseline dif tive emotions such as contempt and fear (Chung, fere nces in hol istic processing berween populations. 20 12; Safdar er al., 2009). A well-known experi 'Ihe next question concerns the time during per ment showed that Japanese participants were prone ceprual processing when race influences face per to mask negative emotions by smiling, whereas cepiion. Walker and Tanaka (2003) found this race Americans did not (Friesen, 1972). Evidence for effect already ar early srages of perceptual encoding this emotion suppression was found when As ian byu sing a sequential matching task with natural and and American participants were asked to suppress morphed East Asian and Caucasian faces. However, their emotion in response to images while ERPs 1he N 170 ER.P has given rise to larger amplitudes were recorded. In Asian participants, bur not in fo r other rhan same race faces (Caharel er al., 2011; Americans, a significant decrease in the late posi Gajewski et al., 2008; Herrmann er al., 2007; Stahl tive potential (LPP), a measure of emotional pro et al., 2008; Walker, Silverr, Hewsrone, & Nobre, cessing, was found (Murata, Moser, & Kitayama, 2008). This was not seen in the earlier PI 00 ERP 20 13). Possibly because of rhese traditions, people (Caharel et al., 20 I I; Herrmann er al., 2007; Stahl in some East Asian countries tend to be more emo e1 al. , 2008). Thus, a race effect seems to manifest tionally introverted (Bond, 1993; Matsumoto, Yoo, itsel f at a later stage, relared to rhe structural encod Hirayama, & Perrova, 2005). ing stage of the face and larer, ar approximately Because of these cultural differences in display 250-300 ms (Caldara, Rossion, Bover, & Hauen, rules, it can be hypothesized that Asians are more 2004; Caldara et al., 2003; Tanaka & Pierce, 2009). experienced than Westerners in estimating emo In conclusion, the picrure of rhe orher-race effect is tional states from looking ar the eyes because it is Slill nor very solid and rhe explanation is not clear, well-known rhat muscles around the eyes (orbicu as one can also discern from recent meta-analysis laris oculi) are d ifficult to control (Ekman & Friesen, reports (Michel, Rossion, et al., 2006; You ng, 2003). An interesting day-ro-day res ult of this focus Hugenberg, Bernstein, & Sacco, 20 12). on the eyes can be seen in emoticons used in dif ferent areas of the world (Pollack, 1996). Whereas Race and Facial Expressions Westerners keep the eyes constant (rwo simple dots) Facial expressions play a major role in com but change the mouth ro signify different emotions, munication, bur this role may be modulated by Japanese keep the mouth as a straight line while culture or race. The debate on universal facial changing the eye symbols for each emotion. To rest expressions of basic emotions has been occurring this cultural bias on rhe eye versus the mouth, Yuki, DE GELDER, H UtS IN 'T VELD 225 Maddux, and Masuda (2007) used borh emoticons softv,rare for smarrphones, security cameras, or and real faces and manipulated independently rhe games. In conclusion, it seems that a Faci al Action eyes and mouths. They fo und rhar Japanese partici Coding System (FACS; Ekman & Friesen, 1978). pants rated the emotion by focusing mainly on the which maps all the muscles used fo r facial expres· eyes, whereas American participants used the mouth sions, would need ro be different fo r each culture. as a prominent cue (also see Blais, Jack, Scheepers, Probably because of these differences in the Fiset, & Caldara, 2008). These findings are sup expression ofemot ion, there are subtle diffe rences in ported by a study that examined the eye move how people from different countries interp ret facial ments of Eas tern and Western participants during expressions of emotions (Eifenbein & Ambady. rhe decod ing of facial expressions. It was fo und 2002). There seems to be an in-group advamagc that Eastern people, in contrast ro Westerners, fix especially for the recognition of culturally "natural· are on the eye region instead of looking ar mulriplc emotions and a majority advanrage for standard regions of rhe face. In addition, these different scan ized (FACS) expressions (Beaupre & Hess, 2005: patterns are likely to be an underlying cause of rec Elfenbein eta!. , 2007; for review, see Kang & Lau, ogni tion deficits in certai n emotions Uack, Blais, 2013). In a functional magnetic resonance imag Scheepers, Schyns, & Caldara, 2009). In contrast, ing (fMRl) experimenr, Chiao et al. (2008) showed Asia ns and Caucasians were found ro use largely Japanese and American parricipanrs emotional faces the sa me cortical networks while trying co decode of their in- and our-groups, and ir was fo und that emotion from the eyes of both their in-group and che amygdala responded more strongly ro fearful their our-group, although these networks we re more expressions of che in-group. However, there may active in response w eyes belonging tO rh e same race also be differences in che way rh e Japanese brain and (Adams, Rule, et al. , 2010). che Caucasian brain process emoti on ro begin with; Also on a more physical level, emotions are nor it was found that the Japanese rely more on the pre· always expressed similarly or to the same degree motor corcex and the insul a, whereas Caucasians between difFerent culrures (Eife nbein, 20 13). For recruited the posterior cingulate, che su pplemen· example, when parti cipants fro m Quebec and rary motor area, and che amygdala (M origuchi Gabon were asked to freely express emotions, it was et al., 2005). fou nd rh ar the groups used different acti on units fo r A meta-analysis by Elfenbein and Ambady different emotional expressions (Elfenbei n, Beaupre, (2002; see also Elfenbein & Ambady, 2003) clearly Levesque, & Hess, 2007). In other words, people showed char the in-group advantage was reduced from different cultures use different facial muscles to when more intercultural concacc was establ ished. express emotion. Ir may therefore not come as a sur An fMRI study found that culture and duration of prise rhar what people expect to see in an emotional stay influenced amygdala activation and its relation· expression differs as wel l. -This cultural variety was ship to the recognition of anger and disgust (Dernd demonscrared by add ing random noise ro a standard et al., 2009). Srudies ofcult ural factors need to more face or by using a random action unit generator to systematically compare results obtained with groups create ra ndom expressio ns, after which participants before and after they have had extensive exposure to were asked to judge the emotion seen in the random the other cul ture. In any case, living in a multicul· noise. ' ll1ese res ponses we re then used ro create aver rural environment or not must be a relevan t f.1ctor. age expected emotional expressions, whi ch differed -Therefore, in our experiment, we rested Chinese stu· in each cu lture Uack, Caldara, & Schyns, 20 12; dents who had recenrl y arrived in The Netherlands Jack, Garrod, Yu , Caldara, & Schyns, 20 12). Also, (no more rhan 2 weeks) so thar their contact with there is evidence supporting the notion that rhe left Wesrern people was at a minimum. The prcviouslv side of the face may be more strongly infiuenced by mentioned study on Chinese versus Durch idcmi ry culture than the right side and that there are cultural recognition also contained a memory experimen1. di fferences in these hemifacial biases (Eifenbe in, Dutch and Chinese parricipanrs were asked to Mandai, Ambady, Harizuka, & Kumar, 2004; memorize a se r of Caucasian faces . In one experi Mandai, Harizuka, Bhushan, & Mishra, 2001) . ment, rhe faces wore neurral ex pressions. l l1c Dmch These effects are important to rake into consider participants performed signifi ca ntly bener than the ation nor onl y fo r researchers who are interes ted in Chinese. However, che difference between the two faci al responses, emotional contagion, or imitation groups disappeared when the faces to remember but also because they may be of importance fo r new were showing a fearfu l, sad, or happy ex pression. emerging techniques such as fac ial interpretation ll1is suggests that neutral faces of strangers :1re more CU LTURAL DIFFERENCES IN EMOTIONAL EX PR ESS I ONS AND BODY LANGUAGE 226 I difficult to remember. lt also indicates that memory direct gaze of our-group members is experienced as fo r faces of people from another race is at least to more inrense chan the gaze of in-group members so me extend culturally specific, but it may also be in an Asian versus Caucasian compa ri son (Kramer dependent on emotion and probably the inrerplay et al. , 20 13). This may be explained by greater between race and gender (Krumhuber & Manstead, amygdala responses co the d irect gaze of our-group 2011). However, the pattern was differenr when we members (Adams, FrankJin, et al., 20 I 0; Richeson, used a task that required matching an expression Todd, Trawalter, & Baird, 2008). ro the correct similar one rather than a memory rest. Overall, the Dutch parricipanrs were rather Culture and Affective Cue Selection f.1Ster than Chinese participants in matching the To date, cross-cultural studies of emotion have Caucasian facial expression. However, this was also typically used facial expressions not accompanied dependent on the emotion; Chinese students were by information from the voice as ex pected in rhe slower than the Dutch on all emotions except happy. natural environment (de Gelder & Bertelson, Fear and surprise were recognized less accurately in 2003; de Gelder, Boeker, Tuomainen, rhe two groups than the other emotions. Taking Hensen, & Vroomen, 1999; de Gelder & Vroomen, rhese and previous results into consideration, happy 2000; Massaro & Egan, I 996). However, there seems to be the facial emotion most easily recog are indications of cross-cultural differences in the nized across cultures. way information from the face and information fro m the voice are combined. Cultural differences Culture and Gaze were reported nor only in unisensory stimuli bur Humans use information on the direction of also in the susceptibility ro ignore information in gaze of others to rapidly orienr themselves ro the visual (Masuda er a!., 2008) and auditory (Ishii, location where the gaze is directed- a process that is Reyes, & Kirayama, 2003) modalities. ll1e very useful to detect relevanr events in the en vi ronmenr. process of integrating emotional cues from differ However, this automatic orienting behavior seems ent modalities may also be culture sensitive. We ro be influenced by the in-group versus out-group investigated cultural differences in the multisensory status of rhe observed face. For example, an Italian perception of emotion between Japanese and Dutch srudy showed that black parricipants shifted atten participants. In line with ch e view that the Japanese rion similarly to the averred gaze of black and white are sensitive to conrexrual information (Masuda faces, whereas white participants selectively shifted et al., 2008) and to vocal affect (Ishii et al., 2003), attention only in response to individuals of their we expected chat they would weigh cues in the voice same group (Pavan, Dalmaso, Galfano, & Castelli, more than the Dutch when presented with audio 20 II). AJlother study showed that the own-race visual stimuli. We used short fragments vo iced by effect for the memory of faces is also dependent two Japanese and two Dutch female speakers in on eye gaze, where same-race faces were recog their native language. Each fragment with neutral nized better only when the gaze was d irect (Adams, linguistic meaning was uttered with happy or angry Pauker, & Weisbuch, 20 I 0). It is interesting to note emotion, and the fragments were combined with how some effects chat were previously deemed to happy and angry facial expressions. Our res ults be automatic attenrion effects are now found to demonstrated that when the face and the vo ice be under the concrol of social factors (Shepherd, did nor represent rhe same emotion, rhe Japanese 20 10). Cerrainly, more research is needed to unravel participants weighted cues in the voices more chan rhe various components of these complex behaviors, did the Dutch participants. These findings provide and it might also shed light on che question of cui the firsr evidence char culture modulates multisen rural or racial influences on the perception of bodily sory integration of affective information (Tanaka expressions. Comparable to gaze direction, body et al., 20 I O). The results arc consistent with rhose language provides directional informacion, and of a study reporting char the Japanese are more sus a disruption of these processes as a res ult of racial ceptible w affective prosody and less susceptible ro interactions can be indicative of the effect of race on linguistic content compared to Americans (Ishii body language. et al., 2003). Our results are also consistent with Regarding the perception of emotion and gaze, a lesser degree of audiovisual speech integration in it was found char East As ians experience a face as the Japanese (Sekiyama & ' lo hkura, 1991). These angrier when the eye contact is direct {Akechi et al., results can be interpreted as showing rh ar in mul 2013). Furthermore, another study found that the tisensory situations, che Japanese people rely more DE GELDER, HUIS IN ' T VELD I 227 on a vocal affect than a facia] expression because although cultural diversity exists, it seems that there d irect or excessive eye contact can be considered is at least some universality with regard to recogniz· rude in their culture (Malpass & Kravitz, 1969) or ing emotional expressions in the body. For example, because they rend ro use a less efficient srraregy to Americans and Indians were asked to categorize judge the facial expression Qack er al., 2009). lr emotional dance expressions as described in ancient also may be related ro the fact that Japanese people Indian texts, and both groups were able to do this control the display of their own feelings in rhe face accurately (Hejmadi, Davidson, & Rozin, 2000). (Ekman, 1972; Matsumoto, Takeuchi, Andayani, Similarly, in-group and our-group effects, as dis· Kouznersova, & Krupp, 1998). This may lead to a cussed with facia l expressions, may be similar with lower reliance on rhe face and higher reliance on the regard to bodily expressions: Caucasians are faster tO voice when judging a person's emotion. recognize angry body language when a black face is combined with an angry body than when a Caucasian Cultural Differences in the Recognition face is combined with the exact same angry body of Bodily Expressions (Hinzman & Kelly, 2013). In contrast, African and Although there is no doubt rhar the face, or American children judged rhe expression of emo voice, can indicate much about a person's feelings or tional faces, faces and bodies, and bodies alone, and intentions, body language is another very important no cultural differences were found in the body-o nly indicator. Bodily expressions of emotion have only condition (Tuminello & Davidson, 201 1). recently become a domain of interest, and knowl Additionally, in a recent behavioural study, we edge in this area is increasing rapidly (for reviews, found that white Western European participants see de Gelder, 2006; de Gelder, Snyder, Greve, perceived black bodies of ambiguous emotion as Gerard, & Hadjikhani, 2004; de Gelder er al., angrier than ambiguous white bodies when in a 20 l 0), although cultural differences in perceiv neutral context (i.e., paired with neutral sounds); ing bodily expressions have nor yet received much however, when rhe bodies were paired with affective arrention. We previously stared rhar facial expres sounds there was no difference in emotion carego· sions can be culturally d iverse, and there is evidence rization, suggesting that specific multisensory con· that the same might be true for bodily expressions. rexrs may be able ro reduce or eliminate race-specific In 1988, Scherer er al. found that rhe Japanese do biases in emotion perception. We also investigated nor use as many movements of the hands, arms, and rhe cerebral correlates of "other race" body emotion body in certain emotional situations. Furthermore, perception, scanning white European participants the Japanese and Americans have some unique and using fMRI. Here, we dearly saw regions which differing features rhar enable them to recognize activated more to other race, vs. own race bod· emotion from body posture, whereas other fea ies, including the bilateral interparietal lobule and tures may be universal. For example, a bent head fusiform gyrus. and arms hanging next to rhe body are essential for In our lab, we tested the same group of Chinese Japanese participants to recognize sadness, but Sri subjects with instrumental and emotional bodily Lankans and Americans accept other poses for sad expressions, and the procedure was rhe same as that ness as well. Also, poses that are viewed as fearful by used for faces. Here also, no differences were found Japanese people are perceived as angry by Sri Lankans between groups or stimulus categories. In contrast (Kleinsmith, De Silva, & Bianchi-Berrhouze, 2006; with the facial expression results, where happy is the Sogon & Masutani, 1989). The study by Kleinsmith best recognized expression, sad seems to be the most et al. (2006) also supporrs the theory that some cul prominently recognized body emotion for both tures may be less expressive: When American and groups. In a follow-up experiment using images of Japanese parricipams are asked to rare how intensive day-to-day scenes with and without other people rhe emotion is rhar a person must be feeling based present, we investigated the role of the context in on bodily expression, the ratings of the Japanese are which bodily expressions are encountered. When higher than those of Americans. The same was pre judging rhe emotion of bodily expressions shown in viously found for Chinese participants: The Chinese nonsocial contexts, we found that the Chinese were rare facial expression of negative emotions of other general ly slower in judging the emotion of the tar· Chinese as more intense than those of Caucasians get body than the Dutch. However, because we had (Zhu, Ho, & Bonanno, 2013). This implies rhar a also found this for the previous match-to-sample Japanese observer infers that someone might be feel tasks in general, we cannot say conclusively that ir is ing more than she is expressing. On the other hand, because of the context. Both groups were distracted 228 CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN EMOTIONAL EXPRESSIONS AND BODY LANGUAGE by a fearful context when the body is neutral, lead Currently, however, these are rather broad and ing to more time taken tO respond. vague categorizations. In addition, bodily expressions in social contexts To add to the existing literature, a bodily expres dm show other people engaging in activity with sion recognition experiment was performed in either the same or a contrasting emotional signifi Japan and The Netherlands. Participants performed cance are more difficult to recognize by either group a sample-to-march task with angry, fearful, happy, when the bodily expression is incongruent with and neutral expressions of Japanese and Dutch the scene. All participants were influenced by an bodily expressions. Caucasian expressions were rec incongruent (happy or neutral) social scene show ognized more accurately than Japanese stimuli by ing fearful target bodies and also by a fearful social both Dutch and Japanese participants. lmerescingly, scene showing happy target bodies (as shown by the Japanese participants were better at recognizing accuracy data). However, the Chinese did perform fearful Japanese expressions than were the Dutch becter than the Dutch students in general, which participants. However, it is important to note was not the case when the bodies were presented in that Japanese angry and fearful bodily expressions a nonsocial context or without conrexr. An explana yielded lower accuracy scores than those ofJapanese tion for this could be that the Chinese are in fact happy and neutral expressions from both nation more influenced by the social scene, bur in a differ alities. This has previously been found for Japanese em way: Because there are other people present in facial expressions (Malpass & Kravitz, 1969). h can the scenes, they might feel some pressure to perform be argued that these stimuli may be less expressive becter. We know that such unrealistic social cues can than the Caucasian expressions because it is cultur indeed have an influence on behavior (e.g., Bateson, ally less accepted to express negative emotions in Nettle, & Roberts, 2006), and because the Chinese Japan. Further analyses on behavioral ratings of the students were raised in a collectivistic society, this stimuli should be taken into account. could have a greater effect on them. One possible explanation of why the incongruent social scenes Cultural Differences in Social Interactions do nor distract could be the short stimulus duration Much research has focused on the one-sided of I 00 ms. A previous study showed that Japanese action of perceiving rhe face, or body, of another participants who had to judge a target body within human. How does race influence the process a social scene looked more at the other people in of daily interaction? Participants of four differ the scene-but only after I s (Masuda et al., 2008). em nationalities (Irish, Guatemalan, Peruvian, This finding, however, could nor be amibured tO and Serbian) were asked ro rate the intensity of any ambiguity in the scenes: Both groups recog social interactions between rwo English people. nized the emotion expressed by the people in the In this situation, an in-group effect was found; scene equally well, and neither had any trouble rec Irish panicipants cared the emotions as more ognizing happy scenes. intense than did people from other nationalities In addition, Chinese panicipants seemed to be (Sneddon, McKeown, McRorie, & Vukicevic, more specialized for faces compared to Dutch par 2011 ). Recalling the discussion of display rules, it ticipants; they were more accurate in recognizing has been found that Asians react less angrily than both Chinese and Caucasian idenrities, and they Americans in an anger-provoking situation with did this faster than idenrifying shoes or bodies. an experimenter (Mauss, Buder, RobertS, & Chu, With regard to Caucasian emotions, Chinese par 201 0), but they experience greater physiologi ticipants needed more rime than their Dutch coun cal responses in confrontational or intercultural terparts independenr of whether these emotions social interactions (Buder, Lee, & Gross, 2009; were expressed in the face or the body. They also Mauss & Buder, 2010). needed more time to recognize (emotional) bod Another important aspect of social in terac ies in a nonsocial context- but not when bodies tion is the ability to understand other people not were perceived in a social context, in which case only by reading facial and bodily expressions but the Chinese were faster than the Dutch. Thus, also by reading their gestures. Molnar-Szakacs, although an incongruent scene similarly influenced Wu, Robles, and Iacoboni (2007) measured cor both groups, a social scene did have more effect on ticospinal excitability- a measure of motor reso the Chinese participants. One might speculate that nance or, in other words, the responsiveness of this is related to the fact that traditional Chinese the motor cortex- in response to actors of the in society is less individualistic than Western society. and out-group playing out both culturally known DE GELDER, HUIS IN 'T VELD and u nknown gestures. Inrerestingly, motor reso suppress rheir emotions, especially negative ones, nance was increased only in response ro in-group in social interactions. This again is something members, independent of the gestures. However, thar should be raken into account in imporram another study indicated that in females, the oppo interracial interactions. For example, to rake a site pattern can occur (Desy & lneoret, 2007). In therapist-client perspective, rhc role of depressio n line with these results, observing both the fam iliar on emotional expression is vastly different for peo and the unfamiliar gestures of in-group members ple from d ifferenr culwres (Chenrsova-Durron, also faci litates the mirror neuron networks and Tsai, & Gotlib, 20 10; Su, Lee, & Oishi, 20 13). rhc insula (Liew, Han, & Aziz-Zadeh, 20 I I). In On a more positive note, it has been suggesred addition, conical nerworks involved in imitation, that dcrrimcnral effects of emotion suppression including rhe motor areas (Losin, lacoboni, Marrin, arc also dependent on culture, where rhe negati ve Cross, & Daprerro, 20 12), respond differently ro effects are less for people with Asian values who gestures performed by people of another race. are more likely ro suppress their emotion (B utler, Lee, & Gross, 2007). Conclusion More diverse studies with different popula Social interactions arc a large parr of dail y tions are necessary. For example, fM RI studies are human life, and in rhcsc interactions we use infor predominantly done on Caucasian populations. mation from facial expressions, body posture, and even though people from other races may have rone of voice. Race and culrure are increasi ngly a slightly different brain structure (Bai er al.. important aspects in th is regard, and they inAu 20 12; lsamah et al., 20 I 0). Some studies have ence these processes that are at the heart of suc examined the previously reviewed race effects in cessful communication. In the literature reviewed , cl inical populations, such as those wirh autism we found thar navigating in an environment with (Hirschfeld , Bartmess, White, & Frith, 2007) or many people of other nationalities might inAuence schizophrenia (Pinkham et al., 2008), finding rhat one's ability ro remember their faces, interpret their these syndromes do nor inrcracr wirh racial biases. emotions and gestures, or even misunderstand their However, it was found rhar children wirh W ill iams gaze. TI1ere are many situations in daily life in which syndrome do nor have racial stereotypes (Sa ntos. this can have detrimental effects. For example, in Meyer-Lindcnberg, & Dcruclle, 2010) and thar docror-patienr relationships, it has bee n found emotion perception may be differentially affected in that race may interrupt effective doctor-patient different populations with schizophrenia (B rek ke. communication or impede the rrust that patients Nakagami, Kee, & Green, 2005; Leppanen have in their doctor due w m isinterpretations of er al., 2006). nonverbal behavior (Levine & Ambady, 20 13). Furthermore, people were willing ro listen more References ofren to a compmcr avarar giving rhcm advice when Adams. R. 13 .. Franklin, R. G .. Rule, N . 0 ., Freeman, J. ll .. rhc avarar was a member of rhcir in-group (Pratt, Kvcraga, K., l ladjikhani, N., ct al. (20 10). C ulture, gaze and Hauser, Ugray, & Patterson, 2007), which can the neural processing of fear expressions. Social Cognitiur and severely impact adherence to medication or rrcar Aff~rtive Nrurosdma, 5, 340-348. doi: I 0. 1093/scan /nsp04; Adams, R. 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