What does the following sign mean to you?

In most of Europe and in the USA, the previous sign

symbolises the word ok. owever, in other !ultures it means something different. "or e#ample, in $apan it !an mean money. In !ountries su!h as %ermany, it is used offensively &in the same way ' fingers are in the U(). In *ra+il the sign has a se#ual meaning.

Cross-Cultural Differences in Non Verbal Communication

In the same way that different !ultures may interpret hand

gestures differently, they may also interpret fa!ial e#pressions differently. ,ot all psy!hologists agree with this. Some argue that fa!ial e#pressions are universal. *y this, they mean fa!ial e#pressions are per!eived in the same way by everybody around the world.

Testing Universalities
-ook at the following fa!es.

.an you de!ide what kind of emotion ea!h one is e#pressing/

Universialities in NVC
0ou should find that you interpreted the emotions similarly to

other people. Indeed, resear!h suggests that you would interpret them similarly to people from other !ultures too. owever, there may be more differen!es when you have to de!ide on the degree of emotion.

Testing Universalities
-ook at the following fa!es.

.an you de!ide who is the angriest/

Differences in NVC
0ou may have 1ust found some differen!es between how you

interpreted the previous fa!es and how others did. 2ifferen!es in interpretation !an be even more marked between !ultures. In other words, different !ultures may be so!ialised to interpret fa!es differently.

Differences in Emotional E !ression

34)
5any people use the above symbols when signing of te#ts or

e4mails be!ause they represent a happy fa!e. Interestingly, this symbol is not used worldwide6.

"or e#ample, in $apan, the following symbols are used to

denote a happy fa!e6

&747)
8he point being, that in $apanese !ulture eyes are more

important when e#pressing &and interpreting) emotions.

Core "tudy #n Non Verbal Communication

Yuki, Maddux & Masuda (2007) 9Are the windows to the soul the same in the East and :est/ .ultural differen!es in using eyes and mouth as !ues to re!ogni+e emotions in $apan and the United States.;

$im
0uki et al wanted to show that how we interpret fa!ial e#pressions is a produ!t of our !ulture and so!ialisation.

%y!othesis
8hey predi!ted that $apanese people would read the emotions of fa!es by using the eyes whereas Ameri!an people would read the emotions of fa!es by using the mouth.

&ethod
A !ross !ultural study was !ondu!ted using students from $apan and !omparing them with students from the USA.

&ethod
h#$ happy %s the &a'e(

)*+*N

!S*

8he parti!ipants were shown a set of si# emoti!ons. 9 8 Emoti!ons are simple !omputer generated fa!es. 7 6 5 8he emoti!ons used a different !ombination of 4
3 happy<neutral<sad eyes and mouths. 2 1 0

^^
EYES happy MO!T" neutral neutral sa

^^
happy sa neutral happy sa neutral sa happy

EMOTICONS

&ethod
=arti!ipants were given a

>uestionnaire. 8hey had to rate ea!h of the si# fa!es &between ? and @) for how happy it was. 8he resear!hers then worked out the average rating for ea!h fa!e within ea!h !ulture.

9 1

'esults
)apan 9 a,era-e rat%n0
h#$ happy %s the &a'e( 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

)*+*N

!S*

!S*

^^
EYES happy MO!T" neutral neutral sa

^^
happy sa neutral happy sa neutral sa happy

EMOTICONS

'esults
As the graph showed, $apanese parti!ipants gave higher ratings to fa!es

with happy eyes than Ameri!an parti!ipants did. 8his was espe!ially true when the mouth was sad. Ameri!an parti!ipants gave their highest ratings when the mouths were happy &even when the eyes were sad). 8his was not true of $apanese parti!ipants. $apanese parti!ipants gave their lowest ratings when eyes were sad &and the mouth neutral) whereas Ameri!an parti!ipants gave their lowest ratings when mouths were sad &even though eyes were neutral or even happy).

Conclusion
$apanese and Ameri!an people do interpret fa!ial e#pressions

differently. $apanese people pay more attention to the eyes and Ameri!an people pay more attention to the mouth. 0uki et al suggested that this was a result of so!ialisation. 8hey argued that $apanese people are brought up to hide their emotions more so have to use the eyes as an indi!ator of feelings.

Evaluation
0uki et al used !omputer generated fa!es to test parti!ipants6

these are not realisti! so findings may la!k e!ologi!al validity. =arti!ipants knew they were being tested on6 so may have responded to demand !hara!teristi!s and not given true responses. Emotional e#pression and interpretation are !omple# ideas6 and the resear!hers may have over4simplified them by 1ust s!oring them on a simple rating s!ale. In both !ountries, the sample was made up of students6 who may not have represented younger and older generations. 8he resear!hers only tested one dimension of emotion &happy<sad)6 so their findings may not generalise to other emotions e.g. anger, surprise, disgust.