Cultural Models of Emotions

339 Pages·2021·2.57 MB·English

by  Victor Karandashev

Victor Karandashev
Cultural
Models
of Emotions
Cultural Models of Emotions
Victor Karandashev
Cultural Models of Emotions
Victor Karandashev
Department of Psychology and Counselor Education
Aquinas College
E. Grand Rapids, MI, USA
ISBN 978-3-030-58437-5 ISBN 978-3-030-58438-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58438-2
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Dedicated to the memory of my parents and
parents-in-law –
gone, but never forgotten
Acknowledgment
I appreciate the numerous and extensive studies that a number of scholars from vari-
ous disciplines have conducted in cross-cultural research of emotions. Abundance
of references and citations in the book recognizes their important contributions.
I also acknowledge the outstanding contributions in cross-cultural emotion
research – pertinent to development of cultural models of emotions – of such schol-
ars as Paul Ekman, James Russell, David Matsumoto, Shinobu Kitayama, Hazel
Markus, Nico Frijda, Batja Mesquita, Klaus Scherer, Jeanne Tsai, William
Gudykunst, Anna Wierzbicka, Zoltán Kövecses, and their multiple collaborators.
In addition, I express my great appreciation to the editorial team at Springer that
has been very supportive to my book proposal and patient regarding my perfection-
ism in preparation of the manuscript. They knew that “Everything takes longer than
we think it will.”
I appreciate the grant of Faculty Development Committee of Aquinas College that
helped me to successfully prepare this book for publication.
vii
Introduction
Throughout several decades, especially from the1990s to 2010s, cross-cultural
research of emotions has become a popular topic of scholarship in several disci-
plines, such as anthropology, sociology, psychology, and communication studies.
Empirical research has been prolific and developed its robust disciplinary traditions
and methods. Summaries of the findings in those fields were published in review
articles and books on specific areas of emotion research demonstrating variations of
emotions in many cultural contexts. Scholars of anthropology, sociology, and com-
munication studies have been especially productive in these endeavors. Psychologists
have joined this area of research later and embraced the topic with great interest,
energy, and productivity.
Although some scholars in those disciplines may think that they are self- sufficient
in their theoretical frameworks and methodologies, I believe that the construction
and exploration of cultural models of emotion need interdisciplinary approach to
describe the models comprehensively. Methodologies, which have been developed
in cultural and cognitive anthropology, social and cultural psychology, sociology,
and communication studies, enrich all disciplines involved in emotion research.
Throughout decades, researchers have identified many similarities across cul-
tures, yet they have discovered the major differences between Western and Eastern
patterns of experience and expression of emotions. The cultural differences in the
societies within Western and Eastern cultural regions have been also recognized in
multiple studies. The diversity and complexity of emotional life have taken into
account their cultural aspects. Cultural differences in experience of positive and
negative emotions, their intensity, and verbal and non-verbal expression of emotions
have been found.
These differences were typically attributed to individualism-collectivism of those
societies. However, later researchers found that individualism and collectivism are
complex cultural dimensions with variations depending on the context of social life.
Scholars have revealed the role of other cultural dimensions as well.
Numerous empirical reports, articles, and chapters in edited volumes have cov-
ered the topic from multiple angles in different cultural contexts, mainly contrasting
ix
x Introduction
the broadly understood Western and Eastern cultural values and norms. The more
global and detailed picture, however, still remains piecemeal and patchy.
This book aims to integrate the findings from various disciplines in a comprehen-
sive interdisciplinary description of cultural models of emotions. The special focus
of the book is on how cultural parameters of societies affect emotional life of people
in different cultural contexts.
The book concisely and extensively reviews such parameters of culture as
individualism-c ollectivism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, gender roles
equality (cultural femininity) and gender roles inequality (cultural masculinity),
context differentiation, and their relations with various aspects of emotional life in
societies. The book, however, goes beyond these traditional parameters and presents
other cultural dimensions, which have been so far in the shadow of the mainstream
research: immediacy, cultural temporal patterns, relational mobility, various cul-
tural values, and others. Showing their role in emotional life of people, Chap. 2
encourages researchers to include these dimensions in their studies of people’s
experience and expression of emotions.
Chapters 1 and 2 expand the concept of culture, providing the reasons why eth-
nicity, nations, and global cultures are not the only cultures that deserve cross-
cultural investigation. Regions of countries, religious groups, the circles of people
with certain socio-economic status, and mixed cultures should also be considered as
cultural groups.
The content of the book is still structured around traditional dichotomy of West-
East cultural contrast because very many studies have been conducted in this com-
parative perspective. Nevertheless, many parts of the book show that within both
Western and Eastern cultural contexts, there is a great diversity of cultural experi-
ence and expression of emotions.
This book follows an integrative approach and intends to provide a general rep-
resentation of how cultural diversity of emotional experience and expressions builds
up a typology of cultural models of emotions. This comprehensive review should set
up the background and perspectives for future cross-cultural investigation of
emotions.
Key features of the book
– A comprehensive review of the classical and most recent theories and research
findings on emotions pertinent to construction of cultural models
– A comprehensive review of cultural models of emotions from interdisciplinary
perspective
– A comprehensive review of cultural models of emotions from international
perspective
The book can be of interest to scholars working in various disciplines – anthro-
pology, sociology, linguistics, social and cultural psychology, and communication
science. The primary audience is scholars interested in emotions. The accessible
language of the book makes it valuable for researchers, practitioners, as well as
undergraduate and graduate students. Professors in colleges and universities in
Introduction xi
many countries can teach the courses on emotions and can use materials from dif-
ferent chapters.
In general, the book consists of three groups of chapters, which are closely inter-
twined and inter-referenced.
Chapters 1 and 2 are like societal guides to cultural models. They are about con-
cepts of cultures and their societal dimensions. The materials of these chapters are
supposed to be on the top of the models’ constructions.
Then, Chap. 3 is a main designer center of cultural models of emotions, in some
respect. It is about theory and methodology of cultural models. It is about how to
construct and explore these models.
Chapters 4, 5, and 6 are like production factories of cultural models. They review
multiple studies and their findings about cultural patterns of emotional life, which
can be used as the building blocks for construction of models. The chapters also
propose several examples of the cultural models of emotions based on compilation
of findings from studies, which have already completed. The materials of these
chapters are supposed to be on the bottom of the models’ construction.
Chapter 1, “Diversity of Cultures,” presents a general introduction to the concept
of culture. It shows the diversity of types of cultures, going beyond traditional,
global, national, and ethnic understanding of culture. Regional, religious cultures
and the cultures of communities with different socioeconomic status and social
class also deserve their research attention. Mixed and multicultural cultures are the
new cultural realities that need to be explored.
Chapter 2, “Cultural Parameters and Their Influence on Emotions,” presents a
brief overview of cultural dimensions, which are worthwhile to study to better
understand cultural conceptualization of emotional life, experience, and expression
of emotions. Among those are collectivism and individualism – taking into account
its multifaceted nature, power distance, gender roles equality versus gender roles
inequality (cultural femininity-masculinity), immediacy, context differentiation,
temporal dimensions of cultures, reaction to ambiguity and uncertainty, survival
and self-expression values of societies, relational mobility, embeddedness versus
autonomy, hierarchy versus egalitarianism, and mastery versus harmony.
Chapter 3, “Theories, Examples of Cultural Models, and Methods To Explore
Those,” presents the conception of cultural models and provides examples. The
chapter also describes pan-cultural, cross-cultural, and cultural approaches to the
study of emotional constructs, along with typology and diversity of possible cultural
models of emotions. In this regard, Chap. 3 is in the core of the book: it is based on
Chaps. 1 and 2, which introduce cultural parameters of possible models, and evolves
into the following Chaps. 4, 5, and 6, which describe the cultural patterns of emo-
tional life.
Chapter 3 also briefly presents methodology of research on cultural models of
emotions, including such topics as conceptual and measurement equivalence, ade-
quacy, and bias in cultural research of emotions. These materials provide the con-
ceptual background, while the following parts bring the overview of descriptive,
comparative, and structural methodologies, with a summary of statistical methods
available for construction of cultural models of emotions.
xii Introduction
Chapter 4, “Emotional Processes in Cultural Contexts,” describes the structure
of emotional life and functions of emotions in cultural contexts, including the con-
cepts of emotional control and regulation, emotional differentiation, and complex-
ity. This chapter also reviews cultural models of emotions in the culture of self and
culture of relating.
Chapter 5, “Cultural Models of Emotional Experience,” describes the physiol-
ogy and body sensations, associated with subjective experience of emotions, and
factors affecting cultural appraisals of situations. The chapter presents multiple
studies which have explored the cross-cultural similarities and differences in the
norms and actual experience of emotions across cultures. It reviews the findings
about the ways how people experience the qualities, positive and negative valence,
and intensity of emotions. In this chapter, I have compiled several cultural models
of emotions. They are based on subjective locus of emotions, salience of specific
emotions in particular cultural contexts, valence, and intensity of emotional
experiences.
Chapter 6, “Cultural Models Based on Expression of Emotion,” presents the
studies which have explored the norms and the real behaviors of how people express
their emotions across cultures. Based on the findings obtained in those multiple
studies, I have compiled the description of expressive and non-expressive cultural
models, the models of direct and indirect expression of emotions. The chapter also
demonstrates the diversity of ways and channels in which people express their emo-
tions in different cultures, including the most visible – facial expression.
Conclusion summarizes the cultural models that are evident from the results of
multiple studies reviewed in the book. It also sets up the new methodological per-
spectives in exploration of cultural models of emotions in the future.