Emotional expression and physiology in European Americans and Hmong Americans.
Ethnographic and clinical observations suggest that Asians are less expressive than European Americans. To examine whether this difference emerged in online emotional responding, 50 Hmong Americans (HAs) and 48 European Americans (EAs) were asked to relive past episodes of intense happiness, pride, love, anger, disgust, and sadness. Facial behavior and physiological reactivity were measured. For most emotions, more cultural similarities than differences were found. There were some exceptions: During happiness, fewer HAs than EAs showed non-Duchenne smiles (i.e., "social" smiles), despite similarities in reported emotional experience and physiological reactivity. Within-group differences between "less Hmong" and "more Hmong" HAs were also found. Implications of these findings for our understanding of culture-emotion relations are discussed.
Tsai
Jeanne L
JL
Department of Psychology, Stanford University, California 94305-2130, USA. jtsai@psych.stanford.edu
Chentsova-Dutton
Yulia
Y
Freire-Bebeau
Liliana
L
Przymus
Diane E
DE
D000069:Acculturation; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001143:Arousal; D001213:Asian / Q000523:psychology*; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D004644:Emotions; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D005712:Galvanic Skin Response; D006801:Humans; D007812:Laos / Q000208:ethnology; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D010555:Personality Inventory; D012904:Smiling; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology; D014481:United States; D044465:White People / Q000523:psychology*