The Contribution of Individualism vs. Collectivism to Cross‐national Differences in Display Rules

Abstract

Despite the fact that display rules are an important concept of theories of emotion and contemporary psychology, relatively little cross-cultural research has been done on them. This study examined cross-national differences in display rules of emotion, and investigated the degree to which those differences could be attributed to Individualism and Collectivism (IC) measured on the individual level. Participants in the US, Japan, South Korea, and Russia completed a comprehensive measure of display rules assessing behavioral tendencies for seven universal emotions in four social contexts in two rating domains. They also completed Matsumoto et al.'s (1997) Individualism-Collectivism Interpersonal Assessment Inventory. The results confirmed the existence of cross-national differences in IC and display rules, and indicated that IC and display rules were correlated. Significant differences between the countries remained even after IC was controlled for, and effect size analyses comparing cross-national differences when IC was controlled and not indicated that IC accounted for approximately 30% of the effect sizes related to cross-national differences. This study is unique in that it not only used the concept of IC to explain and predict differences; it also quantitatively assessed the degree to which IC contributed to those differences. These findings are discussed in terms of the utility of the IC concept to understanding cross-cultural and cross-national differences in emotion.

Evidence and a computational explanation of cultural differences in facial expression recognition.

“…The model thus suggests that the Japanese participants have had less prior exposure to angry faces than their American counterparts. This would be consistent with the concept of display rules discouraging the expression of negative emotions in Japanese culture (see, e.g., Matsumoto et al, 1998). Looking more closely at the behavioral data, we see that Japanese participants were less accurate than U.S. participants on anger overall, but they were more accurate than U.S. participants on the JAFFE anger stimuli.…”

“…Several studies have found these dimensions diagnostic for explaining differences between broad cultural groups and individuals (Gudykunst & TingToomey, 1988;Matsumoto, 1990;Matsumoto et al, 2002;Matsumoto, Kudoh, & Takeuchi, 1996;Matsumoto, Takeuchi, Andayani, Kouznetsova, & Krupp, 1998;Tanako & Osaka, 1999).…”

Diversity from within: The Impact of Cultural Variables on Emotion Expressivity in Singapore

“…Our hypothesis (2) was partially supported as individuals reporting more collectivism revealed less negative emotion, however no relationship to positive emotion was found. This highlights the cultural display rule that while positive emotion is viewed as a constructive emotion regardless of culture; within collective in-groups negative emotions like disgust are considered destructive and should be suppressed (Markus & Kitayama, 1991;Matsumoto, Takeuchi, Andayani, Kouznetsova, & Krupp, 1998). This norm appeared to affect negative expressivity overall as collectivism predicted fewer disgust expressions, even when controlling for suppression condition.…”

Facial expressions of emotion are not culturally universal

“…For example, cultural differences in the communication of emotional intensity could reflect the operation of culture-specific display rules (25) on the transmission (and subsequent experience) of facial expressions in each cultural context. For example, East Asian models of fear, disgust, and anger show characteristic early signs of emotional intensity with the eyes, which are under less voluntary control than the mouth (26), reflecting restrained facial behaviors as predicted by the literature (27). Similarly, culture-specific dialects (28) or accents (29) would diversify basic facial expression signals across cultures, giving rise to cultural hallmarks of facial behavior.…”