This week’s readings stems from the idea of innateness vs. culturally-learned aspects of the processes and functions of language. All four articles focus on the relationship between language, and its culture and emotional context. All of the research stem from Ekman’s study of the universality of recognition of facial expressions. We now know that automatic nervous system activity and vocal expression are cross-cultural and “the recognition, expression, and experience of certain emotions are general across cultures,” (Niiya, 1). The authors this week are emphasizing that while the propensity for emotions may be equal, the display rules and what is deemed appropriate/inappropriate is culturally-acquired. Thus, emphasis varies, but capacity doesn’t.
In Lanquist and Bartlett’s study, they bring up previous studies of the universality of focal colors and relate it to the universality of ‘primary’ emotions. However, more detailed recent studies indicate that language plays a large role in distinguishment between color spectrums. Furthermore, language has a huge role in visual-spatial representations and display rules.
Language involves memory, processing, retrieval and production. Landquist and Bartlett use Semantic Satation to determine how large of a role language has on emotional perception. By manipulating and encumbering the neural pathways with satiation, involved in
Words were satiated by repeating them aloud 30 times. The “control” was word priming, which involved repetition of the word 3 times. The studies showed that when the word had been satiated, it was more difficult to access the meaning of the word. The latency period that took place in recognizing the facial expressions in those who had been satiated indicated that the participants had to compensate for the difficulty in accessing the word significance by taking more time to answer correctly. However, when the facial categorizations in study 1 were irrelevant to the word, the people did not take more time. Since much of research is difficult because it involves emotional accounts and verbal production (which may alter the very process or aspects of the emotional life itself—much like the Heisenberg effect), the researchers decided to ask the people to categorize and recognize an emotion without verbal cues. Relevant categories were compromised when the word was satiated, supporting the LRH. In study 3, time became a factor. All three of their studies were consistent and tried to show that “making any emotion word less accessible interfered with the perceptual matching of faces depicting emotion,” and that “language can be satiated, and doing so interferes with the perception of emotion in others.” Language plays a large role in emotional perception, even when the task does not involve explicit language.
These researchers later bring back the discussion to evolution’s role in language overload and satiation.
I have several problems with this study, mainly that there was no actual control group. Plus, the data is not that strong and oftentimes, it seemed that they were just trying to support their hypothesis instead of having enough hard data. Future studies should get a larger, more randomized sample and should involve non-emotional words prior to the task of labeling emotions in faces.
These studies are particularly important because they all determine how much language can be manipulated based on context and how much of it is hardwired. Furthermore, they assess the degree of and relationship between universal versus cultural-specific aspects of emotional life. Much ground work in psychology of emotions has not been cross cultural, and lacks empirical data or sufficient technology/research. I think that while the studies we read were interesting, we do not have sophisticated-enough tools to measure IC and brain activity. A basic human need is the need to belong and to communicate or mask emotions. While much of communication is non-verbal, language is the only means that we can concretely explain ourselves. Recent studies measure and highlight the differences (and similarities) between independent and interdependent cultures, emphasizing what is important for each culture. Emotions are usually either emotionally-bonding or emotionally-distancing (Kemper). What is stressed by both writers is that much of cross-cultural emotional research is too categorical/dichotamizing, “Universality and cultural relativity are not mutually exclusive,” (Mastumoto, 17), cultural differences do not indicate non-universality. For example, while the conditions for Amae (such as degree of inappropriateness and control) differ, Matsumoto’s study shows that Amae can exist in cultures that do not have a word for it. Context and cultures undoubtedly play a large roll, but I think the similarties far outweigh the differences.
Again, in Ochsner’s article on gender differences (using the Symposium paradigm) show that though there are differences in expression and emphasis, there are “remarkable similarities between men and women in neural, experimental, behavioral and physiological correlates of emotion.”(86). It is shown that people tend to react in like with their gender stereotypes, perhaps as a result of expectations. So, how much of are actions are subconsciously to re-affirm already delineated gender/cultural stereotypes? This is evident in little kids when they seem to naturally and voluntarily partake in gender-specific activities.
What is important and highlighted in all of these studies is that what we see in other’s faces isn’t the only way we discern emotion. In fact, language and culture plays a much larger role.
What I find interesting is Niiyi’s point on the way bilingualists’ brains work. When bilingualists speak, they refer to two different frames of mind and look at their situation differently, based on which language they are thinking/expressing in. This gives them more understanding of intercultural differences. Furthermore, “Bilinguals have reported different personalities, judge emotions differently, appraise events and the environment around them differently, and attribute the causes of events differently depending on the language used when performing these tasks. Not only do multiple cultural frameworks exist in their minds, but bilinguals also have the added ability to monitor which cultural frameworks they should engage in depending on the social context,” (11). Americans are mostly monolingual, whereas the majority of the world is multi-lingual. Since most psychological research is done in American English, this presents a problem and an inaccuracy in language processing, highlighting the shortcomings of previous research.
All of the articles point out that brain science knows that there are specific brain areas involved in facial recognition and processing, but don’t know what becomes activated when certain emotions are judged. Plus, many physiological responses for emotions are similar. It is also difficult to single out an emotion, as many feelings are a mixture of two or more. As backed by Matsumoto, the goal in future studies is to develop more sophisticated machinery and to merge the discipline of psychology with that of medicine, sociology, neuroscience, and anthropology, as to gain a better understanding of emotional life.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Monday, February 12, 2007
Response for Feb. 14
Let us begin with the notion of evolution, change and adaptation, in mind. An individual with only 20 years under their belt has lived long enough to see this in action. Styles, lifestyles, clothing styles, conversational styles are constantly undergoing change. While some individuals seem to be adapting new ways seasonally others remain in the sixties. Individuals undergo these changes and adaptations in an effort to find a way to successfully live in their given society. We find routines that work for us both on an individual level as well as within the greater social context in which we live. As one of these components change (either us or the greater society) we are often challenged to find a new style that will function successfully for both. What does this have to do with the relationship of language and emotion, or the difference in emotional perception across cultures or even genders? As different cultures have evolved due to unique social and environmental challenges, so have the languages, lifestyles, and relationships.
Although approached in different ways, the issues discussed in this weeks readings share a common theme— the linguistic and cultural impact on the expression and perception of emotions. The issue of cultural impact on emotion and even communication in general is incredibly interesting and complex, however, I would like to focus on the relationship between language and emotion. The article, “Language and the Perception of Emotion” evoked a shocking amount of skepticism. In this article, a preliminary attempt to demonstrate a link between emotions and language was described (in repetitive detail). Although their work raises some interesting questions, their results were lacking due to their failure to address important issues.
Based on their interpretation of the results from three studies, the authors confidently provide what they considered to be a worthy demonstration of the impact of language on one’s ability to perceive emotion. In each study the subjects received one of two treatments, they either underwent “semantic satiation” or they were “primed”. By utilizing the technique referred to as “semantic satiation” the investigators were basically able to establish in individuals a temporary fog surrounding a specific word (and possibly the network of words closely associated with the given word). This was accomplished by having a subject repeat a specified word 30 times (in this case the word was associated with an emotion i.e. anger). The control group consisted of those who were “primed”. In order to be primed, one simply had to repeat the specified word three times. I am not sure I understand the purpose of saying the word three times, which presumably does not cause temporary habituation. Would it not be important to have a group that does not recite the word at all prior to the tasks that follow?
Following semantic satiation, the subjects were given different emotion assessment tasks. Some of the tasks required verbal responses and others did not. Those who had undergone semantic satiation seemed slightly less effective in identifying emotions regardless of whether a verbal response was required. (It would have been interesting to so see the responses to ambiguous/neutral faces.) According to the authors, “…our findings demonstrate that language influences people’s ability to perceive emotion, even when a perceptual task does not require the explicit use of language.” (134) Such a conclusion seems too far-reaching and inappropriate based on their data. Although there is an apparent correlation between semantic satiation and emotional perception, any conclusion beyond this (such as cause and effect) is not substantiated by their data.
How else might one interpret these results? The authors acknowledge that through semantic satiation the network of words one may associate with the given word may also become temporarily less accessible (or habituated?). The human body is thronged with complex networks communicating with each other on a multitude of levels. With this in mind one must consider the possibility that when one pathway is disrupted by temporarily inhibiting language (via semantic satiation) other relevant processes may also have been affected. Perhaps language was not the only thing satiated. Was anything else compromised in this process? Is there a way to measure other areas that may have been affected or controls that could be used to prevent the satiation of other devices we rely on to interpret and communicate emotion? It seems that there are a number of variables at play that have yet to be identified (or overlooked) by the researchers.
Another issue that warrants consideration is the nature of “semantic satiation”. The described results of this process may seem counterintuitive. It is interesting that by stressing a word an individual is less effective in assessing the presence of the corresponding condition, rather than hyper aware of the specific state. Isn’t repetition a valuable way of learning?
Ultimately this is an interesting study, but there is a major gap between the construct of what they are measuring and what they are trying to prove/what happens in real life. Although they may have demonstrated a correlation between language and emotional perception, they provide insufficient data to explain cause and effect. They do raise a number of interesting questions for future consideration. Do their findings have any real life applications at this time?
Further questions:
-Does this imply that we have become habituated to or unaware of highly common behaviors or emotions in our environments? (a more permanent satiation process)
-What if in addition to repeating a word they invoked specific emotional states, how would that have affected their interpretation of emotion? SATIATION CAUSES DISINTEREST, EMOTION GETS INTEREST
-The words that were satiated were among the basic emotion vocabulary. Although I disagree with the authors in terms of the meaningful relevance of these studies to the link between language and emotions, it would be interesting to semantically satiate a word that is associated with a specific emotion. For instance if someone was afraid of snakes and they repeated the word snake thirty times would you observe similar results to the individual that recited the word fear thirty times?
Although approached in different ways, the issues discussed in this weeks readings share a common theme— the linguistic and cultural impact on the expression and perception of emotions. The issue of cultural impact on emotion and even communication in general is incredibly interesting and complex, however, I would like to focus on the relationship between language and emotion. The article, “Language and the Perception of Emotion” evoked a shocking amount of skepticism. In this article, a preliminary attempt to demonstrate a link between emotions and language was described (in repetitive detail). Although their work raises some interesting questions, their results were lacking due to their failure to address important issues.
Based on their interpretation of the results from three studies, the authors confidently provide what they considered to be a worthy demonstration of the impact of language on one’s ability to perceive emotion. In each study the subjects received one of two treatments, they either underwent “semantic satiation” or they were “primed”. By utilizing the technique referred to as “semantic satiation” the investigators were basically able to establish in individuals a temporary fog surrounding a specific word (and possibly the network of words closely associated with the given word). This was accomplished by having a subject repeat a specified word 30 times (in this case the word was associated with an emotion i.e. anger). The control group consisted of those who were “primed”. In order to be primed, one simply had to repeat the specified word three times. I am not sure I understand the purpose of saying the word three times, which presumably does not cause temporary habituation. Would it not be important to have a group that does not recite the word at all prior to the tasks that follow?
Following semantic satiation, the subjects were given different emotion assessment tasks. Some of the tasks required verbal responses and others did not. Those who had undergone semantic satiation seemed slightly less effective in identifying emotions regardless of whether a verbal response was required. (It would have been interesting to so see the responses to ambiguous/neutral faces.) According to the authors, “…our findings demonstrate that language influences people’s ability to perceive emotion, even when a perceptual task does not require the explicit use of language.” (134) Such a conclusion seems too far-reaching and inappropriate based on their data. Although there is an apparent correlation between semantic satiation and emotional perception, any conclusion beyond this (such as cause and effect) is not substantiated by their data.
How else might one interpret these results? The authors acknowledge that through semantic satiation the network of words one may associate with the given word may also become temporarily less accessible (or habituated?). The human body is thronged with complex networks communicating with each other on a multitude of levels. With this in mind one must consider the possibility that when one pathway is disrupted by temporarily inhibiting language (via semantic satiation) other relevant processes may also have been affected. Perhaps language was not the only thing satiated. Was anything else compromised in this process? Is there a way to measure other areas that may have been affected or controls that could be used to prevent the satiation of other devices we rely on to interpret and communicate emotion? It seems that there are a number of variables at play that have yet to be identified (or overlooked) by the researchers.
Another issue that warrants consideration is the nature of “semantic satiation”. The described results of this process may seem counterintuitive. It is interesting that by stressing a word an individual is less effective in assessing the presence of the corresponding condition, rather than hyper aware of the specific state. Isn’t repetition a valuable way of learning?
Ultimately this is an interesting study, but there is a major gap between the construct of what they are measuring and what they are trying to prove/what happens in real life. Although they may have demonstrated a correlation between language and emotional perception, they provide insufficient data to explain cause and effect. They do raise a number of interesting questions for future consideration. Do their findings have any real life applications at this time?
Further questions:
-Does this imply that we have become habituated to or unaware of highly common behaviors or emotions in our environments? (a more permanent satiation process)
-What if in addition to repeating a word they invoked specific emotional states, how would that have affected their interpretation of emotion? SATIATION CAUSES DISINTEREST, EMOTION GETS INTEREST
-The words that were satiated were among the basic emotion vocabulary. Although I disagree with the authors in terms of the meaningful relevance of these studies to the link between language and emotions, it would be interesting to semantically satiate a word that is associated with a specific emotion. For instance if someone was afraid of snakes and they repeated the word snake thirty times would you observe similar results to the individual that recited the word fear thirty times?
Response for February 14th, 2007
The four articles that we read for this week’s class all deal with emotions and the impact that culture and gender have on a person’s perception of emotions. Each article presented a different way of approaching emotions analytically which only adds to the confusion of understanding one’s personal emotions. At the same time, knowing that there are many influences on how emotions are understood can help clarify one’s personal definition of emotions. I found the Semantic Satiation that Lindquist spoke about in her essay “Language and the Perception of Emotion” the interesting place to try and combine all the other theories that we read about in the other articles.
Semantic Satiation is used to manipulate certain effects on a person’s perception of emotion. The way that this happens is that an emotional word is repeated out loud three or thirty times by a person and then they judge a word or object that is either like the repeated word or not like the repeated word. Now, how would this have influenced Westerners if the emotion word had been the Japanese-culturally bound Amae? Would this satiation been able to condition Amae into Westerners so that they are able to understand what the Japanese mean when they experience the inappropriate requests from loved ones. Even while reading the article by Niiya, it was hard not to have a completely negative connotation to the experimental situations that had Amae. My independent nature was trying to overpower my understanding of Amae. In the end Americans could experience Amae without labeling the situation which is what Matsumoto was talking about.
In “Cross-Cultural Psychology in the 21st Century”, Matsumoto discusses the cultural similarities and differences in all cultures. When applying these similarities and differences to an emotion like Amae, it helps to understand why Americans could grasp the concept without being able to define the situation the same way as Japanese could. Both cultures were able to see the intensity in the situations of a close person requesting an inappropriate favor. Both Japanese and Americans could perceive the same expressive nature in the situation as well because Americans understood what part of the situation was the most important: the moment when the requestor wants the reply from the person being requested. However, there is not emotion recognition on the part of Americans because there is no word to describe that interchange emotionally in the English language.
Most interestingly for me was the short article on gender differences by Wager and Ochsner. There were so many factors in that report that affected how women and men would respond to scenes of anger. The cultural and societal requirements that have been placed on each gender could have been influencing them to respond in a specific way to the images no matter what they actually felt. People who were being tested for their emotional reaction could have been under reporting and skewing their personal feelings in order to fit the cultural stereotype. Does this mean that we’re more interested in sticking with the stereotypes that women are more emotional and men are more reserved even though these are restricting concepts? Why is it that we want to have culturally bound emotional concepts? Is it possible to create a universal, pan-cultural emotional language? How would that affect the cultures when that would require everyone to find importance in the same emotions at similar times and to utilize the same basic emotions to express themselves? If a universal emotional database is not possible, how is it possible for each culture to understand the differences between the emotions all over the world? Would this help define emotions personally? Would this help close the gender gap in emotions?
Language is how people are able to communicate shared categories to one another, according to Lindquist, and how are men and women supposed to understand each other’s emotional language? Would that help them to understand each other better? I hope that is possible. Is it important that men and women each have their own emotional language? It’s hard to read about all the differences in emotional perception and keep your own in mind. It’s even harder to remember that the way you personally perceive emotions is not how everyone in the room with you does perceive them. Is a constant reminder necessary to get to the bottom of emotional language?
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Resonse~Feb. 14th
A theme that I observed in the articles for this week was the influence of culture on many aspects of emotional research. There was no doubt in my mind, prior to reading the assigned articles, that the way in which individuals, and cultures as collectives, express, perceive, understand and manifest their emotions was extremely culturally/socially influenced. In fact, before taking this class I was more of the mind that the study of emotions was fundamentally a psychological endeavor. And although I have been enlightened to the fact that perhaps the biological aspect of emotions may be fundamental, and the psychology perhaps more secondary, there is no question that the study of emotions would not be a comprehensive one without both domains working in concert.
Having established that, I believe the consideration of context within the study of emotion is vital, which is a view I share with, among copious others, David Matsumoto, author of Cross Cultural Psychology in the 21st Century. Although his article is mostly optimism about the future of cross-cultural psychological research, Matsumoto expounds upon the (short) history of the cross-cultural study of emotion, and its emphasis on the universality of emotions, specifically the six basic (or primary) emotions: fear, anger, disgust, sadness, happiness, and surprise. What he is passionate about is the differences in the expression of emotions between cultures, and the influences within the cultures that are behind those differences. He subscribes to the notion of universality, (he did, after all, study under Ekman), but Matsumoto places an emphasis on cultural differences in expression of emotions because of their essential role in cross-cultural communication. In stressing the role of facial expression of emotion, he asserts that “nonverbal aspects of communication far outweigh the verbal in communication, and much of the nonverbal communication is emotional” (Matsumoto 2001). With this he means to imply that if the proverbial “we” had a better understanding of the differences in emotional expression across cultures, perhaps communication between the former and the latter would go more smoothly. “[E]motion plays a key role in intercultural communication…especially anxiety attendant to the uncertainty in intercultural communication, and the fear, anger, and distress that often occurs in intercultural misunderstandings” (Matsumoto, 2001).
The main examples Matsumoto used in this article are the differences found between Japanese and American participants. He lays special emphasis on “display rules” that people learn early in life. These display rules manage and modify the universal emotions based on the social circumstance and what the individual’s culture has prescribed. One of the key distinctions he found between Japanese and American culture is that the Japanese tend to be “collectivist” people, and the Americans “individualist” people. This means that in Japan, value is placed on group harmony and interdependence, with less emphasis on the individual. In American culture, individuality is embraced, and emotional expression, both positive and negative, is encouraged. This dichotomy, between individuality and conformity, forms the basis for the studies that Matsumoto gives further details about. Because of the aforementioned differentiation, with the inclusion of other variables and culturally specific information, for instance, Americans tend to associate facial expressions as being more intense than the subjective experience. On the other hand, the Japanese rated the subjective experience of the same expressive faces to be at a higher degree of intensity. An interesting conclusion surfaced from that specific study, highlighting the importance of further research into cross-cultural psychology: "Previously, we suggested that American-Japanese differences occurred because the Japanese suppressed their intensity ratings, as they do their expressions. However, it was the Americans who exaggerated their external display ratings relative to subjective experience, not the Japanese who suppressed" (Matsumoto, 2001).
I feel as though the article about the emotion “amae” is a more specific example of the cross-cultural, or culture-modified, nature of emotions, so I won’t discuss it here. Another aspect of Matsumoto’s article I found noteworthy was the idea of “folk” psychology (or “naïve” or “common sense” psychology). Folk psychology is defined as a set of background assumptions and socially conditioned opinions that work their way into a culture’s way of life, and influence their judgment of others behavior. It’s specifically interesting in terms of display rules and its rather large role in the way in which people verbally communicate their emotions. Sometimes there’s no telling how far back a certain cultural belief goes in terms of origin, yet it is these engrained values, ideas, and attitudes that defines a community, and gives them a model for their behavior, including the way in which they express their emotions, and judge others emotions. Matsumoto, through numerous examples, drives home the point that including all these variables in cross-cultural studies is very difficult, but necessary to arrive at any semblance of accurate, usable, information.
Having established that, I believe the consideration of context within the study of emotion is vital, which is a view I share with, among copious others, David Matsumoto, author of Cross Cultural Psychology in the 21st Century. Although his article is mostly optimism about the future of cross-cultural psychological research, Matsumoto expounds upon the (short) history of the cross-cultural study of emotion, and its emphasis on the universality of emotions, specifically the six basic (or primary) emotions: fear, anger, disgust, sadness, happiness, and surprise. What he is passionate about is the differences in the expression of emotions between cultures, and the influences within the cultures that are behind those differences. He subscribes to the notion of universality, (he did, after all, study under Ekman), but Matsumoto places an emphasis on cultural differences in expression of emotions because of their essential role in cross-cultural communication. In stressing the role of facial expression of emotion, he asserts that “nonverbal aspects of communication far outweigh the verbal in communication, and much of the nonverbal communication is emotional” (Matsumoto 2001). With this he means to imply that if the proverbial “we” had a better understanding of the differences in emotional expression across cultures, perhaps communication between the former and the latter would go more smoothly. “[E]motion plays a key role in intercultural communication…especially anxiety attendant to the uncertainty in intercultural communication, and the fear, anger, and distress that often occurs in intercultural misunderstandings” (Matsumoto, 2001).
The main examples Matsumoto used in this article are the differences found between Japanese and American participants. He lays special emphasis on “display rules” that people learn early in life. These display rules manage and modify the universal emotions based on the social circumstance and what the individual’s culture has prescribed. One of the key distinctions he found between Japanese and American culture is that the Japanese tend to be “collectivist” people, and the Americans “individualist” people. This means that in Japan, value is placed on group harmony and interdependence, with less emphasis on the individual. In American culture, individuality is embraced, and emotional expression, both positive and negative, is encouraged. This dichotomy, between individuality and conformity, forms the basis for the studies that Matsumoto gives further details about. Because of the aforementioned differentiation, with the inclusion of other variables and culturally specific information, for instance, Americans tend to associate facial expressions as being more intense than the subjective experience. On the other hand, the Japanese rated the subjective experience of the same expressive faces to be at a higher degree of intensity. An interesting conclusion surfaced from that specific study, highlighting the importance of further research into cross-cultural psychology: "Previously, we suggested that American-Japanese differences occurred because the Japanese suppressed their intensity ratings, as they do their expressions. However, it was the Americans who exaggerated their external display ratings relative to subjective experience, not the Japanese who suppressed" (Matsumoto, 2001).
I feel as though the article about the emotion “amae” is a more specific example of the cross-cultural, or culture-modified, nature of emotions, so I won’t discuss it here. Another aspect of Matsumoto’s article I found noteworthy was the idea of “folk” psychology (or “naïve” or “common sense” psychology). Folk psychology is defined as a set of background assumptions and socially conditioned opinions that work their way into a culture’s way of life, and influence their judgment of others behavior. It’s specifically interesting in terms of display rules and its rather large role in the way in which people verbally communicate their emotions. Sometimes there’s no telling how far back a certain cultural belief goes in terms of origin, yet it is these engrained values, ideas, and attitudes that defines a community, and gives them a model for their behavior, including the way in which they express their emotions, and judge others emotions. Matsumoto, through numerous examples, drives home the point that including all these variables in cross-cultural studies is very difficult, but necessary to arrive at any semblance of accurate, usable, information.
Response 2.14.07
Niiya, Ellsworth, and Yamaguchi’s “Amae in Japan and the United States: An Exploration of a ‘Culturally Unique’ Emotion” investigated cross-cultural similarities and differences within language and emotion and how they affect each other. It focused on Amae, a word in Japanese roughly meaning (according to Doi) ‘to depend and presume upon another’s love or bask in another’s indulgence’ (280), which we have no word for in English. The article grounded us with a brief history of the study of emotion and expression (Darwin, Ekman, Izard, etc.) and then began questioning the possibility of emotions only existing in certain cultures or the possibility of all emotions being universal but merely emphasized in some societies by language and culture. The article introduces Levy’s theory of ‘hypercognized’ or ‘hypocognized’ emotions, which ‘suggests that emotional lives vary across cultures because of differences in emphasis, not fundamental differences in capacity, and that the emotions of one culture may not be completely incomprehensible to members of another culture’ (279). At this point I remembered a conversation I had had with my host sister when I went abroad to China. I had been sharing a small room with her (one out of two rooms in the apartment), and I mentioned how I needed some privacy or missed having privacy sometimes. She knew English pretty well, but had never heard the word privacy before. I explained the definition to her, and at first she didn’t understand why I would want privacy (why would I want to be alone?). Later she understood exactly what I meant, but told me they had no word for privacy in Mandarin. This example matches Levy’s theory of ‘hypocognized’ emotions as well as Averill’s “claim that ‘most standard emotional reactions are socially constructed or institutionalized patterns of response’ rather than biologically determined events” (Ledoux 116). The fact that there is no word for privacy in Mandarin boggled my mind, but the fact that my host sister could understand what I meant demonstrates that she must have felt the need for privacy or had privacy before. This verifies the difference of the Chinese and American cultures but also the similarity of the capacity of emotion in people, which is exactly what this article is attempting to prove with the Amae example. Perhaps America’s ‘hypocognized’ use of privacy relates to the ‘independence’ that Niiya, Ellsworth, and Yamaguchi discuss later in the article.
Understanding the exact meaning of Amae was slightly challenging partly because it describes an emotion that two people are mutually (or not mutually) feeling during an interaction experience—it is not a feeling that one feels on their own. Doi’s definition quoted above captures the more emotional sense of Amae, while Yamaguchi focuses on the behavioral aspects of the term. Amae is only felt in very specific situational instances—when one person asks someone else a favor expecting their wish to be granted and because of their close relationship it is okay, but if their relationship were not so close asking the favor would be considered ‘inappropriate.’ It is when the inappropriateness of asking the favor becomes appropriate because of the close relationship between the two people, and one or both people involved realize it. What is interesting is that both the ‘requester’ and the ‘receiver’ can experience Amae, which seems to be a mix of many different feelings, and this combination of feelings can be both positive and negative depending on the situation and the balancing of the positive and negative feelings. What this study proved was that because of the difference in cultures between the U.S. and Japan, Japan is more likely to feel positive Amae because of Japan’s tendency toward interdependence, while the U.S. leans toward experiencing negative Amae because of our ‘hypocognized’ use of independence and autonomy. The positive feelings of Amae can include a mix of affection, love, reaffirmation, acceptance, furthering the closeness of the relationship, getting helped, helping, getting attention, feeling in control, etc. It is when these emotions are over-indulged that positive Amae can turn to negative Amae—nagging, whining, using, being used, manipulating, getting manipulated, using power to one’s own advantage, etc. One negative Amae feeling that the authors did not discuss is guilt—the ‘requester’ may feel guilty or ashamed for having to ask for help while the ‘receiver’ may feel guilty for not wanting to help but feeling like they have to, even if they don’t feel like they’re being manipulated.
What I think we need to remember is the William James quote mentioned at the end of the article: “the trouble with emotions in psychology is that they are regarded too much as absolutely individual things” (293). We have to remember the consequences of language: “the names are categorical, but the feelings are not; they shade from one to another, and in any culture the one and the other are defined by language. People describe their emotions in the language they know, and the categories of their culture undoubtedly influence the emotions they feel” (293).
Understanding the exact meaning of Amae was slightly challenging partly because it describes an emotion that two people are mutually (or not mutually) feeling during an interaction experience—it is not a feeling that one feels on their own. Doi’s definition quoted above captures the more emotional sense of Amae, while Yamaguchi focuses on the behavioral aspects of the term. Amae is only felt in very specific situational instances—when one person asks someone else a favor expecting their wish to be granted and because of their close relationship it is okay, but if their relationship were not so close asking the favor would be considered ‘inappropriate.’ It is when the inappropriateness of asking the favor becomes appropriate because of the close relationship between the two people, and one or both people involved realize it. What is interesting is that both the ‘requester’ and the ‘receiver’ can experience Amae, which seems to be a mix of many different feelings, and this combination of feelings can be both positive and negative depending on the situation and the balancing of the positive and negative feelings. What this study proved was that because of the difference in cultures between the U.S. and Japan, Japan is more likely to feel positive Amae because of Japan’s tendency toward interdependence, while the U.S. leans toward experiencing negative Amae because of our ‘hypocognized’ use of independence and autonomy. The positive feelings of Amae can include a mix of affection, love, reaffirmation, acceptance, furthering the closeness of the relationship, getting helped, helping, getting attention, feeling in control, etc. It is when these emotions are over-indulged that positive Amae can turn to negative Amae—nagging, whining, using, being used, manipulating, getting manipulated, using power to one’s own advantage, etc. One negative Amae feeling that the authors did not discuss is guilt—the ‘requester’ may feel guilty or ashamed for having to ask for help while the ‘receiver’ may feel guilty for not wanting to help but feeling like they have to, even if they don’t feel like they’re being manipulated.
What I think we need to remember is the William James quote mentioned at the end of the article: “the trouble with emotions in psychology is that they are regarded too much as absolutely individual things” (293). We have to remember the consequences of language: “the names are categorical, but the feelings are not; they shade from one to another, and in any culture the one and the other are defined by language. People describe their emotions in the language they know, and the categories of their culture undoubtedly influence the emotions they feel” (293).
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