PsychoNot
@PsychoNot@lemmy.world
- Comment on [deleted] 11 months ago:
This was a very brief explanation of many studies looking into this exact problem. The conclusion is from their research, not mine. You’re also making my point, that expressions of joy, happiness etc vary between cultures. This article talks about some of the research but I recommend reading the original studies or Barrett’s book.
- Comment on [deleted] 11 months ago:
We actually don’t have the same emotional expressions. The early studies on “universal” emotional expressions (joy, disgust etc) were extremely biased. The researches paid western actors to make facial expressions, took pictures of those expressions, then showed those pictures to various uncontacted / low contact tribes. However, the researches tended to ask the tribes what expression they saw repeatedly until they gave the answer the researches expected.
Even smiling isn’t universal. Think about cultural differences between smiling even in modern day Russia. There’s evidence that smiling might have been an expression of joy but was deemed socially inappropriate in Ancient Rome.
Emotional expressions in the brain differ between individuals and even differ within the same individual on separate occasions of the “same” emotion. Lisa Barrett has an excellent book on this topic: How Emotions are Made.