Cultural Influences on the Recognition of Emotion by Facial Expressions

Cross-cultural studies on the recognition of facial expressions of emotions were reanalyzed. It was found that (a) number of emotions included in the stimulus set influenced the accuracy scores; and (b) that Caucasian judges recognized emotions better than non-Caucasian ones. The latter effect may have been due to the culturally biased stimulus sets used in the studies, or to stricter display rules in non-Caucasian cultures. Correlations of the accuracy scores with Hofstede's cultural dimensions, in which number of faces and race of judges were statistically controlled, revealed that uncertainty avoidance predicted accuracy scores in the recognition of sadness and fear, suggesting that some reliable cultural differences in the recognition of emotions from facial expressions may exist.