Trait or situation? ∼ Cultural differences in judgments of emotion ∼

Traditional research in cognition assumes that fundamental processes such as memory and attention are universal. However, a growing number of studies suggest cultural differences in the attention and evaluation of information (Masuda & Nisbet 2001; Maass, et al 2006; Markus & Kitayama 1991; Heddenn, et al 2008). One cultural comparison, between Westerners, such as Americans and Easterners such as Japanese suggest that whereas Westerners typically focus on a central single object in a scene Easterners often integrate their judgment of the focal object with surrounding contextual cues. The research reported here considers this cultural difference in the context of childrenpsilas developing understanding of emotions. The results demonstrate cultural differences in children as young as 3 and 4 years of age. In particular, Japanese children judge emotions based more on contextual information than facial expressions whereas the opposite is true for American children. The addition of language (labeling the emotions) increases the cultural differences.