A Cross-Cultural Study Of Facial Expressions

Facial expressions as an indispensable part of nonverbal behaviors play a significant role in daily communication. They serve not only to express internal emotional states but also to present appropriate and competent social behavior. However, in actual person-to-person interactions people usually neglect the communicative functions of facial expressions and their differences between cultures, and consequently fail to communicate efficiently.This research introduces the function of facial expressions in communication, analyzes their universality and variation in different cultures and finally explores the influence of culture on the differences. The communicative functions of facial expressions can be classified into five categories: affective displays (which are used as to reflect inner states), emblems (which convey verbal-like messages), illustrators (which add power to verbal messages), regulators (which maintain and control the back-and-forth nature of conversation) and adaptors (which help to relax the body). Whichever function they serve in communication, differences are found between cultures in what they signal and how they are managed, although previous cross-cultural studies suggested universality in expressions of primary emotions. Most of these culture-specific differences can be attributed to the differences in basic cultural patterns. The dimension of individualism/collectivism helps to explain why facial expressions are preferred to promote group harmony instead of self-expressiveness in some cultures and why the facial behaviors towards ingroup and outgroup members are more differentiated in these cultures. Power distance determines whether facial expressions are used to diminish or enlarge the distance between superiors and inferiors. The dichotomy of...