An interesting study has been published in the The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology that examines how we know, or try and guess, what other people are feeling.
Generally, if asked that question, you might answer by saying you examined a person’s facial expressions to gauge their mood.
Not so in Japan and other Eastern countries, it seems, as the study authors found. They showed drawings of five children, with varied facial expressions, to three dozen students in two groups, one Japanese, one made up of people from Western societies, and asked them to look at the face of the person in the centre of the picture and rate it on a 10-point scale for happiness, sadness and anger.
According to the study, the Japanese group changed their opinion of the lead character’s mood depending on the faces of those around it.
If the figure in the center had a happy face but those in the background were sad or angry, they gave the happy figure a lower score.
The Western group, however, paid little attention to the people surrounding the character in the centre.
Lead study author Dr Takahiko Masuda, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Alberta in Canada, said the differences come from deeply ingrained cultural traits. “Westerns may see emotions as individual feelings, while Japanese see them as inseperable from the feelings of the group,” he said.
The research raises interesting questions about how different societies react to people around them, and even suggests that people in Western societies may be slightly less concerned about the feelings of others. It also may suggest that Japanese people, and others from similar cultures, may be more eager to blend in with a group of people.
“We don’t know exactly what’s going on,” said Dr Masuda.
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