Культурные правила выражения и распознавание эмоций других людей: различия в распознавании гнева представителями армянской и русской культур

Психологические исследования: электронный научный журнал. 2023. Т. 16. № 92. Статья 1.

Sysoeva T., Айрапетян Е. А.

The current study is aimed to investigate the differences in emotion recognition among representatives of Armenian and Russian cultures. A preliminary study demonstrated that Armenians, unlike Russians, tend to control the expression of anger towards in-group members in greater extent. One hypothesis explaining the cultural influence on emotion recognition suggests that expression norms, which require suppressing expression in certain social situations, should be compensated for by individuals from the corresponding culture in their assessments of the observed emotional state. Building on this, we assumed that when observing a person in a situation eliciting strong anger but not expressed overtly, Armenians would rate the intensity of the experienced emotion higher than Russians, but only in situations involving interaction with family members. The study involved 65 Armenians (aged 17-32, M=22.31, SD = 2.46, 38% male) and 64 Russians (aged 20-42, M=22.44, SD = 2.89, 34% male). Participants were asked to rate, on a scale of 1-7, the intensity of anger experienced by a depicted individual (with a neutral expression) in a described situation (a verbal description of a situation provoking strong anger). Two types of situations were employed: interaction with in-group and out-group members. Indeed, compared to Russians, Armenians assigned significantly higher ratings of intensity only for situations involving interaction with family members. This result shows that the presence of a cultural prohibition on anger expressions towards in-group members among Armenians affects their use of expressions in recognizing other’s emotions.

Keywords: кросс-культурное исследование, cross-cultural study, Russians, русские, распознавание эмоций, армяне, emotion recognition, anger, гнев, Armenians, Emotional display rules, правила выражения эмоций