Body Language Cultural Or Universal Essays -

Body Language: Cultural Or Universal? Body language and various other nonverbal cues have long been recognized as being of great importance to the facilitation of communication. There has been a long running debate as to whether body language signals and their meanings are culturally determined or whether such cues are innate and thus universal. The nature versus nurture dichotomy inherent in this debate is false; one does not preclude the others influence. Rather researchers should seek to address the question how much of nonverbal communication is innate and how much is culturally defined? Are there any true universal nonverbal cues or just universal tendencies modified to suit cultural ideals and constraints? It is my proposal that of all forms of nonverbal communication the most universal is the communication of emotions through facial expression. Other channels of nonverbal communication are also of great importance in many cultures. However which channels are emphasized, what cues are considered acceptable and the symbolic meaning of the cues may vary from culture to culture. Ekman and Friesen (1969; and discussed in Ekman and Keltner, 1997) undertook an important cross-cultural study to determine how easily and accurately people from various literate Western and non-Western cultures could identify the appropriate emotion term to match photographs they were shown. The photographs were of Caucasian faces posed in certain facial expressions. The terms the subjects were given to choose from were happiness, surprise, disgust, contempt, anger, fear and sadness. The result was consistent evidence of agreement across all cultures examined. In order to rule out the possibility that exposure to mass-media had taught the subjects to recognize Caucasian facial expressions Ekman and Friesen undertook a similar study among a visually isolated culture in New Guinea (Ekman, 1972). A different methodology was used; people were shown the photographs of posed Caucasian facial expressions and were asked to make up a story about the person and the moments leading up to that image. From these stories Ekman and Friesen concluded that these subjects were able to identify the emotions accurately. The one exception was that there seemed to be some confusion between surprise and fear expressions. Similar research was undertaken by Heider and Rosch (reported in Ekman, 1972) with the intent of disproving Ekman and Friesen. However, the data gathered also supported Ekman and Friesens conclusions. A similar experiment (Argyle, 1975) compared the perception of the emotions of English, Italian and Japanese performers by subjects from these three countries. The results (reported in Argyle, 1975) were as follows: Both the English and Italian subjects could identify their own and each others emotions but had difficulty with the Japanese. The Japanese subjects were able to identify the emotions of the English and Italians better than those groups had been able to judge the Japanese. However the Japanese subjects had difficulty determining Japanese facial expressions. This would seem to indicate that the Japanese face does not express emotion in the same manner as those of other cultures. However, another experiment (Ekman and Keltner, 1997) demonstrated different results. American and Japanese subjects were observed while watching films designed to evoke fear and disgust. During part of this observation the subjects were videotaped while watching the film alone. It was presumed that during this time no social rules would restrict the subjects display of emotion. No difference existed between the American and the Japanese subjects in the display of emotion when alone. When watching the film with an authority figure (the researcher) present the Japanese were more likely than the Americans to hide negative emotions with a smile. Observation of children who were born deaf and blind show that they make the same emotional expressions (Ekman and Keltner, 1997). There is no way that these children could have learned this behaviour through sensory input. Similarly, a study involving sighted babies under six months of age has showed that they react with fear to negative faces (Segerstrale and Molnar, 1997). These infants were too young to have learned which faces had negative connotations. It would have to be an innate response. Although different cultures define when and where it is acceptable to display certain emotions (i.e. crying at a funeral may or may not be expected) and the stimulus that triggers a certain emotion may vary from culture to culture, the facial expression of emotions seems to be a universal. There may be an evolutionary advantage to this form of communication. When people are communicating they tend to mimic the faces one another make. It has been shown that making a face associated with an emotional