emotions – Success Across Cultures

Does the emotion word for happiness mean the same thing in all languages?

How about grief? Angst?

A scientific study looked at the semantic patterns in some 2,500 languages and discovered that emotion words may mean different things according to the language family from which they originate.

We’ve talked about emotion and culture over the past few weeks: how emotions are perceived differently and expressed differently.

Now, we learn that even the language of emotion is diverse.

Let’s take a look.

Universal Emotions

Some emotions, which English speakers might consider primary emotions – think happiness, sadness, anger, love, hate, etc. – are quite universal across world languages.

Most languages have words to describe the primary feelings shared by all humans.

However, just as cultures see color differently, even these primary emotions may be nuanced.

The primary emotion of anger blends into other feelings in different cultures.

Indo-European languages link anger to anxiety, while Austroasiatic languages link it to regret or grief.

Austronesian languages connect anger to pride and hate, while Nakh-Daghestanian languages connect it to envy.

This seems to indicate that cultures see even primary emotions in different shades.

But where culture and emotion become even more interesting is in the specificity of the language surrounding it.

German Specificity

Some languages, like German, have words expressing very specific feelings for which other languages have no equivalent vocabulary.

“Sehnsucht,” for instance, means to yearn deeply for another life, while “schadenfreude” means to feel pleasure from another’s misfortune.

There are no direct translations in English, and the nuance would be lost in describing these feelings in pretty much any other language but German.

You might consider that these feelings, therefore, are deeply rooted in German culture.

Papua Guinea’s Hospitality

The word, “awumbuk,” is another example of a feeling expressed with language that is deeply rooted in culture.

This word comes from the Baining people of Papua Guinea.

It expresses the feeling felt after guests leave following an overnight stay.

According to cognitive scientist, Asifa Majid, it describes a feeling of listlessness, like a “social hangover.”

The different experiences of emotion across cultures are emphasized in language.

As the study’s senior author, psychologist and neuroscientist, Kristen Lindquist, put it,

“We walk around assuming that everyone else’s experience is the same as ours because we name it with the same word, and this suggests that that might not be the case.”

Does expressing positive emotions make a person happier?

Does a society that embraces expression breed a population that’s more content?

Before you answer, let’s look at this forty-nine-country study on societal emotional environments and cultural differences in life satisfaction and well-being.

Societal Emotional Environments

First off, what is a societal emotional environment?

The paper defines it as

“the emotional climate of a society (operationalized as the degree to which positive and negative emotions are expressed in a society).”

In other words, our individual “emotional environment” is influenced by the emotions those around us express.

This, in turn, influences our well-being.

The study looks at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and extrapersonal effects of emotion expression.

Intrapersonal – the well-being of those who express the emotions
Interpersonal – the quality of interactions with others for those who express emotions
Extrapersonal – the well-being of those around the expresser as a result of their expression

Emotion Valuation

Not only do different cultures express emotions differently, but they value them differently too.

Particularly when it comes to intensity of emotion.

Latin American cultures, for example, tend toward high arousal positive emotions, like joy and excitement, and these are shared often, intensely, and openly.

Confucian Asian cultures, on the other hand, value low arousal positive emotions, like calm and serenity, and therefore will more often suppress expressive emotions.

The Study’s Results

While identifying the average PSEE (positive societal emotional environment) and the NSEE (negative societal emotional environment) of each society surveyed, the study evaluates the participants’ life satisfaction and well-being.

Participants self-reported the frequency of positive and negative emotional expressions.

The study found that all countries expressed positive emotions more frequently than negative emotions, some more so than others.

Italy, El Salvador, and Ghana were countries with the highest PSEE scores, expressing positive emotions “a couple of times a day,” while Japan, Hong Kong, and the United Kingdom had the lowest PSEE scores, expressing positive emotions “a couple of times a week.”

High PSEE country scores were in the regions of Latin America, Germanic Europe, Nordic Europe, Latin Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East, while low PSEE scores occurred in the Anglo region, as well as Southern Asia and Confucian Asia.

Negative emotions were expressed frequently in countries like Guatemala, Bhutan, and Pakistan, averaging “a couple of times a week,” while those countries with the lowest scores – Switzerland, Norway, and Iceland – expressed them “a couple of times a month.”

The study found that societies with high NSEE scores reported lower life satisfaction on the whole (although individuals were often independently more satisfied), while societies with high PSEE scores reported higher life satisfaction but not significantly.

This seems to indicate that having negativity vocalized around you affects your life satisfaction to a greater extent than having positivity vocalized around you.

Next week, we’ll take a further look at emotions in culture.

Tag: emotions

Emotion Words: How Different Languages Express Feelings

Expressing Emotions in Culture: Do More Emotive Cultures Experience Greater Life Satisfaction?