Facial expressions of emotion are not culturally universal
Open accessAbstract
Since Darwin’s seminal works, the universality of facial expressions of emotion has remained one of the longest standing debates in the biological and social sciences. Briefly stated, the universality hypothesis claims that all humans communicate six basic internal emotional states (happy, surprise, fear, disgust, anger, and sad) using the same facial movements by virtue of their biological and evolutionary origins [Susskind JM, et al. (2008) Nat Neurosci 11:843–850]. Here, we refute this assumed universality. Using a unique computer graphics platform that combines generative grammars [Chomsky N (1965) MIT Press, Cambridge, MA] with visual perception, we accessed the mind’s eye of 30 Western and Eastern culture individuals and reconstructed their mental representations of the six basic facial expressions of emotion. Cross-cultural comparisons of the mental representations challenge universality on two separate counts. First, whereas Westerners represent each of the six basic emotions with a distinct set of facial movements common to the group, Easterners do not. Second, Easterners represent emotional intensity with distinctive dynamic eye activity. By refuting the long-standing universality hypothesis, our data highlight the powerful influence of culture on shaping basic behaviors once considered biologically hardwired. Consequently, our data open a unique nature–nurture debate across broad fields from evolutionary psychology and social neuroscience to social networking via digital avatars.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Previous research has found that cultural factors influence how people express and perceive emotions particularly on the face, questioning the universality of human emotions.
“Previous research has found that cultural factors influence how people express and perceive emotions particularly on the face, questioning the universality of human emotions (Jack et al., 2012;Nelson & Russell, 2013),”
From Bodily maps of emotions are culturally universal (2020) · cites this paper as Jack et al., 2012
Cites
An argument for basic emotions
Ekman, P. (1992) · Cognition and Emotion · doi:10.1080/02699939208411068 · Cited by 9,646 · see citing works
Ethnic Out-Group Faces Are Biased in the Prejudiced Mind
Dotsch, R., Wigboldus, D. H. J., Langner, O., & van Knippenberg, A. (2008) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02186.x · Cited by 207 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Bai, Y., Maruskin, L. A., Chen, S., Gordon, A. M., Stellar, J. E., McNeil, G. D., Peng, K., & Keltner, D. (2017) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/pspa0000087 · Cited by 476 · see citing works
Gendron, M., Roberson, D., van der Vyver, J. M., & Barrett, L. F. (2014) · Emotion · doi:10.1037/a0036052 · Cited by 463 · see citing works
The Human Face as a Dynamic Tool for Social Communication
Jack, R. E., & Schyns, P. G. (2015) · Current Biology · doi:10.1016/j.cub.2015.05.052 · Cited by 405 · see citing works
Self-citationFashioning the face: sensorimotor simulation contributes to facial expression recognition
Wood, A., Rychlowska, M., Korb, S., & Niedenthal, P. (2016) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2015.12.010 · Cited by 353 · see citing works
Validation of data-driven computational models of social perception of faces.
Todorov, A., Dotsch, R., Porter, J. M., Oosterhof, N. N., & Falvello, V. B. (2013) · Emotion · doi:10.1037/a0032335 · Cited by 226 · see citing works
Learning Race from Face: A Survey
Fu, S., He, H., & Hou, Z.-G. (2014) · IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence · doi:10.1109/tpami.2014.2321570 · Cited by 178 · see citing works
Harrison, A. J., Long, K. A., Tommet, D. C., & Jones, R. N. (2017) · Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders · doi:10.1007/s10803-017-3176-3 · Cited by 104 · see citing works
Bodily maps of emotions are culturally universal
Volynets, S., Glerean, E., Hietanen, J. K., Hari, R., & Nummenmaa, L. (2020) · Emotion · doi:10.1037/emo0000624 · Cited by 93 · see citing works
Immordino-Yang, M. H., Yang, X.-F., & Damasio, H. (2014) · Frontiers in Human Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnhum.2014.00728 · Cited by 67 · see citing works
Chen, C., Hensel, L. B., Duan, Y., Ince, R. A. A., Garrod, O. G. B., Beskow, J., Jack, R. E., & Schyns, P. G. (2019) · 2019 14th IEEE International Conference on Automatic Face & Gesture Recognition (FG 2019) · doi:10.1109/fg.2019.8756570 · Cited by 41 · see citing works
Self-citationNeural correlates of error processing reflect individual differences in interoceptive sensitivity
Sueyoshi, T., Sugimoto, F., Katayama, J., & Fukushima, H. (2014) · International Journal of Psychophysiology · doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2014.10.001 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
Observing anxiety in the foreign language classroom: student silence and nonverbal cues
Maher, K., & King, J. (2020) · Journal for the Psychology of Language Learning · doi:10.52598/jpll/2/1/6 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
Qu, C., Brinkman, W.-P., Ling, Y., Wiggers, P., & Heynderickx, I. (2013) · Virtual Reality · doi:10.1007/s10055-013-0231-z · Cited by 16 · see citing works
Should I Be Worried? Worry in Dunhuang Divination
Zhao, L. (2024) · International Journal of Divination and Prognostication · doi:10.1163/25899201-bja10016
- Authors
- Jack, R. E., Garrod, O. G. B., Yu, H., Caldara, R., & Schyns, P. G.
- Affiliations
- University of Glasgow (GB)
- University of Fribourg (CH)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2012-04-16
- Volume
- 109
- Issue
- 19
- Pages
- 7241-7244
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC3358835
- OpenAlex
- W2107114452
- Cited by
- 940
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 70 · 2025: 81 · 2024: 69 · 2023: 78 · 2022: 94 · 2021: 90 · 2020: 75 · 2019: 82 · 2018: 59 · 2017: 47 · 2016: 51 · 2015: 46 · 2014: 53 · 2013: 33 · 2012: 11
- FWCI
- 23.44
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Medical Research Council (MC_G1001214)
- Economic and Social Research Council (ES/E020933/1)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Cultural Differences and Values
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Keywords
- emotional facial expressions, universality hypothesis, basic emotions, cross-cultural comparison, Eastern and Western cultures, generative grammar, eye movements, emotional intensity, nature versus nurture, cultural influence on behavior, avatars
- MeSH terms
- Cross-Cultural Comparison, Cultural Characteristics, Emotions, Facial Expression, Female, Humans, Male, Models, Psychological, Photic Stimulation, Surveys and Questionnaires, User-Computer Interface, Visual Perception, White People, Asian People, Young Adult
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
