The impact of culture‐sameness, gender, foreign travel, and academic background on the ability to interpret facial expression of emotion in others

Abstract

Using student populations from the United States, Germany, South Africa and Japan, this study examines the ability of students to accurately interpret the facial expressions of emotions in others. Groups of students were shown slides of actors from three different ethnic groups (Caucasian, Asian, and African‐American), and asked to indicate what emotion the actor was portraying. Analysis showed that the most reliable indicator of a person's ability to interpret expressions of emotions was gender, females exhibiting more accuracy than males. Amount of foreign travel was also related to the accuracy of facial expression interpretation. The similarity of cultures between the actor and the judge was only a factor in test accuracy when paired with amount of foreign travel or academic background in multivariate analysis. The results indicate that individual and learned traits should be more specifically studied in order to determine ways of better preparing people for intercultural contact.