Culture and its Influence in Interpreting Facial Expressions

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080305120850.htm

This article from Science Daily compares how people from Eastern and Western Cultures see things differently when it comes to interpreting emotion. Several Researchers conducted a study where they showed the participants different emotional images. Each image had one model placed in the center and four models placed in the background.  The researched changed the facial expression of the person in the center or a model in the background. The participants were asked to explain what he or she thought the emotion of the center image was. Based on the results, the researchers found that the majority of North Americans claimed that they were not influenced by the background models and the majority of the Japanese participants reported that their decision of the center figures emotion were in fact influenced by the facial expressions of those in the background. The results show that when North Americans are trying to determine one’s emotion they focus solely on the individual’s facial expression. Japanese cultures on the other hand, look at the emotions of everyone in the situation. This article shows that culture plays a key role in determining emotion displayed in facial expression. Because North Americans do not focus on all the individuals in the situation, like the Japanese do, North Americans will more than likely judge expressed emotions differently. Perhaps the the reason that the Japanese look at everyone in the situation is because their culture is said to be a high-context culture. The North American culture is a low-context culture. It seems to me that culture is more influential in interpreting facial expressions than I had thought. 
The picture was found at http://chalk.richmond.edu/education/projects/webunits/geography/hemispherewest.gif