How does culture influence the expression of emotions?

Cultural and Emotional Expression:

(i) The processes involved in emotions have been known to be influenced by culture. Current research has dealt more specifically with the issue of universality or culture specificity of emotions. Most of this research has been carried out on the facial expression of emotions as the face is open to easy observation, is relatively free from complexity and provides a link between subjective experience and overt expression of an emotion. However, emotions are conveyed not only via face. A felt emotion may be communicated through other non-verbal channels as well, for example, gaze behaviour, gestures, paralanguage, and proximal behaviour.

(ii) The emotional meaning conveyed via gestures (body language) varies from culture to culture. For example, in China a handclap is an expression of worry or disappointment, and anger is expressed with laughter. Silence has also been found to convey different meanings for different cultures. For example, in India, deep emotions are sometimes communicated via silence. This may convey embarrassment during communication in Western countries. Cultural differences have also been found in the gaze behaviour. It has been observed that the Latin Americans and the Southern Europeans direct their gaze to the eyes of the interactant. Asians, in particular, Indians and Pakistanis, prefer a peripheral gaze (looking away from the conversational partner) during an interaction.

(iii) The physical space (proximity) also divulges different kinds of emotional meaning during emotional exchanges. The Americans, for example, do not prefer an interaction too close; the Oriental Indians consider a close space comfortable for an interaction. In fact, the touching behaviour in physical proximity is considered reflective of emotional warmth. For example, it was observed that the Arabs experience alienation during an interaction with the North Americans who prefer to be interacted from outside the olfactory (too close) zone.