Phrasebook

Feelings speak different languages too!

Many different languages are spoken around the world. There is no universal human language. But how is it for our facial expressions? Is the language of emotions universal? No, there are also differences here! It was long believed that all people expressed feelings the same way. The language of facial expressions was considered universally understood. Charles Darwin believed that feelings were of vital importance for humans. Therefore, they had to be understood equally in all cultures. But new studies are coming to a different result. They show that there are differences in the language of feelings too. That is, our facial expressions are influenced by our culture. Therefore, people around the world show and interpret feelings differently. Scientists distinguish six primary emotions. They are happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, fear and surprise. But Europeans have different facial expressions to Asians. And they read different things from the same expressions. Various experiments have confirmed this. In them, test subjects were shown faces on a computer. The subjects were supposed to describe what they read in the faces. There are many reasons why the results differed. Feelings are shown more in some cultures than in others. The intensity of facial expressions is therefore not understood the same everywhere. Also, people from different cultures pay attention to different things. Asians concentrate on the eyes when reading facial expressions. Europeans and Americans, on the other hand, look at the mouth. One facial expression is understood in all cultures, however… That is a nice smile!