Emotions and human happiness: universal expressions and cultural values

Emotions provide meaning and color in our lives by informing us about the negative or positive stimuli that affect our well-being. We feel joy in the arrival of new life, and sadness at the life that has passed. Through the emotions we feel we know about the quality of our relationships with others. At our peak experiences in life we can feel complex emotions summarized in the word happiness. At the same time tragedy visit all lives and corresponding emotions provide the framework for understanding these experiences. Emotions tend to be transitory, and can abruptly change or be replaced by alternate interpretations. It is generally agreed that a biological neurophysiological response platform prepare us to react to stimuli that is either benign or threatening. Our emotions consist of a syndrome of responses that in addition to our subjective feelings also include expressive facial reactions, changes in intonation of voice, the use of gestures, and physiological reactions including faster heart beats and more intense breathing. Emotions also have cognitive aspects as we think about the meaning of what we feel, and behavioral reactions depending on the nature of the emotion interpreted as either positive or negative.

Although psychopaths may seem devoid of subjective feelings, and people in wartime or other crisis situation suppress inner reactions, emotions are in fact ubiquitous in our lives. Along with other psychological functions emotions evolved because they were functional to survival and helped us react and learn about situations that were benign as well as those that presented a threat to health and well-being. Ethologists that have conducted comparative species research have found emotions among primates similar to those of humans including those of anger and fear (De Waal, 2003). However, the fact that humans have also evolved language makes our emotions more complex and differentiated compared to our primate cousins. Furthermore, since we have unique evaluations of the self represented in our thinking processes we can reflect on our behavior. Emotions like shame or guilt are the result of self-reflections and are based on concepts of morality (Haidt, 2001; Gottman & Levenson, 2002).

In summary, any model of emotions must include antecedent stimuli that illicit the reaction. Emotions produce expressive behaviors reflected by changes in our voice or face. We also experience subjective feelings that are typically of a positive or negative valuation, and can observe corresponding physiological reactions in the autonomic and central nervous systems. We are capable of evaluating and thinking about our emotions and may therefore attribute the cause of feelings to self or others. Finally, in our behavioral reactions we may take flight from fear of the stimulus, or approach the object that we love.

From a cross-cultural perspective we need to understand the components of emotions that are invariant across all societies and therefore based on a genetic inheritance common with all humanity. However, human behavior is plastic and culture can modify both the subjective experiences of emotions and also what is considered to be appropriate behavioral expressions. The complexity of human behavior causes the discourse about emotions to be complicated and creates difficulties in cross-cultural comparisons since members of different cultural groups do not all have the same words or descriptions with which to interpret or understand emotions. Because of the language complexities discussed in chapter 5 there is always some ambiguity in all cross-cultural comparative research. However, from the consistency of research results over time emotions that are invariant across cultures can be observed along with culturally specific manifestations. The culturally invariant and the culturally specific in emotional behavior are but two sides of the same coin.