Cross-cultural differences in representation of basic emotions

This article describes a research aimed at identifying the features of differences in the representation of basic emotions by members of different cultures. There are cultural rules of expression and members of different cultures experience emotions in a special way and treat them alike because of the influence of social attitudes which strongly influence on the experience and expression, that is why it is reflected in the images of the subjects. The results show differences in the representation of basic emotions by Chinese students, depending on their level of adaptation. First-year students and non-adapted students use more often images of "smileys," faces, hand gestures for the graphic transmission of emotion. Also adapted Chinese students use significantly more often abstract images to convey the picture of emotion. Adapted Chinese students use significantly more often the image of individually important situations and symbol-images for the pictorial transmission of emotion than the non-adapted Chinese students.