A cross-cultural comparison of U.S. and Japanese mental health trainees' ability to recognize facially expressed emotions

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Authors
Hutchison, Ashley N.
Advisor
Gerstein, Lawrence H.
Issue Date
2013-12-14
Keyword
Degree
Thesis (Ph. D.)
Department
Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services
Other Identifiers
Abstract

This study investigated the ability of U.S. counseling psychology and Japanese clinical psychology trainees to recognize facially expressed emotions. Sixty U.S. counseling psychology students and 60 Japanese clinical psychology students viewed photographs of U.S.-Caucasian and Japanese individuals expressing seven basic emotions: anger, contempt, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. Participants completed a survey that assessed their ability to recognize emotions and their intensity ratings of these emotions. Two four-way mixed factors ANOVAs were performed to examine the effects of participant nationality, participant gender, poser nationality, and poser gender on emotion recognition accuracy scores and emotion intensity ratings. A significant three-way interaction effect for participant nationality, poser nationality, and poser gender on accuracy scores was discovered. Two significant interaction effects for intensity ratings involving poser nationality and participant nationality, and poser gender and participant nationality were also found. Results are discussed in light of prior research on emotion recognition and intensity ratings. Implications for counseling psychology and future research investigations are also presented.