We tested links between social status and emotion recognition accuracy (ERA) with participants from a diverse array of cultures and a new model and method of ERA, the Assessment of Contextualized Emotion (ACE), which incorporates social context and is linked to different types of social interaction across cultures. Participants from the Czech Republic (Study 1) and from 12 cultural groups in Europe, North America, and Asia (Study 2) completed a short version of the ACE, a self-construal scale, and the MacArthur Subjective Social Status (SSS) scale. In both studies, higher SSS was associated with more accuracy. In Study 2, this relationship was mediated by higher independent self-construal and moderated by countries' long-term orientation and relational mobility. The findings suggest that the positive association between higher social class and emotion recognition accuracy is due to the use of agentic modes of socio-cognitive reasoning by higher status individuals. This raises new questions regarding the socio-cultural ecologies that afford this relationship.

• MeSH
• Adult MeSH
• Emotions * physiology   MeSH
• Culture * MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Adolescent MeSH
• Young Adult MeSH
• Recognition, Psychology * MeSH
• Social Class * MeSH
• Cross-Cultural Comparison MeSH
• Check Tag
• Adult MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Adolescent MeSH
• Young Adult MeSH
• Male MeSH
• Female MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Geographicals
• Asia MeSH
• Czech Republic MeSH
• Europe MeSH
• North America MeSH

We examined theories of cross-cultural differences in cognitive style on a sample of 242 participants representing five cultural groups (Czechia, Ghana, eastern and western Turkey, and Taiwan). The experiment involved immersive virtual environments consisting of two salient focal objects and a complex background as stimuli, which were presented using virtual reality headsets with integrated eye-tracking devices. The oculomotor patterns confirmed previous general conclusions that Eastern cultures have a more holistic cognitive style, while Western cultures predominantly have an analytic cognitive style. The differences were particularly noticeable between Taiwan and the other samples. However, we found that the broader cultural background of each group was perhaps just as important as geographical location or national boundaries. For example, observed differences between Eastern (more holistic style) and Western Turkey (more analytic style), suggest the possible influence of varying historical and cultural characteristics on the cognitive processing of complex visual stimuli.

• MeSH
• Culture MeSH
• Cultural Characteristics MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Eye Movements MeSH
• Cross-Cultural Comparison * MeSH
• Virtual Reality * MeSH
• Check Tag
• Humans MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH