Opening Up the Study of Emotion Perception

Assessing cultural variation in emotion perception is critical to building an adequate understanding of how this important social process unfolds. Studying emotion perception is associated with a host of complex methods choices. These choices often involve balancing the benefits and costs of using “closed” methods built for confirmatory research (e.g., What emotion does a wide eyed, gasping facial expression convey?) and “open” methods built for discovery (e.g., What are the spontaneous attributions that perceivers generate?). Evidence from a series of studies conducted in small-scale societies will be presented. This evidence highlights the value added by including open methods, including the discovery of more cultural variation than is traditionally assumed. The available evidence suggests that open and closed methods represent complementary approaches that can aid in building a more comprehensive science of emotion perception across cultures