Representation of Cultural Models of Emotion in Media: A Comparison Between European- and Hispanic-American Children's books
Presentation Type
Poster/Portfolio
Presenter Major(s)
Psychology, Management
Mentor Information
Wolfgang Friedlmeier
Department
Psychology
Location
Kirkhof Center KC35
Start Date
11-4-2012 9:00 AM
Keywords
Culture, Media
Abstract
Children's books may provide important models of culturally appropriate emotions. Tsai, Louie, Chen and Uchida (2007) showed that the desired positive affective state varied between Taiwanese Chinese and European Americans books. This study aims to expand the study by Tsai et al. (2007) by including negative emotions, analyzing facial and posture features, and comparing European-American (EA) and Hispanic-American (HA) children's books. Given that Caucasians favor an individualistic emotion model, whereas Hispanic favor a relation emotion model (Friedlmeier, Corapci, & Cole, 2011), we expect that Caucasian books portray negative emotions more openly and overall a greater variety of emotions than Hispanic books. A content analysis was performed on illustrations in EA and HA children's books to assess facial expressions and body posture. Preliminary results point to ethnic differences, e.g., negative emotions occurred more often in EA books and happiness more often in HA books.
Representation of Cultural Models of Emotion in Media: A Comparison Between European- and Hispanic-American Children's books
Kirkhof Center KC35
Children's books may provide important models of culturally appropriate emotions. Tsai, Louie, Chen and Uchida (2007) showed that the desired positive affective state varied between Taiwanese Chinese and European Americans books. This study aims to expand the study by Tsai et al. (2007) by including negative emotions, analyzing facial and posture features, and comparing European-American (EA) and Hispanic-American (HA) children's books. Given that Caucasians favor an individualistic emotion model, whereas Hispanic favor a relation emotion model (Friedlmeier, Corapci, & Cole, 2011), we expect that Caucasian books portray negative emotions more openly and overall a greater variety of emotions than Hispanic books. A content analysis was performed on illustrations in EA and HA children's books to assess facial expressions and body posture. Preliminary results point to ethnic differences, e.g., negative emotions occurred more often in EA books and happiness more often in HA books.