ICCRA promotes and carries out cross-cultural emotion research that is concerned with the transition from universal to culturally-moulded aspects of emotion based on three principles, namely (1) the componential emotion approach as comprehensive theoretical framework, (2) applying, developing, and promoting rigorous methodological approaches to the cross-cultural study of emotions, and (3) creating a platform for genuine exchange between emotion researchers around the world.

1. The componential emotion approach as comprehensive theoretical framework

The most notable characteristic of the domain of emotion research is its heterogeneity. Five main focuses of emotion research - but there are more – are: expressions of emotions (facial, vocal, and gestural), psychophysiological changes (bodily changes), cognitive processes (appraisal processes), motivational processes (action tendencies and action readiness), and subjective experiences. The heterogeneity of the emotion domain has been used to question the scientific validity of the concept of emotion. A scientifically valid concept should be distinguished from other concepts. When looking at the emotion literature, it is hard to find psychological concepts that are not studied within the domain of emotions. In the last two decades a consensus has been emerging within the emotion domain that the characteristic property of emotions lies in the synchronisation of activity in various emotion components which is pre-eminently triggered by a detection of events that are relevant for the concerns of the organism, and which aims at preparing the organism for an optimal reaction to the event within a short time-frame. The componential emotion approach clearly delineates the concept of emotion: emotion is not about specific components for their own sake, emotion is about the intertwined activity in various components in response to specific events. This approach offers the possibility of structuring the heterogeneity of the emotion domain into a comprehensive framework that can relate findings across research traditions and foci.

The componential emotion approach is especially promising for cross-cultural emotion research. In the universalism-relativism debate, the main issue turns on the comparability of emotion concepts. From a universalistic perspective, it has been demonstrated that all languages across the world have emotion words, and that they tend to be organised in four main clusters: joy, sadness, fear and anger. From a relativistic perspective, it has been pointed out that there exist emotion words that are highly relevant for a specific cultural group and are untranslatable into other languages (e.g. amae in Japan), that important emotion words in the Western lexicon are not always translatable into other languages (e.g. sadness among Tahitians), and that translation-equivalent emotion words can mean very different things across cultural groups. The conclusion from this debate is that emotion words cannot form a robust point of reference for cross-cultural emotion research. Even if terms are translation-equivalent, they may refer to very different psychological phenomena. With the componential emotion approach, however, we have robust points of reference, namely the emotion components and the synchronisation between them. Without precluding vast differences between cultural groups in emotion, the componential emotion approach considers the emotion components and their synchronisation as phylogenetically developed (and thus universal) processes meant to deal adequately with environmental demands within a short time. The componential emotion theory sets the stage for future cross-cultural emotion research. It poses the questions (a) how each of the emotion components is organised, and (b) how the emotion components interact in response to relevant events across cultural groups.

2. Applying, developing, and promoting rigorous methodological approaches

Rigorous methodological approaches are required for meeting the challenge of identifying the transition from universal aspects of emotional functioning into culture-specific aspects. Weaknesses in the methodological approaches form the principal alternative explanation for finding universals or culture-specifics. On one hand, apparent universality could be accounted for by the imposition of Western instruments. It cannot just be assumed that instruments developed in the West account for all relevant aspects of the emotion domain in a representative way across the world. On the other hand, apparent culture-specificity might be the result of measurement bias in the instrument, or of highly culture-specific research approaches that preclude culture comparability. The guiding principle of the consortium is to apply, adapt, or develop rigorous methodological approaches that can guarantee relevance as well as representativeness and comparability of the data. There are three methodological approaches that receive special interest, namely (a) the qualitative research methods of cultural psychology, (b) the bias and equivalence framework of cross-cultural psychology, and (c) the idea of unpackaging culture as it has been developed in cross-cultural psychology.

First, there are the structured and semi-structured research methods that have been developed and applied in cultural psychology. The aim of these methods is to get at the concepts as they emerge within specific cultural groups.

Second, there is the bias and equivalence framework of cross-cultural psychology. The possibility of cultural bias or lack of equivalence of psychological measurement instruments forms a major issue in cross-cultural achievement and intelligence testing. For no good reason, this issue receives no attention in cross-cultural emotion research. Differences between cross-cultural groups on emotion scales are interpreted at face value. No effort is made to exclude cultural measurement bias as an alternative explanation for the observed cultural differences. As in the intelligence domain, cultural measurement bias often constitutes a plausible alternative explanation that has to be ruled out. The fact that it has been documented that translation-equivalent emotion words can refer to very different phenomena adds to the importance of the issue. Third, the endpoint of cross-cultural research is often the demonstration of cross-cultural differences on a psychological measurement. Finding cross-cultural differences on a measurement instrument, even if cultural bias can be excluded, does not explain the differences. The challenge is to identify which aspects of the culture account for the observed differences. These aspects can be situated at the level of the concrete emotional event, at the level of the person, at the level of the social groups the persons belong to (such as the family), or even at the level of the broader socio-cultural system. In cross-cultural psychology this has been called the unpackaging of culture. With the advent of statistical multilevel regression models and increased opportunities of involving a large number of very different cultural groups (due to developments in information and communication technology) the unpackaging of culture has become a feasible research goal.

3. A platform for genuine exchange between emotion researchers around the world

Actively involving emotion researchers form very diverse cultural backgrounds is probably even more important than working with comprehensive theoretical frameworks and rigorous methodological approaches. Like most psychological research, most cross-cultural emotion research comes from a Western perspective. Identifying the transition of universal to culture-specific aspects of emotion requires that universal approaches to emotion be confronted with culture-specific approaches to emotion. Emotion researchers from the cultural groups studied can play an essential role in this confrontation, since they are both knowledgeable of the scientific emotion research and have first-hand knowledge of their own culture from within.

The third principle is thus to do cross-cultural emotion research with a team of cross-cultural emotion researchers. The ICCRA wants to contribute to genuine cross-cultural exchange by creating a web-based environment that is accessible around the world by all involved cross-cultural researchers. The web-based environment will consist of discussion forums and data-bases of scientific articles that are shared among the emotion researchers working on a particular research topic.