1. Revealing the meaning structure of the emotion domain across language and cultural groups: The GRID project
The GRID project is the foundational project of the ICCRA. The meaning of emotion terms and the meaning of descriptors of emotional experiences play a central role throughout the emotion domain. Almost all emotion research relies directly or indirectly on the meaning of emotion words in testing material or stimuli they use. From relativistic perspectives, it has been argued that especially the meaning of emotion words and emotion characteristics vary substantially across cultural groups. Although meaning differences between cultural groups do not necessarily entail differences in the underlying emotional processes, these meaning differences necessarily lead to differences in cross-cultural research. So both for theoretical reasons (meaning differences are a first potential indicator for genuine cultural differences in the emotion processes) and for practical reasons (comparative research on cultures requires working with items and stimuli that have the same meaning), revealing the meaning structure of the emotion domain across language groups is the logical first step to take in cross-cultural emotion research. (For further information, please click here).
2. The emotion lexicon in 11 South African languages: The South African GRID-plus project
The South African GRID-plus project is strongly related to the GRID project. As in the GRID project, the aim is to reveal the meaning structure of the emotion domain in the 11 official languages of South Africa. The two projects differ with respect to the instrument. In the GRID project, an instrument has been constructed based on extensive emotional and cross-cultural literature. This instrument forms the basis for the research in all cultural groups. In the South African GRID-plus project, 11 different instruments will be constructed, one for each language group. These instruments will be constructed on the basis of extensive qualitative research about the emotion lexicon and the emotion characteristics that define the emotion lexicon in each of the language groups.
3. Emotional sensitivity across cultural groups
4. Disentangling the Gordian knot of guilt and shame: situational, person, and cultural variation (forthcoming)
There is a broad consensus in psychology that guilt and shame are both social and self-conscious emotions. They are by excellence the emotions that regulate smooth social functioning, and in experiencing these emotions a person becomes sometimes painfully aware of him- or herself and his or her behaviour. Apart from this consensus, there is huge disagreement in mainstream psychology about how guilt and shame are to be differentiated. This disagreement also heavily affects cross-cultural theorizing and research on guilt and shame, with some theories, for instance, predicting a negative relationship between a collectivistic or interdependent cultural orientation and guilt, and other theories predicting a positive relationship. Recent cross-cultural research on these emotions in two to three cultural groups has demonstrated that much of the confusion can be clarified by jointly taking into account the situational characteristics that trigger guilt and shame and the personality characteristics that affect the subsequent guilt and shame process. The aim of this research project is to investigate the additional impact of cultural variation on guilt and shame processes - after taking into account situational and personality characteristics. Both the prevalence of guilt and shame (in terms of episodes) and the proneness to guilt and shame processes (in terms of scenarios) will be investigated in a large number of cultural groups. By means of multilevel regression models, theories will be tested that account for variation at the level of situations (episodes or scenarios), of persons nested in cultural groups, and of cultural groups themselves.
A research project promoted by Prof. Dr. Johnny Fontaine (Ghent University, Belgium) and Prof. Dr. Klaus Scherer (University of Geneva, Switzerland) will start in mid-2007. It is a four-year project with the option for participants to earn a PhD. Doctoral candidates interested in this research project can contact Johnny Fontaine (Johnny.Fontaine@UGent.be) or Klaus Scherer (Klaus.Scherer@pse.unige.ch).
