A Cross-cultural Comparison of Facial Emotion Recognition between Germans and the Karamojong

Abstract Few emotion recognition studies have been conducted with indigenous, culturally remote populations, and most have focused on well-known groups. Only two studies have systematically used multiple universality criteria (Cognition and Emotion 13:225-266, 1999; Emotion 13:891-904, 2013). This study aimed to test accessibility universality (Psychological Bulletin, 131:763–784, 2005) by assessing several criteria in the Karamojong. An accessibility universal “a) is, in principle, cognitively available to most people in most cultures (it is an existential universal); (b) has the same use across cultures (it is also a functional universal); and (c) is accessible to the same degree across cultures” (Psychological Bulletin, 131:763–784, 2005, p. 772). We assume accessibility universality if five criteria are fulfilled. We compared their emotion recognition rates with Western German culture using material consisting of five basic facial emotions plus contempt, interest, and sympathy, which have rarely been studied in remote cultures. Sixty-two German and 62 Karamojong participants were presented with pictures of eight emotion categories and neutral faces of white and black posers. The results support the hypotheses of better recognition rates in the German (64%) than in the Ugandan (36%) sample. When analysed separately for each a priori emotion, the Germans had significantly higher recognition rates than Karamojong in all emotions except fear and disgust. Relatively acceptable recognition rates in the Karamojong sample were only observed for disgust (63%) and anger (58%). Only disgust met all five universality criteria for accessibility universality. However, the possibility of existential or functional universality remains for the other emotion expressions.