Cultural Determinants of Intergroup Bias in Emotion Recognition

In the present study, we aim to compare the ability to distinguish between different emotions (sadness, happiness, and neutrality) across cultures that are categorized as either more collectivist or more individualist. We will recruit: (1) Belgian adults living in Belgium, (2) Rwandan adults living in Rwanda, (3) adults from Rwandan villages living in Rwanda, and (4) Rwandan adults living in Belgium. We will also use a sample living in rural villages in Rwanda to explore the effect of education on our results. Based on a previous study (Matsumoto, Yoo, & Fontaine, 2008), each face that participants must categorize according to the emotion displayed will be presented against the backdrop of a group of individuals exhibiting a similar (congruent) or dissimilar (incongruent) emotion. Furthermore, in the present study, we will analyze the extent to which culture and congruency of the background influence emotion recognition in people from the same ethnicity compared to those from another ethnicity.