grouped with those for fear, while in
others, the same concept was paired
with more pleasant states, such as
happiness. Through further analysis,
the researchers also found that this
diversity was partially dependent on
the geographical proximity of lan-
guage families—the closer they were,
the more commonalities they were
likely to share. “That suggests the
extent to which cultures were likely
to have historical contact, either via
trade or migration or conquest allowed
these cultures to interact and perhaps
transmit and borrow emotion concepts
from one another,” Lindquist says.
On the other hand, the researchers
also found some underlying similari-
ties. Language families tended to
differentiate emotions based on their
valence (how pleasant or unpleasant
they were) and activation (the level
of excitement they elicited). For
instance, words that expressed joy
were unlikely to be grouped together
with those for regret. There were
exceptions, however: some Austro-
nesian languages paired the concept
of love, a typically positive emotion,
with pity, a typically negative one.
“This is an important study,” says
William Croft, a professor of linguis-
tics at the University of New Mexico,
who was not involved in the work.
“It's probably the first time an analy-
sis of the meanings of words has
been done at this scale.” One of the
novel things about this project is that
the findings show both universal and
culture-specific patterns, Croft adds.
He points out, however, that because
some of these families cover a large
number of languages across a wide
geographical area, it will be important
to further examine the underlying
cultural factors.
Another limitation of the study lies
in the imperfect nature of transla-
tions, says Asifa Majid, a professor
of psychology at the University of
York in England, who penned an
accompanying commentary. This
is especially the case when it comes
to words for emotion, which can be
difficult to express in words—linguists
may only obtain approximate transla-
tions of such terms while document-
ing word lists out in the field. Never-
theless, these findings raise a
fascinating question about cross-
cultural variation in human emotion,
Majid adds. “Where we find variation,
is it only in language, or is it reflecting
something deeper about how people
experience emotions, too?”
—Diana KwonScientists Spot
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