Unmasking Japan

by Matsumoto, David Ricky

• ISBN13: 9780804727198
• ISBN10: 0804727198
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1996-09-01
• Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr

Summary

The last twenty years has seen a growth of interest and fascination with the Japanese, and the emergence of Japan as a world economic power has stimulated many works that have attempted to understand Japanese culture. The focus of this book is not on Japanese culture or society per se: rather, it is on how Japanese culture and society structure, shape, and mold the emotions of the Japanese people. All cultures shape and mold emotions, but the degree to which the Japanese culture shapes emotion has led to several misunderstandings about the emotional life of the Japanese, which this book attempts to correct. Describing the findings of over two decades of research, this book presents the Japanese as human beings with real feelings and emotions rather than as mindless pawns caught in the web of their own culture. In the process, it unmasks many myths that have grown around the subject and reveals important similarities as well as differences between the emotional life of the Japanese and that of people of other cultures.

Author Biography

David Matsumoto is Professor of Psychology at San Francisco State University.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction	p. 1
The Face of Emotion in Japan, I: The Universality of Facial Expressions of Emotion	p. 17
The Face of Emotion in Japan, II: Culture-Specific Aspects and Display Rules	p. 42
Emotions on the Inside: The Subjective Experiences of the Japanese	p. 65
Antecedents and Evaluations of Emotion in Japan	p. 79
Judgments of Emotion in Japan	p. 99
The Concepts and Language of Emotion in Japan	p. 115
Meaningful Dimensions of Cultural Variability in Japan: Improving Our Conceptual Understanding of the Japanese Culture and Its Impact on Emotion	p. 129
Conclusion	p. 152
References Cited	p. 167
Index	p. 177
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