Talk:Emotions and culture

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This article states opinion as fact and conflicts with other more fundamental data here in Wikipedia. For instance:

Emotions are universal phenomena; however, they are affected by culture.

This is a statement of opinion. No reference for the statement is given and I believe that the work of Ekman, which I believe is generally accepted orthodoxy in the scientific community today, specifically shows otherwise. In addition to this the article itself cites this work:

In the 70’s, the psychologist Paul Ekman showed that despite some idiosyncratic differences, the basic emotions are predominantly biological and thus are universal, expressed and perceived in similar way across all cultures

Despite this the article interprets neutrality by "balancing" substantive, verifiable and peer reviewed research with quasi and contested science fads such as Briggs and Hofstede's work. While Hofstede is extremely popular the research and methodology on which his conclusions rest is, to be polite, questionable. (see: HOFSTEDE'S MODEL OF NATIONAL CULTURAL DIFFERENCES AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES: A TRIUMPH OF FAITH - A FAILURE OF ANALYSIS, Professor Brendan McSweeney, University of Essex, published in Human Relations, Vol. 55, No. 1, [January] 2002, pp. 89-118)

The statement:

There is evidence supporting both of these views on emotions.

Is misleading as Ekman's work addresses the fundamental difficulties exsperienced by social and anthropological approaches to this area. That is why his work is so important. It is science rather that the search for support for belief.

IMHO it is not the demonstration of a NPOV simply to give equal shelf space to Von Danekin and Charles Darwin! The two have to be contextualised and the data and research methodologies underlying their claims, or a summary of the same, must be presented and compared, not with the objective of MAKING them equal but of allowing each to stand or fall on its merits.

LookingGlass 08:12, 26 September 2007 (UTC)