![[A collage of schematic drawings embedded in human heads representing various objects that can evoke different emotions, such as an alarm light, smiley sun, bomb, raining cloud.]](https://blogs.iu.edu/sciu/files/2023/03/feature-image.jpg)
Have you ever had times when you meant to provide others with constructive criticism but ended up hurting their feelings, or other times when your heart sank after hearing others’ well-intentioned remarks? As a Chinese student wading through the American waters of unfamiliar emotions and sensitivities, this happens all too often in my daily life….
Tag: emotion
Putting it into context: How psychology has shaped our knowledge of universal emotions
![[Yellow painted eggs with various facial expressions.]](https://blogs.iu.edu/sciu/files/2021/06/pexels-roman-odintsov-6898861.jpg)
What are common emotions experienced in your culture? In the United States, happiness, anger, sadness, and fear are considered common emotions. The traditional theory of emotion assumes emotions are universally recognized by all humans. This theory dominates pop culture, with movies like Pixar’s Inside Out, which features characters personifying five emotions that coordinate our every action, and items like Amazon’s Halo Watch, which claims to detect emotions based on tone of voice. Yet, it is not possible to determine what emotion someone is experiencing based only on their face or tone of voice. Instead, our brain makes a prediction that is influenced by past experience, the current context, and interoceptive signals from our body (e.g., heart and breathing rate, hunger cues) from a culture-specific perspective…