How do society and culture influence emotions? Be sure to discuss norms and rules that influence emotions and provide examples to support your points

What will be an ideal response?

Although most people see emotions as an individual response to a situation, culture plays an important role in how emotions are understood and what behaviors are appropriate to display. First, cultures have emotional norms that are societal rules that suggest which emotions are good or bad to experience. For example, in the United States, happiness and love are described as positive emotions, wherein China, happiness (but not love) is described as positive.

Also, feeling rules are implicit guidelines defined by society to determine how one should feel when experiencing specific events. These feeling rules vary by culture. For example, if a person is criticized in the United States, he/she is likely to follow cultural feeling rules resulting in anger or defensiveness, but if a person is criticized in Korea or Japan, he/she is more likely to experience the emotion of shame.

Further, display rules are the guidelines that govern how people should react or display specific behaviors when they experience a given emotion. For example, Russians have tight control over their facial expressions and do not display emotions overtly, whereas Americans have low control over facial expressions and express emotions more openly. Also, men are more likely to hide surprise and fear, while women are more likely to hide disgust, contempt, and anger.