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Nonverbal Dialects and Accents in Facial Expressions of Emotion

Hillary Anger Elfenbein
Emotion Review 2013 5: 90
DOI: 10.1177/1754073912451332
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451332

EMR5110.1177/1754073912451332ElfenbeinEmotion Review

2013

Nonverbal Dialects and Accents in Facial Expressions

of Emotion

Emotion Review
Vol. 5, No. 1 (January 2013) 9096
The Author(s) 2013
ISSN 1754-0739
DOI: 10.1177/1754073912451332
er.sagepub.com

Hillary Anger Elfenbein

Olin School of Business, Washington University in St. Louis, USA

Abstract
This article focuses on a theoretical account integrating classic and recent findings on the communication of emotions across
cultures: a dialect theory of emotion. Dialect theory uses a linguistic metaphor to argue emotion is a universal language with
subtly different dialects. As in verbal language, it is more challenging to understand someone speaking a different dialectwhich
fits with empirical support for an in-group advantage, whereby individuals are more accurate judging emotional expressions from
their own cultural group versus foreign groups. Dialect theory has sparked controversy with its implications for dominant theories
about cross-cultural differences in emotion. This article reviews the theory, its mounting body of evidence, evidence for alternative
accounts, and practical implications for multicultural societies.

Keywords
emotion, expression, facial expression, nonverbal accents, nonverbal dialects, perception, recognition

Introductory psychology textbooks tell the story of Ekman

(1972) and Izard (1971), who took black-and-white photographs of American facial expressions on round-the-world tours
with the goal of demonstrating that emotions are universal.
Many disparate observations have been made of these data. The
first, from the original researchers, was that participants choosing among six multiple choices achieved far better performance
than the 16.7% expected by chancewhich demonstrates basic
universality. The second, to be discussed later, was that some
cultures did better than others (Matsumoto, 1989). The third
observation is that the best performers were from the nation
where the photographs originated, followed by those most culturally similar. This is the key observation behind dialect theory.
As early as 1964, Tomkins and McCarter articulated the
metaphor that cultural differences in emotional expression are
like dialects of the more universal grammar of emotion
(p. 127). Dialect theory takes seriously this linguistic metaphor
for communicating emotion through nonverbal cues, just as
dialects of a language can differ subtly in accent, grammar,
and vocabularyfor example, consider American versus
British English. As in verbal language, it is more challenging to

understand someone speaking a different dialect. To be sure,

the dialects of a language are still mutually intelligible, but one
must listen more carefully, and some of the meaning can get
lost along the way.
It is important to distinguish the two interconnected processes within dialect theory: First, members of different cultural
groups have different styles of generating nonverbal cues,
which are systematic even if subtle. This process is also called
expression, although that term implies intentionality whereas
one can also generate cues without trying. Second, individuals
tend to judge other peoples cues based on their own cultural
style. This judgment process is also called recognition, although
likewise this term implies intentionality yet can also be implicit.
Dialect theory argues that accuracy breaks down through
mirror-image cultural differences on both sides of the process.
Ultimately, communication accuracy suffers to the extent that
there is a mismatch between the style of display produced and
the style expected by the perceiver (see Brunswicks [1955] lens
model). Even the term communication can be preemptive in that
it implies a conscious goalnote that dialect theory is intended
to describe both deliberate and spontaneous processes although,

Author note: I thank James Russell, longtime collaborators (alphabetically) Nalini Ambady, Martin Beaupr, Dana Carney, Ursula Hess, Petri Laukka, Manas Mandal, and Abby
Marsh, and US NSF BCS-0617634.
Corresponding author: Hillary Anger Elfenbein, Washington University in St. Louis, Olin School of Business, 1 Brookings Drive, Saint Louis, MO 63130, USA.
Email: hillary@post.harvard.edu

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Elfenbein Nonverbal Dialects and Accents 91

as discussed later, the vast majority of existing evidence tests

posed expressions.
In keeping with the distinction between expression and
recognition, dialect theory distinguishes between nonverbal
accents and dialects. Nonverbal accents are any difference
across cultures in the appearance of an emotional expression.
Nonverbal dialects are a subset of these accentsnamely, the
accents that also impede accurate recognition. In the linguistic
metaphor, typically an accent is noticeable yet unchallenging,
whereas a difference in dialect can create difficulty in understanding another persons speech. Also consistent with the
linguistic metaphor, one can speculate that the distinction
between dialect and accent may become fluid in the face of
cultural contact. It is possible that large differences in cues
could remain merely accents if individuals are familiar through
cross-group contact, yet, among less acquainted groups, even
small differences could create difficulty.

Display and Decoding Rules

In contrast with dialect theory, the most prominent alternative
accounts for cultural differences in emotional expression and
recognition focus on deception. Starting with the expression
process, in the dialect model culturally specific cues can still
appear even while trying to be as clear as possible. By contrast,
Klineberg (1938) and Ekmans (1972) concept of display rules
focuses on deliberately deceptive emotion regulation among
individuals from cultures that emphasize social harmony.
Ekman (1972) defined display rules as conscious management
techniques to deintensify, intensify, neutralize, and mask displays with qualitatively different displays, and argued that
members of each culture would express their emotions in
exactly the same way if some groups were not constantly monitoring themselves and adjusting their displays to fit social
norms. Ekman grounded this discussion in a summary of
Friesens unpublished dissertation (described in Ekman, 1972),
in which Japanese participants purportedly masked their facial
displays in the presence of an observer, while American participants did not. Although these findings have been controversial
due to incomplete reporting, including an additional experimental condition not mentioned in Ekmans summary (Fridlund,
1994), this notion has been a powerful idea within cross-cultural
research in emotion. By contrast, the dialect theory argues that
no such deliberate deception is required to produce cultural
differences in emotional expression style.
Likewise, in the recognition side of the process, individuals
can stumble over roadblocks in judging others emotions even
while trying to be as perceptive as possible. By contrast,
Matsumotos (1989) extension of display rules, known as
decoding rules, focuses on deliberately deceptive regulation. In
attempting to explain the cultural differences in Ekmans (1972)
and Izards (1971) studies, he argued that Americans are simply
more effective at recognizing emotions because Americans do
not suppress their true understanding of emotional displays out
of concern for group harmony. By contrast, according to dialect
theory, cultural differences in recognition can still emerge when

people are trying to be as perceptive as possible. No one needs

to deliberately ignore others emotions, but instead they can
stumble over differences in the styles of expressions from cultural
out-groups.
To be sure, differences in dialects can exist alongside the
deliberate emotion regulation strategies represented by display
and decoding rules. The reason why these have often been considered in opposition is the inaccurate claim that display and
decoding rules alone can explain the body of findings on cultural differences in emotion recognition (Matsumoto, 2002). As
we see in the following sections, they cannotif not dialect
theory, something else is necessary to close the gap.

Empirical Evidence
Initial evidence for dialect theory comes from the in-group
advantage, whereby individuals are more accurate when judging emotional expressions from their own cultural group versus
foreign cultural groups. We demonstrated this in a meta-analysis
across 182 independent samples in 87 articles, with the majority
of studies examining facial expressions (Elfenbein & Ambady,
2002b). Many samples came from the very same classic articles
that were intended to demonstrate universality, but many others
were unintentionally cross-cultural, with investigators borrowing research protocols from international colleagues without
hypotheses about the cultural differences that might result.
Interestingly, in-group advantage did not differ significantly
across research team, nor did it vary along methodological lines
(which frequently coincided with research teams). Issues of language could not explain away in-group advantage, because it
existed across cultural groups sharing the same native language.
Issues of racial bias could not explain away in-group advantage
either, because it existed among all-Caucasian groups. Indeed,
the only significant moderator was cross-cultural exposure
that is, in-group advantage was smaller when judging more
familiar cultural groups.
The earliest research establishing accents used a different
design that was particularly stringent (Marsh, Elfenbein, &
Ambady, 2003). While conducting the meta-analysis, I noticed
that the brochure for Matsumoto and Ekmans (1988) collection
of Japanese and Caucasian facial expressions included a combination of Japanese and Japanese Americans. In every other way,
these stimuli were perfectly controlledthe same lighting,
clothing, and so forth. Indeed, the developers instructed participants exactly how to move their facial muscles, so that the
resulting expressions should have been the same in every way
other than the apparent ethnicity of the face. Even so, collaborator Abby Marsh and I found informally that we could tell the
Japanese apart from the Japanese Americans and, in the resulting experiment, participants could too. Participants were no
more accurate than chance when attempting to distinguish the
nationality of neutral photographs taken of the same actors
which rules out nuisance explanations such as hair style or the
possible effects on facial appearance of diet, climate, and so on.
However, when these same targets attempted to pose emotional
expressions, their nationality became visible to participants.

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92 Emotion Review Vol. 5 No. 1

We interpreted this as strong support for nonverbal accents

that is, even in a set of facial expressions for which researchers
attempted to dampen every possible cultural difference in
appearance, these cultural differences still leaked through. Note
that these accents were not dialects, because recognition was
not impaired.
In the decade since the initial research, evidence has been
mounting and increasingly direct for the dialect theory. First, my
colleagues and I linked the in-group advantage directly to differences in the appearance of expressions using a novel methodology (Elfenbein, Mandal, Ambady, Harizuka, & Kumar, 2004).
We created composite facial expressions based on the left and
right hemispheres of a facethat is, taking one photograph and
turning it into two pictures, one that showed the left side twice
and one that showed the right side twice. In-group advantage
was greater when participants judged the left hemisphere, which
is more intense and mobile, compared with the right hemisphere,
which is more prototypical. Expression style was the only plausible explanation, given the within-subjects design for both posers and judges. Even more directly, in a study with Qubcois
and Gabonese participants (Elfenbein, Beaupr, Lvesque, &
Hess, 2007), we documented accents by identifying specific
muscle movementsthat is, action units (AUs)that varied
across the groups posed facial expressions, as seen in Figure 1.
Further, greater cultural differences in judgment accuracy were
found for the emotions that had greater cultural differences in
expression style. This strongly supports dialect theory.
Evidence has also been mounting in work conducted by
other labs. This evidence uses facial expressions and other nonverbal channels such as the voice and body language, for which
the core tenets of dialect theory are similarly hypothesized.
Balanced 2 2 designs showed in-group advantage among
Americans and Japanese viewing facial expressions (Dailey
et al., 2010), Americans and Namibian villagers judging non
linguistic vocalizations (Sauter, Eisner, Ekman, & Scott, 2010)
and European and Asian Americans viewing full-channel videos
of spontaneous emotions (Kang & Lau, 2012). Other studies
showed in-group advantage for African students in the Unites
States (US) judging facial expressions and vocal tones
(Wickline, Bailey, & Nowicki, 2009), English, German, Arabic,
and Spanish speakers judging nonsense syllables from Spain
(Pell, Monetta, Paulmann, & Kotz, 2009), speakers of English,
German, Chinese, Japanese, and Tagalog judging voices from
the US (Thompson & Balkwill, 2006), and Japanese, Sri
Lankans, and Americans judging Japanese postures (Kleinsmith,
De Silva, & Bianchi-Berthouze, 2006).
Some articles have provided intriguing evidence for the
basic propositions of dialect theory, namely that the lower recognition of out-groups emotions results from subtle differences
in expression style. Kleinsmith et al. (2006) found that perceivers judging static postures in Japan, Sri Lanka, and the US used
different cues. Dailey et al. (2010) modeled the conditions that
reproduce in-group advantage using a neural network that imitated the receptive fields in the visual cortex that learn how to
represent objects visually. When trained with sample stimuli
that were culturally normative for the US versus Japan, the neural network developed slightly different visual representations.

Finally, some articles have made applied use of insights from

dialect theory. Previous findings that there is greater emotional
impairment for African American versus Caucasian schizophrenics no longer held when using stimuli from both ethnic
groups (Pinkham et al., 2008).
As mentioned earlier, the majority of this work uses posed
expressions, leading some critics to speculate that in-group
advantage exists only for poses (Matsumoto, Olide, &
Willingham, 2009). Two notable exceptions demonstrated ingroup advantage for judging spontaneous full-channel videos
(Kang & Lau, 2012) and spontaneous anxiety during interracial
interactions (Gray, Mendes, & Denny-Brown, 2008). As mentioned earlier, Elfenbein et al. (2004) found greater dialects in
the more spontaneous versus posed side of the face. Work-inprogress with Ursula Hess demonstrates that dialects emerge
similarly under cognitive load versus control conditions, with
the assumption that cognitive load increases spontaneity by
limiting cognitive resources for effortful control.

Critical Accounts
The in-group advantage and resulting dialect theory sparked
controversy with its implications for dominant theories about
cross-cultural differences in emotion, namely display and decoding rules. Evidence for in-group advantage could not be explained
by these factors alonethat is, participants suppressing their
displays and perceptions, respectively, for the sake of harmony.
Notably, Japanese participants bested Americans when the tasks
originated in Japan (Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002b).
Matsumoto (2002) wrote a commentary on this work, in
which he asserted a set of methodological requirements that
he would require before believing the evidence. Two of these
balanced designs and equally clear signalswere included in the
original analysis or controlled for, respectively (Elfenbein &
Ambady, 2002a). However, Matsumotos last purportedly methodological concern was actually a difference in perspective that
gets to the heart of dialect theory. He argued that in-group advantage would disappear if members of each culture expressed their
emotions in precisely the same wayin the case of facial
expressions, moving precisely the same muscles in the same
combinations. This is a matter of violent agreement. In keeping
with dialect theory, if there are no differences in the style of
emotional expression, then there should be no in-group advantage. If British people spoke in exactly the same manner as
Americans, then there would be no linguistic misunderstanding. Accordingly, we referred to Matsumotos recommendation
as a cultural eraser (Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002a, p. 244). It
is an oxymoron to require all cross-cultural studies first to pass
their stimuli through a filter designed to erase all cross-cultural
differences.
Consistent with the notion that forcing stimuli to have
exactly the same appearance is a cultural eraser, numerous
researchers have replicated the lack of in-group advantage
under these conditions (Beaupr & Hess, 2005, 2006; Kang &
Lau, 2012; Lee, Chiu, & Chan, 2005; Matsumoto et al., 2009;
Tracy & Robins, 2008). Indeed, Elfenbein et al. (2007) replicated this in a separate condition using culturally erased stimuli

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Elfenbein Nonverbal Dialects and Accents 93

Figure 1. Facial expression dialects from Qubec and Gabon in Elfenbein, Beaupr, Lvesque, and Hess (2007).

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94 Emotion Review Vol. 5 No. 1

alongside dialect stimuli. Even so, some researchers do find ingroup accuracy using culturally erased stimuliemploying real
cultural groups (van der Schalk, Hawk, Fischer, & Doosje,
2011), minimal groups (Young & Hugenberg, 2010), and false
feedback about group membership (Thibault, Bourgeois, &
Hess, 2006). I speculate this phenomenon is a matter of outgroup bias rather than sincere failure of comprehension, or a
complex interaction between the two.

A Theoretical Account of Origins: Taking the

Linguistic Metaphor Seriously
Whereas Kurt Lewin argued that there is nothing so practical
as a good theory (1951, p. 169), in the present case, there has
been nothing so theoretical as hard data. The dominant models
of cultural differences in emotion have been subjected to relatively minimal testing and, by contrast, dialect theory arose primarily from an attempt to explain within a single framework the
diverse body of evidence. It has been important to distinguish
theoretical perspectives from each other by way of competing
predictions rather than mere argumentation. However, now that
the empirical base is fillingeven if by no means completely
it is time to develop a deeper theoretical account for the origin
and meaning of accents and dialects.
Crafting this theoretical account forces us to wrestle with the
question of origin: Why should cultures have accents and dialects in their nonverbal communication of emotion? In attempting to answer this question, we benefit from taking the linguistic
metaphor seriously, and drawing from the base of knowledge in
linguistics that asks: Why does verbal language have accents
and dialects? Scholars argue that spoken language continually
evolves, and that it tends to diverge across groups of people who
are separated by geographic or social boundaries (OGrady,
Archibald, Aronoff, & Rees-Miller, 2001). With smaller separation these accents are noticeable yet harmless. With increasing
separationthat is, social stratificationthese dialects create
challenges to comprehension that can largely be overcome.
With greater separation still, distinct languages emerge that
cannot be mutually understood.
As such, the concept of social stratification looms large.
However, what are the underlying psychological mechanisms
that result from the sociological construct of stratification? It
is worth theorizing about two distinct processes likely to act
separately and in tandem. First, some changes in verbaland
presumably nonverballanguage occur merely through random drift. Particularly in the absence of formal records, passing down language from one generation to the next has
evolution through no deliberate effort. Ordinary change
involves constant mutations and even errors, such as an
apkin becoming a napkin, or a napron becoming an
apron (Palmer, 1882). In linguistic drift, social stratification
does not create dialects directly, but rather indirectly when
these drifts become shared among some speakers but not others (OGrady et al., 2001). By contrast, in the second psychological mechanism, some changes occur through motivated

processes of asserting a distinct social identity. For example,

jargon and slang can create a marker or even deliberate barrier
that defines group membership.
It is worth noting that the exact form of an accent does not
necessarily need a functional goal. For example, there may be
no reason why Bostonians drop the retroflex r at the end of a
word instead of the dental t. This may or may not be the case for
nonverbal accents. Recent work shows that perceivers from
Eastern versus Western groups tend to focus more on the eyes
than the mouth, perhaps because the eyes provide greater diagnostic cues to hidden meaning (Yuki, Maddux, & Masuda,
2007). Likewise, internal representations show greater consensus in East Asian perceivers for eye-related cues versus
Westerners for mouth and eyebrow-related cues (Jack, Blais,
Scheeepers, Schyns, & Caldara, 2009).

What Does the Linguistic Metaphor Buy Us?

Theorists grappling with culture and emotion benefit from
taking the linguistic metaphor seriously for several reasons.
Importantly, it allows work to proceed without resolving the
question of whether emotions are universal. Clearly the
existence of dialects does not deny the possibility of a universal languageindeed, nonverbal dialects should be
expected, given that every verbal language with geographic
range has regional variations (OGrady et al., 2001).
However, neither does the existence of dialects speak in
favor of universality. The basic similarity that one sees in
emotional expression style across cultures may result from a
biologically based affect program, as posited by Ekmans
(1972) neurocultural theory. However, alternatively it could
result from convergent evolution, whereby similar concerns
and selection pressures led to similar solutionsfor example, the penguin and puffin birds, which came to look alike
but are related only distantly. In linguistic terms, most languages use m in the word for mother, presumably because
labial sounds are the first consonants babies develop.
Likewise, disgust may appear similarly because it adapted
from crinkling ones nose in response to strong smells.
Modern evolutionary accounts emphasize individuals adaptation and the potential functions of emotional expressions,
beyond leftover vestiges that read out our internal states
(Owren & Rendall, 2001).
Other benefits of the linguistic metaphor include the ability to
borrow theories from the allied social science of linguistics.
Further, the linguistic metaphor emphasizes that cultural differences in the expression and perception of emotion are mirrorimage processes, so that unlocking the nature of one allows us
also to unlock the other. By contrast, the theories of display and
decoding rules were developed separately and these rules do not
necessarily correspond to each other. Finally, the linguistic meta
phor emphasizes the potential for automaticity in cultural differences in emotional expression and recognition. Whereas display
rules and decoding rules are a matter of conscious management
techniques, as discussed earlier, no such tactics are required by

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Elfenbein Nonverbal Dialects and Accents 95

dialect theory. After all, Americans do not adjust their speech

with each utterance to avoid sounding British.
However, the value of the linguistic metaphor is not to imply
that it must become a new set of handcuffs. Indeed, there may
be explanations for in-group advantage that do not necessarily
follow linguistic principles. For example, an appraisal view of
nonverbal dialects has the potential to preserve the notion that
people across cultures have a universal mapping from their
internal feeling states to their outward displays. The idea here is
that emotions exist within broader familiessuch as irritation,
rage, and angerand cultures may differ in their modal experience within these emotion families. If there is a one-to-one mapping from experiences to the appearance of facial expressions,
then this difference in modal experience could lead to dialects
that are better recognized by in-group members (Hess &
Thibault, 2009). This account appears to have promising preliminary evidence (Hess, Thibault, Lvesque, & Elfenbein,
2008), but a great deal more empirical support would be necessary. Whatever the account for in-group advantage, it needs to
be capable of explaining the large body of existing findings
which display and decoding rules alone do not.
Another area for further theoretical development is to reconcile the notion of in-group advantage with the three distinct
functions for emotional expressions posited by Bhlers
(1934/1990) Organon model (Scherer, 1988). There has been
increasing scrutiny of the idea that faces directly express internal feelings, and even Darwin himself argued that the term
expression may be preemptive (Parkinson, 2005). First, the
push function in the Organon modelnamely that expressions are symptoms of internal stateshas received the most
attention, and is at least implicitly the focus of most research
reviewed earlier. Second, the pull functionnamely that
expressions are used as signals to produce a reaction in others
(see also Fridlund, 1994; Owren & Rendall, 2001)has received
relatively less empirical attention. Third, the symbolic functionnamely that expressions represent objects or events, similar to linguistic expressionshas been studied the least of all.
These different functions are not mutually exclusive and can
even reinforce each other over time, as simple reflexes that produce reliable signals can become used deliberately (Russell,
Bachorowski, & Fernndez-Dols, 2003). It is worth speculating
that in-group advantage is greatest when emotional expressions
serve the second and third functions, which correspond more
naturally to the linguistic metaphor for interpersonal communication. In this case, universals may be better preserved in
expressions serving push functions, even if the empirical evidence still suggests there is in-group advantage in spontaneous
or semi-spontaneous settings.

Bridging the Gap

Despite the somewhat gloomy finding of a cross-cultural barrier
in communicating emotions, there are also reassuring data that
this barrier can be overcome. Similar to linguistic dialects, ingroup advantage is lower across cultural groups enjoying greater
physical proximity or cross-group communication (Elfenbein &

Ambady, 2002b). Also like linguistic dialects, individuals learn

from exposure to a new host culture (Elfenbein & Ambady,
2003). Indeed, in-group advantage in recognizing facial expressions appeared to disappear in as little as 10 minutes of practice
with feedback (Elfenbein, 2006). As such, dialect theory
provides guidance for overcoming cross-cultural challenges.
Because in-group advantage results from familiarity with culturally specific elements of nonverbal expression, training and
intervention programs can increase familiarity with these elements, thus eliminating in-group advantage. Such training is
already starting to take place, for example in work commissioned by the US Army Research Institute for soldiers going
overseas. By contrast, if in-group advantage resulted solely
from motivation or biasrather than knowledge and informationthe phenomenon would be harder to correct. As such,
these findings suggest optimism for our increasingly global and
multicultural societies.

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