The Domain of Emotion Words On Ifaluk - Lutz, Catherine (1982)
The Domain of Emotion Words On Ifaluk - Lutz, Catherine (1982)
The Domain of Emotion Words On Ifaluk - Lutz, Catherine (1982)
Internal feeling states have commonly been assumed to be the primary referents of emo-
tion words in Western thought, both social-scientific (Cardiner, Metcalf, and Beebe-Center
1937;Solomon 1976,1978)and lay (Davitz 1969).I n these views, the function of the emo-
tion word i s to label an internal state and perhaps to communicate that state to others. To
an important extent, however, scientific conceptions of emotion and person are rooted in
American ethnopsychological themes (LeVine 1980;Lutz 1981a)and everyday uses of emo-
tion language (Kagan 1978). Examination of the use of emotion words among several
Oceanic peoples, including Samoans (Cerber 1975). Pintupi Aborigines (Myers 1979),and
A’ara speakers of the Solomon Islands (White 1981).reveals an alternative view of emotion.
In these societies, emotion words are seen as statements about the relationship between a
person and an event (particularly those involving another person), rather than as statements
about introspection on one’s internal states. In addition, physiological descriptions of emo-
tion do not frequently occur naturally and in some cases are extremely difficult to elicit
(Cerber 1975:183).
A study of emotion words on the Micronesian atoll of lfaluk indicates that these words
are defined and sorted by informants based on the situations in which the emotion usually
occurs. The way in which people talk about emotion words i s related to broader
ethnotheories about the nature of the self. The world view and values within which emo-
tion words have meaning are therefore emphasized. The clusters and dimensions that
emerge from card sorting by lfalukian informants display both some universal features of
semantic meaning and some culturally specific foci that are related to the central values
and ethnotheories of many Ifaluk. Although the differences between emotion words and
emotions are clear, both cultural differences and universals in the meaning of emotion
words can provide important evidence about the nature of emotion itself (Lutz 1981 b).
The groupings made by informants were analyzed both for structure (which will be ex-
amined first) and for underlying dimensions of meaning. A ”hierarchical clustering” pro-
gram was used that bases its calculations on a similarity matrix consisting of the number of
times each word was paired with each of the others by informants.‘ The criteria used to
combine the similarity measure between each pair of emotion words and each subsequent
cluster were the average measures of similarity between the clusters. The diagram that this
program produced may be conceptualized as the “average sorting” performed by the
lfaluk and i s presented in Figure 1. There are five major clusters in this domain and they will
be interpreted below in view of the explanations that those who did the sorting gave for
their inclusion of words in a single pile.
The most frequent criterion on which informants sorted and defined each emotion word
was situation. Typical explanations for the sorting of several words into the same pile in-
cluded, “If my child dies, I will feel all of them,” or “If there i s gossip about me in the
village, I’ll feel ,- and then I’ll feel -.I’ Two words were grouped together if
(1) the emotions are felt in the same or similar situations, or (2) the emotions may follow
one after the other in a hypothetical sequence of situations. An example that includes both
types of sorting rationale is the following explanation given for one four-word pile:
If someone goes away on a trip, you feel livernarn [longing] and lalornweiu [loneliness/sadness], and
if you had nothing t o give them [as a going away gift] you feel tang [frustration/grief] and filengaw
[incapable/uncomfortable].
Other bases besides situation were sometimes used for sorting explanations, and these will
be noted in the analysis of each cluster which follows.
cluster I: the emotions of good fortune This group of words is separate from all others
at the highest level of branching in Figure 1. These words were rarely sorted with others out-
side of this group. When situations were mentioned as the basis for sorting, they were often
situations in which “good” things happen. Definitions also reveal that all of these emotions
are pleasant ones that occur in the context of good fortune. The reasons that sorters gave
for including them in one pile included the following: “They all involve something happen-
ing that we tipeli [want/desire it]”; “They all mean ker [happiness/excitement]”; and a fre-
quent response, that they all are associated with having a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Many of
the emotions also occur when a person has a valuable object. This cluster includes several
words that are taboo in mixed company, as they refer specifically or especially to emotions
associated with sexual situations. No other cluster contains a taboo word.
In several cases, common behaviors that follow the emotions in this cluster were men-
tioned as one of the bases of sorting. A person i s these states walks about the village, is
talkative, and tends to act in a disruptive, “show-off,” or improper manner. Hence, the
emotions in this cluster are not morally good or the outcome of ethically correct behavior
in a certain situation. Rather, they simply occur in rewarding situations. These rewards are
not conceived of as internal or physiological, and in only one case was the internal state
itself elaborated as a basis of sorting-”You feel like you are great, the number one
person.”
II 8080 (disappointment)
METAGU (fear/onxiety)
RUS (panic /fright /surpr is 8 )
LUGUMET (discomfort/gu ilt)
MA (sharne/emborrassment )
LALOlLEffG (insecurity)
IE GASECHAULA (hate) D-
LIffGERJNGER (irritation)
TlPMCXMUXH (8 hor t- temper )
SONG (justified anger)
cluster 11: the emotions of danger This cluster contains words that all refer to
dangerous situations. Several people said that they linked metagu (fearlanxiety), lugumet
(discomfort/guilt), and ma (shamelembarrassment) because each i s felt when one must go
someplace where respectful behavior i s required. These situations include walking past a
seated group of elders or past one’s brother (if female), walking on the chief’s property, or
when one goes to visit someone but has nothing to give them, especially food. They are
also sorted together because they are felt when one walks up to a group of people. The
danger in the latter situation is due to the expectation that such people “will laugh at you.”
Bobo (disappointment) was most often sorted with rus (panic/fright/surprise) because
they both involve ”something bad happening that you don’t expect.” Metagu (fearlanxiety)
was the word that formed a bridge between rus and bobo, ma and lugumet in many
people’s sortings. It i s important to note that this second cluster was also quite distinct from
any other (see Figure 1).The perception of danger in a situation may be of a higher order of
importance than any other factor besides that of the pleasantness or unpleasantness of the
consequence of a situation.
cluster V the emotions of inability All of the words in this cluster are unified by their
common elicitation in situations where one is unsure about what to do or i s incapable of
doing what seems to be required by the situation. As a whole, this is the least unified of all
the five clusters. Several of the words in this group have strong connections with other
clusters; that is, many people sorted individual words in this cluster with words from other
clusters. Many of those same words were among the last to be sorted by people during the
task itself, as they were obviously less clearly members of any one particular group.
A close relationship is found between komayaya (incapable/indecisive), saumawal (con-
fused), and yeyewal (indecisive/doubtful). Most people said that they belong together
because all involve “not knowing something.” Some mentioned specific situations-most
particularly work situations-where one does not know what to do. The other words in the
cluster were variously sorted with this core group, or members of it, on the basis of situa-
tion. Some examples include the following:
If you are making thread, you can feel waires [worried/conflicted] if you don’t know if you can finish
it [in time]. You feel welingaw [suddenly bad] if you are not able to.
If you don’t like a certain kind of food, you feel both welingaw [suddenly bad] and niyabut
[disgusted] if you have to eat it.
If you are always doing things wrong, you feel saurnawal [confused] and filengaw [incapableluncom-
fortable].
When the teacher puts an assignment on the board at school, you look at it and feel all
three-nguch (sick and tiredlbored], saumawal, and waires.
Although the words in this cluster share the eliciting situation of a work or social obliga-
tion of which one i s unsure, or unable to fulfill properly, there are two subclusters within it,
labeled A and 6 in Figure I . These will be discussed below in reference to variation in
classification.
variation in classification
The five clusters to emerge from the sorting task reflect an “average” cognitive map of
this domain for the lfaluk in the sample. Although there was significant agreement between
individuals about the interrelations and similarities among these words, it is important to
examine in particular those emotion words that were sorted into widely different groups by
different individuals. Those links between words which are not reflected in Figure 1 will be
termed secondary classifications. They are important because they may reflect the use of
different dimensions of meaning of the words (for example, situation versus feeling tone, or
different aspects of a situation) by different individuals in their sorting. Secondary
classifications may also reflect ambivalence or ambiguity (White 1978) about the situations
in which a particular emotion is evoked. These classifications will be examined by cluster
’
s
W
E
W
tW
AGASECHAULA(hate)
-thoother c a u m harm to epo
(theft, poasip,etc.)
-tha othr’shows off’,is
A KER (hoppiness/e~citemcnt)
-ego ptsfoodorgoob
AbACNU (likinq)
-theothr is pkasont,
f
E
friendly
k- aqqmsive -090 dwivss pleawra
fromfoodorgoods
3
A KOYAYAYA (inc~ability/indrcision)
- q o 4 a n not know how to
a
complete lash
AMETAGi Ihor/onaiety)
-thaothris song bgo has mistmhavedl
-IkeOn)eIiso qhwt
-tne dherisuntomilior to 090
WEAK POSITION
subjects. Note that gasechaula (hate) may occur in the same situations that elicit song, but
the former i s more often used between peers, and even here only rarely. This i s reflected in
the place of gasechaula at a midpoint between the strong and the weak position ends of the
vertical dimension.
In a dyadic interaction, the song of one person (usually of higher rank) produces the emo-
tion of rnetagu (fear/anxiety) in the other (usually of lower rank). Metagu and kornayaya (in-
capability/indecisiveness) are felt primarily in situations in which ego has done something
morally wrong or performed incapably. To the right in Figure 3 are two emotions that are
both spatially and situationally orthogonal t o the system of rank that informs the vertical
dimension. Ker (happinesslexcitement) occurs in situations where the other i s neither song
nor rnetagu, but this fact makes ker a somewhat dangerous, “uncontrolled” emotion. Like
gasechaula, gachu (like) is most often used to describe one’s feelings toward peers. Ker and
gasechaula hold extreme positions at the ends of the horizontal dimension, in contrast to
their shared orthogonality to the vertical dimension. As can be seen in Figure 3, ego i s
punished by the situations that elicit gasechaula and i s rewarded by those that elicit ker.
discussion
The lfalukian cognitive organization of the domain of 31 emotion words is based on the
eliciting situation. The five major groupings of emotion words in the hierarchical clustering
analysis were named according t o five basic situation types: good fortune, danger, loss and
connection with others, human error, and overly complex and misunderstood events. The
multidimensional scaling procedure pointed out two major dimensions of emotion words
that were also interpreted in terms of eliciting situation. Those dimensions include the
pleasant or unpleasant nature of the consequences of the situation for ego and the strength
or weakness of ego in relation to the other. Stressed throughout i s the meaningfulness of
the groupings and dimensions for lfalukian individuals. Equally emphasized i s the articula-
tion of the dimensions of meaning with dimensions that are present in lfalukian values and
social institutions. It is these cultural factors that structure and give meaning to the situa-
notes
Acknowledgments. The data on which this paper is based were collected in 1977 and 1978 during 12
months of fieldwork on the atoll of lfaluk in the Western Caroline Islands. The research was supported
by a grant from the National Institute for Mental Health. I am grateful to John Whiting, Beatrice
Whiting, Robert LeVine, Martin Etter, Geoffrey White, the late Michelle Rosaldo, and anonymous A €
reviewers for their constructive comments on drafts of this paper. An earlier version of this paper
received the 1980 Stirling Award in Culture and Personality Studies.
' Further ethnographic description of lfaluk is available in Burrows and Spiro (1953). Burrows
(19631, and Lutz (1980).
* These words were cross-checked with several other informants by asking them to free associate to
a cue word from the list. This process added few words to the list and consisted miinly of terms
already acquired by the other methods mentioned here. It i s certain, however, that there are rarely
used emotion words that were not discovered here.
The sorting task was performed by six females and seven males, of whom all but one were
literate. The sorting of that one individual did not differ significantly from the others and is included in
the analysis. Literacy of at least a minimal sort is nearly universal among islanders under the age of 40.
The task seemed to be easy as well as enjoyable, and most people completed it within a half hour.
' The program used was Cluster Analysis PIM, designed by John Hartigan and described in Dixon
and Brown (1977). An "index of structure" for the domain was computed following the method
presented by Von Glascoe (1979:308).
The two pairings of fago (compassion/love/sadness)and ker (happinesslexcitement)were made by
men with some knowledge of English. On questioning, these men translated fago as "love." The
possibility that some sortings were made on the basis of a translation into English is problematic, but it
may point to important structuring effects of language.
Metagu (fearlanxiety), rus (panic/fright/surprise),and laloileng (insecurity) were sorted together in
several cases. One young man said that he feels all three emotions in relation to the possibility that his
father may fall out of a coconut tree. One person sorted them together because they can be elicited se-
quentially in a situation: laloileng is felt when one does not know what will happen in the future, which
then causes rus; one is then metagu of the thing which has caused one's rus.
' Niyabut (disgust) was kept in the sample despite the statements by several informants that it is "a
bit different" from the other words. This was done in order to allow comparison with "disgust," which
is considered by many to be a universal emotion (Tomkins 1963; Ekman 1974).
The scaling program used was KYST, designed by Kruskal, Young, and Seery (1973).
Note that gachu (like) and chegas (romantic pride), both at the "weak position" side of the second
dimension, refer more than the others in that cluster to interpersonal satisfactions. To "like" or be
"proud" of another may involve an element of weakness vis-his the other.
"The data on which these dimensional analyses have been based vary from coded interview
material and judgments of facial expression through introspection and post hoc theorizing. In any case, they
reflect an important aspect of American (both scientific and lay) cognitive organization of emotion words.
'' One such posited social dimension that relates to the dimension of strength/weakness found in
the present study has been variously but similarly labeled by several individuals "social submission/
condescension" (Frijda and Philipszoon 1963), "feel superior/feel inferior" (Krech and Crutchfield
1965). "competence" (Davitz 19691, and "dominance/submission" (Russell and Mehrabian 1977).