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Updated: Jun 21, 2026

Exploring the Use of Isolated Expressions and Film Clips to Evaluate Emotion Recognition by People with Traumatic Brain Injury
Published on: May 15, 2016
Cultural variability in the manifestation of expressed emotion
Steven R López1, Jorge I Ramírez García, Jodie B Ullman
1Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, 3620 S. McClintock, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1061, USA. lopezs@usc.edu
Abstract:
We examined the distribution of expressed emotion (EE) and its indices in a sample of 224 family caregivers of individuals with schizophrenia pooled from 5 studies, 3 reflecting a contemporary sample of Mexican Americans (MA 2000, N = 126), 1 of an earlier study of Mexican Americans (MA 1980, N = 44), and the other of an earlier study of Anglo Americans (AA, N = 54). Chi-square and path analyses revealed no significant differences between the 2 MA samples in rates of high EE, critical comments, hostility, and emotional over-involvement (EOI). Only caregiver warmth differed for the 2 MA samples; MA 1980 had higher warmth than MA 2000. Significant differences were consistently found between the combined MA samples and the AA sample; AAs had higher rates of high EE, more critical comments, less warmth, less EOI, and a high EE profile comprised more of criticism/hostility. We also examined the relationship of proxy measures of acculturation among the MA 2000 sample. The findings support and extend Jenkins' earlier observations regarding the cultural variability of EE for Mexican Americans. Implications are discussed regarding the cross-cultural measurement of EE and the focus of family interventions.
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