Japanese and American Infants\u27 Responses to Arm Restraint

Five- and 12-month-old Japanese and American infants participated in a nonpainful arm restraintprocedure. Facial responses were scored with an anatomically based coding system (Baby FACS, anadaptation for infants of Ekman and Friesen\u27s, 1978, Facial Action Coding System, or FACS).Nonfacial body activity (struggling) and negative vocalizations also were scored. Results showedthat older infants\u27 latencies to negative response were shorter than those of younger infants, andolder infants produced proportionately more negative facial behavior. In addition, 5-month-oldAmerican infants produced criterion negative facial expressions more quickly than 5-month-oldJapanese infants. However, infants of both cultures at both ages eventually produced similar facialconfigurations and nonfacial behaviors. These findings support the hypothesis that infants\u27 emotionalfacial expressions are universal