Structure of the Indonesian emotion lexicon

Based on a prototype approach to emotion concepts, two studies were conduct ed: (1) to identify the mental state words that Indonesian speakers are mos t certain name emotions (perasaan hati) and (2) to map the hierarchical and family-resemblance structure of the top 124 emotion concepts. As in an ear lier study of emotion terms in American English (Shaver, Schwartz, Kirson, & O'Connor, 1987), cluster analysis of sorting data collected in Indonesia revealed five basic-level emotion categories: cinta (love), senang (happine ss), marah (anger), kawatir/takut (anxiety/fear), and sedih (sadness). Also in line with the American results, the five basic-level categories formed two large categories at the superordinate level: positive emotions and nega tive emotions. Each of the five basic-level categories contained several su bordinate-level categories, totaling 31 in all. The results suggest that th e emotion lexicons, and corresponding conceptualizations of the emotion dom ain, in Indonesia and the U.S.A. are similar at the superordinate and basic levels but somewhat variable at the subordinate level. This outcome - like other kinds of psychological research on emotions and emotion concepts - s uggests that the gross structure of representations of the emotion domain a re similar worldwide, perhaps for biological reasons, but that different cu ltures make different fine-grained distinctions and emphasize different sub ordinate-level emotion concepts.