Cognitive structure of emotion terms in Indonesia and The Netherlands

We investigated the cognitive structure of emotions in Indonesia and The Ne therlands in a series of three studies. Sets of 120 emotion terms were sele cted based on local ratings of prototypicality for "emotion''. With similar ity sortings a three-dimensional (evaluation, arousal, dominance) and a fou r-cluster (positive emotion, sadness, fear, anger) structure was found in e ach group. Of 50 pairs of translation-equivalent terms, 42 pairs were also found to be cognitively equivalent. With these equivalent terms a good fit of a common cognitive emotion structure was demonstrated in both countries. In a fourth and final study, the location of two social emotions, "shame'' and "guilt'', in the common structure was found to be closer to "fear'' an d somewhat further away from "anger'' in Indonesia than in the Netherlands.