A common held belief is that culture influences emotions in people, i.e. various cultures would have a different set of emotional presentation to stimuli. However standard emotions such as happiness, sadness, fear, surprise and anger are universal, and a stimulus generates the same emotions in people. Thus emotion is in fact a product of biological bases, but if we remember clearly different cultures do respond to different stimuli differently.
In Venezuela, South America, people often greet each other my planting a kiss on the cheek, male or female. Coming from an Indian background, I was startled when I was first greeted in their common held manner. This shows a difference in cultural norms, but this display of respect and emotion was regarded as polite by me, but in front of people from my own culture I had to pretend that it was not okay to greet one another in such manner. Even though both the parties felt respect towards each other, one party had to mask it with another emotion. Therefore even though these common emotions exist across cross culture it doesn't mean that "cultures are identical in their emotional expressions". The theory of display rules plays a key role in explaining this different mode of emotional expression. Display rules are cross-cultural guidelines for how and when to express emotions. Therefore culture doesn't influence emotion itself, but however influences the "overt" expressions. Thus our culture frames us in such a way that we learn to display what emotion at what time. For example: there is a universal held notion that males should not cry, moreover should not cry in public as they are displayed as powerful and emotionally and physically strong human beings. While it's alright for a female to cry because she is portrayed as a fragile and emotional human being. This notion is quiet common among various cultures, and therefore even though males might be emotional while hearing the news of the death of a close family member, or touched by a sensitive action of his child, he is less likely to display this emotion.
So coming down to common questions, is it healthy to pent up good or bad emotions and not display them? Does culture truly integrate in our mode of expression? And if so, differing from our culture on the basis of emotional expression might lead us to become an outcast? Can it be a cause of misunderstanding between people, as not displaying of a certain emotion can be taken as not feeling it? Most certainly emotions seem to be complicated.
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