Cross-cultural specificity of perception of affective videos (Russian-Polish correspondences)

Currently, the influence of culture in all areas of human life is undeniable. Culture plays a major role in shaping our perception and expression of emotions. It has been proven that representatives of different cultures can perceive the same phenomena, objects and images as evoking or not evoking emotions. The article focuses on the perception of affective video images by respondents of two closely related cultures - Poles and Russians. The intercultural and gender comparison by the method of psycholinguistic questioning using the scaling technique is used to test the hypothesis that the existing cultural differences between Russians and Poles may have different effects on their perception and evaluation of videos. The evaluation of affective videos by Polish and Russian respondents is compared by the type of stimulus valence (i.e. by the type of its emotional assessment - negative or positive) and the strength of its impact on the emotional state. Twenty fragments of short cartoons from the database of affective stimulus material of Polish researchers were used as stimulus material. The study involved 93 repondents (34 men, 58 women) aged 18 to 60. The analysis has not shown significant cross-cultural differences in the assessments of affective videos in terms of the type of valence and arousal. In general, respondents rated affective videos equally, regardless of cultural localization. There were also no gender differences in the studied parameters. However, the influence of the valence type of an emotional stimulus on the processing of emotional units by representatives of different cultures has been revealed: Russians assessed negative videos higher in terms of the strength of emotional impact, unlike Poles. It is assumed that the kinship of languages and the proximity of cultures cause a similar perception and assessment of emotions.