JAPANESE AND AMERICAN INFANTS RESPONSES TO ARM RESTRAINT

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