Background

Every culture has their own cultural norms that would affect how the people should express, perceive, and experience their emotions to fit a particular social situation appropriately. These cultural norms related to expression of emotions, known as emotional display rules, have been passed down from generation to generation through socialization. The Javanese hold and adhere to the principle of social harmony (rukun) in living their lives, so from an early age they are always taught by their elders to be polite and courteous as a form of respectful behavior. Besides that, the Javanese have basic social values which are wedi, isin, and sungkan. If the Javanese can apply all of these appropriately, they will be considered as "mature" by the Javanese themselves. But along with the times, Javanese may no longer live in their original place through urbanization and globalization also makes it easier for them to be exposed with other culture. Because of these reasons, traditional values seem to fade away. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the emotional display rules for the Javanese in this time being. So that we can see the difference between them and their ancestors in applying these rules. The corresponding research question is: How are the emotional display rules for the Javanese today?

Methods

Qualitative method was used to answer the research question. The main research instrument in this study was a survey which participated by 115 Javanese (82 females and 33 males; M = 20.85 year old, SD = 7.94). Participants mostly lived in Bandung, Bekasi, Jakarta, and Cirebon. To increase homogeneity of participants, only Javanese people with both parents are Javanese as well were included in the sample. The final sample size in this research was 54 participants (41 females and 13 males; M = 22.33 years, SD = 10.20). Data obtained from this survey were in the form of emotional words written by the participants. The analysis was performed by thematic analysis with a deductive approach based on Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions. Finally, the data analysis was processed using QDA Miner Lite.

Results

Joy was the emotion that the participants most often felt, followed by sadness, anger, fear, anticipation, submission, remorse, love, disgust, optimism, surprise, trust, and aggressiveness. Joy was also the most expressed emotion, followed by anger. On the other hand, sadness was the least expressed emotion, followed by fear. The results also show that sungkan (coded as trust) was more likely to be expressed, while wedi (coded as fear) and isin (coded as remorse) were the opposite.

Conclusions

The results of this study indicate that the Javanese today still practice the basic social values taught by their ancestors in order to live in harmony (rukun). Therefore, joy is the most expressed emotion by the Javanese. Although sadness occupies the second position as the most commonly felt emotion, the results also show that it is the least expressed emotion. This study also shown that anger is the second most expressed emotion by the Javanese which contradicts the principle of social harmony. Therefore, this could mean that the Javanese are now feeling freer to express their anger.

Added-Values

Obedience, generosity, avoidance of conflict, understanding others, and empathy are the social values for the Javanese to live by the principle of social harmony (rukun). Hence, positive emotions are more internalized and naturally most expressed by the Javanese. On the contrary, negative emotions are considered disrupting social harmony and became least expressed by the Javanese. As for the basic social values of the Javanese, sungkan (respectful politeness) is more likely to be expressed. It is a higher form of wedi (afraid) and isin (shame), which means that if the Javanese can express sungkan properly then it is most likely to also express wedi and isin properly.

Keywords: emotional display rules; culture; social values; Javanese