Bodily map of emotions in Iranian people

Experienced bodily sensation with basic emotions seems to be a universal phenomenon, but cross-cultural differences are expected.

A cross-sectional study designed to determine the topographic map of changes across six basic emotions  and anxiety in 220 Iranians aged 16 -55 years .The Persian pencil and paper version of the emBODY application was used and validated during the study. The results were analyzed by SPSS software version 20 using generalized linear models (GLM) to determine the relationship between gender and emotion sensation in 5 main body areas and three main facial parts.

The findings supported implicit detection of all basic emotions by participants. Anxiety was the most common reported and anger, fear, sadness, joy, surprise and disgust, respectively were identified basic emotions in both sexes. GLMs were significant (P <0.05) for bodily sensation changes in head and neck, upper body, upper and lower limbs, and all three main facial parts. Results also showed a significant gender difference in lower limbs (P <0.05).

The results suggested the consistency of distinct emotion- triggered bodily sensation maps of Iranians with universal patterns.  Implication of the findings for quantification and documentation of the emotion-related similarities and differences of Iranians with the international communities are discussed.