An emotion is a conscious, intentional response directed toward an object; is dependent on cultural, biological, and psychological factors; and is observer-dependent—emotions exist only in the minds of individuals. Emotions are both intrapersonal and interpersonal phenomena, are often conveyed behaviorally (e.g., facial expressions, body postures, inflections), and are almost always felt physiologically (e.g., increased heart rate). People around the world experience emotions, and thus how emotions are experienced, expressed, perceived, and regulated varies greatly. Enculturation, or the socialization of a developing human mind to a particular culture context, is the platform from which variation in emotion emerges.

Human neurology can explain some of the cross-cultural similarities in emotional phenomena, including certain physiological and behavioral changes. However, the way that emotions are expressed and understood varies across cultures. Though most people experience similar internal sensations, the way these are categorized and interpreted is shaped by language and social context. This relationship is not one-sided – because behavior, emotion, and culture are interrelated, emotional expression can also influence cultural change or maintenance over time.

There are three main perspectives on how emotions occur. Discrete emotion theory takes a categorical approach, suggesting there is a universal set of distinct, basic emotions that have unique patterns of behavior, experiences, physiological changes, and neural activity. Social constructionist theories suggest emotions are more deeply culturally influenced, shaping our perception and experience of the world according to the language, norms, and values within a given social context. The final perspective takes an integrated approach, exploring the interaction of biology and culture to explain the social influences on the categorization and subjective experience of emotion.

Charles Darwin was among the first to study emotion and culture in his book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, suggesting emotions and their expression are universal and evolutionary. Darwin considered the face to be the primary medium of emotional expression in humans, capable of representing both major emotions and subtle variations within each one. Though he argued facial expressions were universal, gestures were considered culturally specific. Since then, the idea of the seven basic emotions (i.e., happiness, sadness, anger, contempt, fear, disgust, and surprise) has ignited debate about the origins of emotion.

In the early 1960s, Silvan Tomkins' Affect Theory built upon Darwin's research, arguing that facial expressions are biological and universal manifestations of emotions. In 1971, psychologists Paul Ekman and Carroll Izard explored the universality of emotions, creating sets of photographs displaying emotions that were recognizable to Americans. These photographs were recognized as expressing the same feelings by cultures in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and South America. From this, the researchers concluded that facial expressions were universal, innate, and based in evolution.

In addition to pioneering research in psychology, ethnographic accounts of cultural differences in emotion began to emerge. Gregory Bateson, an English anthropologist, used photography and film to document his time with the people of Bajoeng Gede in Bali. He observed cultural differences in Balinese mothers' muted emotional responses to their children's intense emotions, and mother-child displays of love and anger did not follow Western social norms. The fieldwork of anthropologist Jean Briggs details her almost two-year experience living with an Utku Inuit family in her book Never in Anger: Portrait of an Eskimo Family. She described the culture as particularly unique in emotional control – expressions of anger or aggression were rarely observed, and resulted in ostracism.

The term emotive, coined by anthropologist William Reddy, attempts to distinguish societal emotional values and expressions from individual's emotional experience. In The Making of Romantic Love, Reddy argues that romantic love is a 12th-century European construct, built in response to the parochial view that sexual desire was immoral, and was not present in cultures outside of Europe at the time. Reddy suggests that the distinction between sexual passion and love was not present in Heain Japan or the Indian kingdoms of Bengal and Odisha. These cultures did not view sexual desire as a form of appetite, unlike the view popularized by the Christian Church. Sexuality was not spiritually distinct from love: indeed, sex was often used as a medium of spiritual worship, emulating the divine love between Krishna and Radha. Sexual desire and love were inextricable from one another.

Culture guides our understanding, expectations, and interpretations of human emotion and behavior. Cultural expectations of emotion are sometimes referred to as display rules, internalized through a socialization process. The social consequences and valuation of different emotions also vary across cultures. Ekman and Friesen suggest that display rules vary across cultures, genders, or backgrounds, shaping emotional expression accordingly. A cultural syndrome, as defined by Triandis, is a "shared set of beliefs, attitudes, norms, values, and behavior organized around a central theme and found among speakers of one language, in one time period, and in one geographic region". Because culture is a shared experience, there are social implications for emotional expression and experiences that vary between situations and individuals. Hochschild discusses the role of feeling rules, which are social norms that prescribe how people should feel in different situations. These rules can be general (how people should express emotions overall) and also situational (how people should express emotions during specific events).