Are facial expressions of emotion culturally specific, or universal? For decades, the dominant view has been that they are universal, at least when it comes to a set of "basic" emotions: fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, anger, and disgust.
Darwin was an early proponent of the idea that all humans (and indeed other mammals) display emotions in certain ways; his book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals is still a very interesting read.
