2/8/19; Week 6: Response to Differences in Emotional Expressivity

Differences in Emotional expressivity

People all over the world feel the same emotions: happiness, sadness, disgust, fear, surprise, anger, pride, shame, embarrassment, and excitement. And they feel a combination of them day by day. In private, we express our emotions in a similar way, facial expressions for strong emotions do not change that much from culture to culture. But what is interesting is that in public, we express our emotions differently and this may vary from one culture to another.

 For example, a study was conducted in a classroom showing a real bloody operation, and researchers observed the students reactions in the classroom. Reactions were expected depending on their cultural tolerance to expressiveness.

People of ethnic groups from high tolerant expressivity culture in the classroom that were viewing that film, they were going, “Ewwww! That is gross! Eww!”

People like Asians in the classroom took a posture with their hands clasped in front of them with   an undaunted face. But when one of them was the only in the room, his facial expressions completely changed and expressed his disgust.

People can control their emotions according to their cultural rules. As Frijda (1986) stated, “people not only have emotions, they also handle them” (p. 401). People regulate how they feel about certain emotional events (control of feeling) and how they behave or respond to emotional events (control of emotional expression). When persons encounter situations where the other communicator controls his/her emotions in a different way than they would predict, misunderstanding occurs.( Fumiyo Araki- Richard L. Wiseman)

In the scale of emotional expressivity we have: On the left side of the scale the low tolerant expressivity culture( Asian, Scandinavian) On the right side of the scale the high tolerant expressivity culture( Hispanic and middle-east Europeans). EEUU is in the middle of the scale.

People from low tolerant expressivity cultures consider that people from high tolerance are more dangerous, less civilized, and less discipline. People from the right side of the scale consider that people from the left side are boring or dull.

As we can see, differences in emotional expressiveness can cause misunderstandings among people. In Argentina, as we have a Hispanic culture and a very tolerant expressiveness, we tend to be enthusiastic when we speak. In every culture, we can also find people with a greater or lesser degree of emotional expressiveness. I must admit that I make many gestures when I speak and can cause some misunderstandings even with people of my own culture. What we need to know is that, in a TESOL class, we will find people from all over the world with their personal way of expressing their feelings and emotions, and as teachers, we have to recognize the existence of these intercultural differences. In the process of getting to know our students, let us be patient and knowledgeable about their cultures, and take care of the way we express ourselves. We are human beings and can adapt and control our emotional expressivity in accordance with cultural norms.

References

1. Emotional Expressions in the United States and Japan , Fumiyo Araki- Richard L. Wiseman,  California State University.

https://web.uri.edu/iaics/files/02-Fumiyo-Araki-Richard-L.-Wiseman.pdf

2. Differences in Emotional Expressivity, John Ivers, Brigham Young University.

 https://video.byui.edu/media/05+Differences+in+Emotional+Expressivity/0_753le546