February 8, 2022 Week 6 Response to “Emotional Expressivity”

 

                In an audition for a new movie, select actors in the Philippines were given a one-liner to perform but the impact of the message differs depending on how each actor delivered the spiel. The actor who is into comedy sent the message lightly which made the audience or people watching the audition laugh while the actor who is into drama sent the message with heaviness and hit throwback of one’s memory which made them speechless. How compelling that a message can be changed! The one-liner of a script sends a different impact in reference to the difference in the tone of voice, phrasing, the enunciation of words or we can say, the delivery.  The high tendency of misinterpretation in emotional expressivity is mostly to happen especially in cross-cultural differences. It is easy to misinterpret emotions from one culture to another. My new partner in school is a Zimbabwean. Honestly, I like her because she is knowledgeable and hardworking. But even if we started on the right mark and we understand one another. A Zimbabwean and a Filipino have different cultures. Still, it is inevitable that there are times when we express in different ways. Sometimes, I would stop and think why did she laugh on a particular topic which I felt laughing was not appropriate. Or why would she send a laughing emoji when we were settling a parent’s issue on a certain thing which I felt was a bit serious. Maybe on her end, I was also too serious and that I should be at ease in any given circumstances. But we tried our best to communicate and explain our thoughts in order to build a good working relationship.

               Sir John Ivers, a great and brilliant teacher at Brigham Young University discussed the different cultures, different countries, and different expressions of emotions using a scale. He mentioned that the United States is in the middle of the scale because they have so much diversity. While Asians were placed on the left because they were considered with a low tolerance expressivity. The culture does not permit public shows of emotion. Scandinavian countries do not permit a lot of public display of emotion too. The right-most part of the scale includes Hispanics, the Middle East, Italy, and Iran have a high tolerance for emotional expressivity in public. Expressing our emotions in private may be similar but expressing our emotions in public may differ in so many ways because of the culture.  Having misinterpretations can cause a lot of problems. An example of this was the Civil War wherein the North and South did not decide their economic differences besides the slavery issue. They just did not like each other and the deal was off. He also mentioned that Mormons or Latter Saints have lower expressivity than others because we are more group-oriented. Truly, there will be big differences in various cultures. People can evolve in different ways. At times, people who were very shy before manifest their love to their spouses or loved ones later on become more demonstrative or showy because of the influences of other cultures. However. To avoid misinterpretation, we also need to observe people around us. An example is when we travel to different countries, we need to research details about that country before traveling to that country. It is advisable to learn about their culture.  I am not saying that we should not be ourselves or should not preserve our culture but to avoid or prevent conflicts, misunderstandings, and ill-feeling, we should at least try to adjust ourselves. Seek first to understand and be understood. Instead of ending up being regretful and full of anxieties, we should pray and think about what we should do and how to act accordingly. After all, working on our interpersonal skills is important in order to build bridges and not intensify gaps. I know that it is not easy to always exert efforts to understand instead of the judge immediately but let us become people who build instead of break. People who contribute to the betterment of the world, not a contributory factory to destroy it. If we let our pride down and aim to be better people, we will have the power to adjust or change in order to avoid or eradicate misinterpretation. Let us also be truthful when we speak so we can earn respect and trust from others in order to build good relationships regardless of the cultures we grew up with.