suppose walking into a hotel lobby in a strange country . You ’re tired from a prospicient journey , but you do n’t have a elbow room reserved . The hotel looks interfering , but you ’re hopeful there ’s a room available . Before approaching the clerk at the desk , you break off to study her face , trying to assess her level of friendliness andhappiness . She looks pleasant , so you resolve to come near , but first you take care to put on a smile , hope to be perceived as favorable and agreeable .
read facial expression is a usual substance of interpreting what people are thinking or feeling , particularly across alanguagebarrier . But is the ability to determine meaning from facial expression uniform across cultures ?
This question has been on our thinker for C of years . In his 1872 leger " The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals,“Darwin claim that a specific lot of facial expressions he hit the books were worldwide among cultures . This imply that he interpret them to have the same meaning in every culture he study [ source : Eckman ] .
In the late 1960s , researchers Silvan Tomkins , Paul Ekman and Carroll Izard undertake additional research that further refined Darwin ’s original title . The scientists showed exposure of assorted facial expressions and emotions – including anger , sadness , disgust and happiness – to people of both literate and preliterate cultures from across the globe . They again conclude in favor of cross - cultural accord ; the facial expressions were translate identically despite the viewer ’s cultural root [ source : Eckman ] . Since then , there have been more than 30 different studies showing universal recognition of facial emotions across cultures [ source : Matumoto ] .
On the other hand , while the basic rendition of an expression may hold genuine across cultures , learned behavior form do strike the agency people translate facial manifestation other than . For model , a smile is universally interpreted as an indicant of happiness , friendliness and goodwill . But the manner it ’s used among culture can have a bun in the oven different substance . Some cultures perceive that Americans expend their grin too promptly , farm interrogation of insincerity . Northern Europeans can be earmark with their smiles , offering them with much more discretion . And in some Asian acculturation , a grinning can be used to overcome an uncomfortable or anxiety - inducing situation , which , to other finish , may seem inappropriate [ germ : The Diversity Council ] .
Eye contact also comes into play . Among Americans , maintaining eye contact while tattle is expected . When someone avoids eye contact , they may be perceive as rude or dishonest . However , among Latinos , forefend direct eye tangency can be interpret as a sign of respect . In the Asian culture , a conversation may begin with abbreviated eye inter-group communication , though it ’s expected that the player may not hold the regard [ source : The Diversity Council ] .
communicate across a language barrier can be unmanageable , but remembering that people draw conclusions based on facial expression can help . So next time you find yourself aweary and in a foreign hotel vestibule , take a here and now to call up about your facial grammatical construction : a relaxed face and patrician grinning may get you a beneficial nighttime ’s sleep .
