Culture and gender differences in emotional expression

Abstract

Emotions color every aspect of life. Sadness, happiness, contentment, temptation, guilt—these are but a fraction of the wealth of emotions humans are capable of experiencing along the lifespan (Matsumoto, 2001). When viewing emotions in relation to group development and composition, communication of individual emotions has a direct influence upon the group, affecting perceiver acceptance and evaluation, member mood and attitude, and leadership assessment (Heerdink, Van Kleef, Homan & Fischer, 2013). Furthermore, combined with cultural and social functions attached to individual emotions, individuals are usually evaluated based on the receiver’s relative cultural and social-emotional lexicon, which can lead to serious errors in social judgment (Barry & Stewart, 1997; Kelly, 2001). This is mainly due to the differences in cultural transmission of the meanings of emotions in the social environment (Schönpflug, 2009).

For example, a new employee is brought on board at a high-ranking financial firm. The workgroup is very interested to meet their new colleague. The new colleague arrives, and group members begin to exhibit varied emotional reactions to her. The new colleague is very beautiful, tall, African-American, and a Muslim. A few members are already evaluating her position and value in the group due to her gender, ethnicity, and religion, despite the fact that these factors should not be used as proper evaluations of work performance or subject-matter knowledge and skill (Koch, D’Mello & Sackett, 2015). Furthermore, when the unspoken “leader” of the group, a White male, approaches to shake the new colleague’s hand, she does not oblige. However, she smiles broadly and with a calm yet measured tone; she states how wonderful it is meet him and the team and how eager she is to get started. The “leader” shows visible, nonverbal emotional reactions, a furrowed forehead, piercing gaze, and very stiff body stance, showing he is experiencing rejection, offense, and anger due to the woman not shaking his hand (Dimberg & Ohman, 1996). One member is now preoccupied with their phone, where they send out a tweet stating “Affirmative Action at its best! I bet the new hire does not even know how to do this job.”. Another member is staring at the new hire with a horrified look on her face and hurried exits the office (Matsumoto et al., 2008). Another member smiles and eagerly exchanges contact information with the new hire, helps her find her desk, and begins discussing lunch options.

In this example, the group members’ emotions communicated several stories concerning their acceptance or rejection of the new hire, simply by her appearance, due to their own positive and negative moods and biases informed by individual cultural and social meanings and understandings of the information they received (Heeredink, Van Kleef, Homan & Fischer, 2013; Kelly, 2001; Koch, D’Mello & Sackett, 2015; Marsh, Ambady & Kleck, 2005). In society, we have very little time to gather data and thoroughly analyze it for high accuracy and inference. Therefore, heuristics and social judgment play key roles in interpreting emotional communication from the perceiver’s relative cultural and social knowledge (Wolff, Pescosolido & Druskat, 2002). A hand left not shaken is viewed as rude in some cultures and societies. Whereas in other cultures and societies, unrelated or unmarried members of the opposite sex shaking hands is perceived negatively with a negative mood and bias attached to the act’s occurrence. As can be seen, quick decisions made during the numerous social interactions we experience in our daily lives can be positive or negative, correct or incorrect, based upon our cultural and social understanding and meanings of emotions. However, our understandings and meanings can either be right or wrong. Open, unbiased dialogue concerning emotions and their meanings in group development and composition are vital to maintaining group cohesiveness, reliance, member evaluation, and sense of belonging and relativity (Barry & Stewart, 1997; Kwon, Liu & Johnson, 2014). Therefore, by bridging gaps in understanding cultural and societal-based communications of emotion within group settings, members from varied cultural and social backgrounds and memberships can begin to reshape their emotional meanings and understandings of others and improve their interactions with individuals outside their personal cultural and social groups.

In the majority of the societies around the world, boys and girls are socialized differently. They are each infused with a set of behaviors that’s typical for either one of the genders. Many of them go unrecognized. For instance, when boys get older, if they want to check the bottom of their shoe, they will raise their foot in front of them to check, whereas girls will often tend to lift their foot up and look behind them. However, much of that learning comes socially from friends, family, and it is portrayed the same way in the media. These types of interactions give us the basis of gender roles, or the behaviors, personality characteristics, and attitudes expected based on a person’s sex.

Family is known to be one of the biggest influencers when it comes to setting the standard when it comes to what is appropriate between males and females (Best & Williams, 2001). In Islamic society, this training starts from the time a child is young. They learn that the men and women are to be separated and have different duties towards each other when they get older (Read, 2003). They also learn their roles with regards to their different sexes. For instance, boys are taught that men are the protectors and maintainers of women.

Within education, the expectation that started with the family continues. Education tends to be the most important socialization agent right after family in modern societies (Best & Williams, 2001). Between the two agents, children learn how to deal with authority figures and their peers. Likewise, many of the expectations of their roles are set in the educational system, which includes inequalities as part of the social structure. Everything from how children are engaged with regards to class status to activities that are given to boys versus that of girls (Best & Williams, 2001). Boys are typically given activities that involve walking around whereas girls are given activities which involve sitting.

Religion has played a large role as socialization agent. From the religious aspect, many of the expectations has a boy growing up to be a man were defined for me. What was expected of me as a boy growing up around women and even how I should interact with was given a lot of emphasis from when I was little. It is expected that the man behaves a certain way and be the breadwinner of the family. From a religious aspect, men are pushed to work and pursue and education whereas women’s goals were to get married and have a family. As opposed to 20 years ago, this is now slowly changing.

My family also provided different cues for me while growing up as well. My grandmother grew up at a time where gender roles were clearly defined. There were expectations that one had of boys that did not exist for girls. What we inspired to become was different. Boys did not aspire to become nurses for instance. They were pushed to become doctors and girls aspired to become nurses. This was taught to me by my grandmother from early on. I was taught to open doors for women and to treat them differently than what I would other boys.

If I were raised in a different culture, I imagine that many of the gender socialization agents I mentioned would still remain heavy influences. We learn that in different cultures, such as the Chinese and Ethiopian cultures, that boys are still very much favored over girls. As such, they are given more honor and privilege. Even in this society, the wage gap shoes the extent of how much boys are favored over girls (Diekman & Eagly, 2000). I believe this same thing would continue and that as a boy growing up in a different and foreign culture, that the role of women may not be as important as it is in this society.

References

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One of the strategies that I intend to employ is paying attention to the student’s current and past papers. This will allow me to focus on the areas where the student needs help. If I consistently see an issue, such as grammar and usage, I can’t add a note about it within the paper. Some students need repetition. Also, if I see a consistent mistake after I’ve corrected it in previous papers, I’ll take the time to explain why it should be a certain way. There was a professor who did that with me, but the only exception was that I was correct in what I did. After I explained why, he no longer made an issue of it. So, this could work two ways as well. A study may do something within the paper with a particular understanding.

The feedback that I gave the student wasn’t completely negative. There were good parts that I highlighted that I want the student to continue paying attention to. However, there were also areas ripe for improvement. Although the student veered off topic or failed to make her point, she did an excellent job at writing and her writing quality was on par with what is expected of undergraduate level writing. But I must also note that learning outcomes were not demonstrated, which added to points being deducted. I feel the feedback will encourage her in writing but also highlight the shortcomings.