Why do Russians frown or glare in public, reserving their smiles for private affairs? Polish academic researcher Kuba Krys suspects that in corrupt and dangerous countries, smiling is bad for your reputation.
Smiling is a sign of certainty and confidence, so when people in those countries smile, they might seem odd. Why would you smile when fate is an invisible wolf waiting to shred you? You might, in those “low-UA” countries, even be considered stupid for smiling.
Krys also hypothesized that smiling in corrupt countries would be, um, frowned upon. When everyone’s trying to pull one over on each other, you don’t know if someone’s smiling with good intentions, or because they’re trying to trick you.
To test this theory, Krys had thousands of people in 44 different countries judge a series of eight smiling and non-smiling faces on a scale of honesty and intelligence. He compared their answers to the country’s rankings of uncertainty avoidance from a 2004 study of 62 societies and ratings of corruption.
He found that in countries like Germany, Switzerland, China, and Malaysia, smiling faces were rated as significantly more intelligent than non-smiling people. But in Japan, India, Iran, South Korea, and—you guessed it—Russia, the smiling faces were considered significantly less intelligent. Even after controlling for other factors, like the economy, there was a strong correlation between how unpredictable a society was and the likelihood they would consider smiling unintelligent.
In countries such as India, Argentina, and the Maldives, meanwhile, smiling was associated with dishonesty—something Krys found to be correlated to their corruption rankings.
“This research indicates that corruption at the societal level may weaken the meaning of an evolutionary important signal such as smiling,” Krys writes.
H/t Kee Hinckley
Originally shared by Sarah Perry-Shipp
Consider, for NPCs
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/05/culture-and-smiling/483827/
I can't argue with a statistical analysis that controls for other factors and singles out corruption, but I think the root cause might be fatalism. Slavs don't want to taunt fate and "call the devil" as the saying goes, or jinx themselves by boasting, bragging and smiling too...
ReplyDeleteIvanova: Doesn't matter. If we lived 200 years we'd still be human, we'd still make the same mistakes.
ReplyDeleteFranklin: You're a pessimist.
Ivanova: I'm Russian, doctor. We understand these things.
— 1:02 Soul Hunter
Fascinating.
ReplyDeleteAnd not so distant an issue:
I'm convinced that an un-grokked cultural divide is behind others' believing that I'm angry when I'm not at all angry: no sign of upset whatsoever.
2 people here make this 'mistake' sometimes.
I experience this here and only here; I've never experienced it elsewhere.
Yet I think everybody has dead eyes around here; they seem unreal, un-alive; no emotion, no animation, nothing readable on their faces, bodies, they do not react, I've not seen 'gesticulators' or 'emoters'
I do both, at times.
It's common where I come from: the world outside the MRV. Everywhere I've ever been.
This is not reality, here: this is through some mirror darkly. I'm still in culture shock every single day and, today? Feeling like the silence and isolation may finally, irretrievably, indelibly be getting to me.
People here are not as elsewhere; people elsewhere are not as here.
Some cues are subtle, some less so; some inscrutable. I keep asking for a rule book.
No one's talking.
Anger, tho, registers consistently for at least two, and more, if I count a few encounters, humans from here when I swear nothing of the sort is being felt by me. I do not, at these times, have any perception of expressing anger. I feel none. I may be happy, passionate, excited, just had an idea: emotional, but not 1:1
{not: I think happy:they think anger.
It happens a fair amount given the ungodly non-amount of time I spend with any human. My emotions range, but are positive and upbeat when this mis-match occurs: happy to see a living soul; they perceive me, though, as radiating anger [fierce, at times] [or upset]}
In the MRV, I can not tell when others are experiencing any sign of being alive or excited or thrilled or frightened or happy to be alive; I barely detect them reacting to other humans or their environment.
Some seem somewhat more animated with pets, I've observed.
I perceive as sharply as ever "what, how, where, why, when" dogs and other animals experience emotions.
The whole 9 yards comes barreling in: I get them and what they need instantly. I'm confident of this. I have zero problem reading dogs, cats, a few others.
I respond appropriately.
I've no reason to suspect a dog has ever experienced me as angry when I was not angry, here.
Dogs absolutely sense anger and would have registered their response to my 'intense anger' had it in fact ever occurred.
Dogs and cats have not changed; I do not believe I have.
{I have no idea how to tell what a cow is feeling. None. Maybe the babies; the big ones look like they could turn on you on a dime. They play it very close to the vest, cows.
Are these Normal or Abnormal cow sensibilities? No idea. Do not frankly care that much, in truth, either. Shivers. A Moderate Fear of Cows isn't all that uncommon a malady in these har parts, I've learned.}
I really think it's "them": this place.
I used to be, consider myself to be, exceptionally perceptive in this regard.
It's like an entire dimension or sense has just up and Poof!gone away; I'm left sense-deprived and blathering senseless.
My sole, close friend here?
From NYC originally, Raised Jewish, married a doc, did not work full time, went to St. Barth, had long blonde hair, the same stationary I wrote a thank you on, collected Asian art {me Asian antique furniture, some sculpture} and a bully breed puppy.
In other words?
Me, in twenty years.
We were so similar it was crazy.
Both of us: alike one another, different from
Everyone.
Else.
Here.
{Cathy passed away unexpectedly, about two years ago, in her sleep}
ReplyDeleteShe was desperately lonely before I arrived; I honestly did not come to understand this until fairly recently: how isolated one can come to feel; detached.
This cultural divide thing is real.
Easier to see in blocks, perhaps, but it floats around within cultures, too; within borders.
[straight down to the drool and crazy eyes when I finally do lose it altogether? Hmm. I wonder...]
...
{kidding on that last}
:)
...
Fascinating post!
And very much on my mind.
Thank you.
It also casts new light to Mandatory Fun.
ReplyDelete