I wonder if anyone has used slavic populations to try to reproduce Paul Ekman's research, where Ekman tried to establish the universality of the use of smiles worldwide.
Why Russians Are Not Smiling (2011)
81–90 of 235 posts
Re: Why Russians Are Not Smiling (2011)
#82I can relate to the behaviour described in the article.
A smile is a signal, as is a frown. If you center your origin in the middle of the scale, you can use a smile to signal positive things and a frown to signal negative things. If you smile a lot you will move the origin: you're "always" smiling so what do you do when you're really happy? Or if you're always frowning what do you do when you're pissed off for real?
If the default signal is neutral, it's easy to give a little smile or a little frown and have that convey a lot of meaning, conscious or subconscious. And you still have reserves for the truly earth-shattering moments.
I'm not very qualified to comment on Americans but they do talk a lot. For what I've observed they seem to smile and then express with words such things that maybe someone from another culture could express with a slight change in his facial expression.
Re: Why Russians Are Not Smiling (2011)
#83Relevant: The grumpy Russian traveler http://imgur.com/a/4ix4I
There is some backstory to these pictures. At least there was on Reddit when it was first posted, can't prove that it's true or not.
Anyway, his wife died and he is visiting all the places she/they went and making pictures to close himself of her.
Re: Why Russians Are Not Smiling (2011)
#84Are Russians klingons?
For some people who have not left their home country, other cultures might seem weird like that. They may themselves seem to be from some alien race as well, from someone others' viewpoint.
Re: Why Russians Are Not Smiling (2011)
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Socialism makes every other person a potential enemy and a potential victim. Resources are scarce. People come to hate one another. Capitalism makes every other person at worst a neutral non-threat and at best a potential trading partner. Resources are plentiful. People feel benevolent towards one another. This is not an apology for America; America is only semi-capitalist. You can see Americans getting meaner over t…
> Socialism makes every other person a potential enemy and a potential victim. Resources are scarce. People come to hate one another. You're taking a look at countries that have implemented 'socialism' and ended up with what amounts to dictatorships. Do you really think that Communism as envisioned by Karl Marx included someone like Stalin, or the corrupt officials that inhabited governments in the Eastern Bloc? For…
Karl Marx should have envisioned that someone like Stalin might exist in the future and will take over the power, otherwise his perfect Communism system is only applicable to perfect people.
Re: Why Russians Are Not Smiling (2011)
#86My parents, who live in Trinidad, have this problem every time they visit me in America. After a couple of days of everyone fake-smiling at them the whole time they get pissed off. To them, everyone's smiles come off as insincere and even slightly condescending. (They hate it even more when people tell them to "have a nice day".)
Of course. Many Finnish people are like that too. If I can't think of a single reason myself why that unknown person might be smiling at me then I must conclude s/he's just pretending to be friendly and probably trying something, too. Thus, smiling must have a context: friends smile to each other and that's all right because they're already friends, and friends like each other.
Re: Why Russians Are Not Smiling (2011)
#87As a Russian-American this comes off as complete BS. I've seen this written before and it's always in the form of "It's not us that smile too little, it's you Americans that are fake and smile too much!". For one, Americans don't just smile to be polite. For the most part it's genuinely conveying positive emotions. Now I know this is going to be unpopular, but I think the real reason Russians don't smile is cultural.…
You don't sound like a Russian. You don't think like a Russian. You don't know like a Russian.
Russians don't smile because any person who smiles to a stranger either wants to sell something or is insane. Smiles are for friends, real friends - whopping 2 or 3 of them.
"And if anything goes wrong you can be... No sense of community..."
This part betrayed you. You don't know anything about Russia or Russians. If an African college student attacked a bunch of skinheads, entire subway station would rush to rescue the skinheads.
Re: Why Russians Are Not Smiling (2011)
#88We (Latvians) are actually really similar to Russians in this matter. We generally don't smile and if there's someone walking down the street with a big smile on his face - the first thing that comes to mind is: "He must be a tourist."
Labdien. You are not kidding. I lived in Riga for two years and can attest to this. Latvians had a funny sense of humor though. I once heard a joke about teaching an Estonian the proper way to address a woman in Latvian, something like "Skaistas kājas"? Sorry if I got that wrong, it's been awhile.
Re: Why Russians Are Not Smiling (2011)
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Socialism makes every other person a potential enemy and a potential victim. Resources are scarce. People come to hate one another. Capitalism makes every other person at worst a neutral non-threat and at best a potential trading partner. Resources are plentiful. People feel benevolent towards one another. This is not an apology for America; America is only semi-capitalist. You can see Americans getting meaner over t…
You do realize that most of Western Europe is socialist? That some of the countries that enjoy the highest quality of life and happiness are socialist? How do you square that with what you've written?
> You do realize that most of Western Europe is socialist?
Only if you use the american dictionary.
Re: Why Russians Are Not Smiling (2011)
#90Are Russians klingons?
I believe at least in the original series the Klingon Empire is based on the Soviet Union, and Klingons Russians.