Differences in Emotional Expressivity

 

Week 6 Response: “Differences in Emotional Expressivity”

Emotional expressivity is the extent to which a person outwardly shows their emotions. It could include obvious things like laughing, crying, or screaming. People also express emotions with things like hand gestures, eye contact, or facial expressions. Or, emotional expressivity could be as straightforward as telling someone right out what you are feeling. I think it’s interesting that one doesn’t have to be consciously aware of the emotions they are experiencing in order to express it. While we do have some conscious control over our emotional expressions, sometimes they come out without our control. Another factor of emotional expressivity is the cultural paradigms we learn. Brother Ivers talked about how different cultures will fall along a scale of emotional expressivity. On the low end, people will hold emotions in and not show them. On the high end of the scale, people will very outwardly show their emotions. He gave the example of people from the eastern United States might be much more straightforward in saying what they think, and doing it with a lot of hand motions and/or eye contact. He gave the alternate example of people from the Southern or Western states being more reserved in their behavior. The disparities in emotional behavior definitely varies over worldwide cultures as well.

In the context of ESL teaching, cultural differences in emotional expressivity could cause misunderstandings or problems. For example, if a low expressive teacher has a highly expressive student, the teacher could misinterpret the student’s behavior as disruptive or disrespectful. Also, a highly expressive teacher might think that a low expressive student is shy, uninterested, or doesn’t understand the material. It is so important for teachers to get to know their students and understand a little bit about how they express their emotions.

Comments

  1. Lilian PerezFebruary 10, 2022 at 9:29 PM

    Hello Amber! Your explanation of what emotional expressivity is was great. In Brazil, we usually share our emotions in public and it is hard for me to hide so it can be a problem in a TESOL class with students from different cultures. This course is helping to shape me a lot. Great post!

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