Why Some Cultures Frown on Smiling (2016)
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
For Russians, a smile serves a different function than for Americans. It's not used for communicating with others and does not serve as a social marker of openness or good mood. The social expectation is that a smile must always be prompted by something, whether it's someone's joke, or a humorous occurrence, or even own embarrassment.
People don't smile in posed group photos for the same reason sitters don't smile in Renaissance portraits. Does it really follow that smiles and laughter are alien to these weird people?
https://www.google.com/search?q=russian+cadets+smiling+milit...:
Well, that's exactly the point that's interesting to analyze. I.e. why there is such social expectation.
Do you consider laughing at people at random to be socially acceptable? Why would smiling be fine but laughing not be?
Now the question becomes, _why_ do some cultures have the social expectation that an impromptu smile is acceptable?
So I don't see here anything out of the ordinary. It's quite an expected effect on human emotions.
That's the premise of the article, but it's shody and hand wavy at best.
Sounds a little sketchy to me. For one, tons of e.g. African, Latin American, etc countries are way more unstable and/or corrupt than the Eastern Europe/Russia countries the author mentions and yet they smile all the time without an issue.
Heck, he has Japan, France and South Korea high in the "unsmiling" countries and Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Philippines, China etc high in the "smiling" ones -- I guess no corruption on the latter group.
All the data table shows it "fuck if we know the actual reason" and not "it's corruption and lack of trust".
That being said, and this is anecdotal, but I've had experiences from all over the country - I've lived in the Northeast, spent extensive time and have family in the South, etc; a lot of the time people are smiling genuinely or being cheerful with purpose. Most of the time it's not a facade, naivety, or sign of stupidity, as some would like to think.
Is it really hard to consider the possibility that Americans just have a more positive attitude? And why is that a bad thing?
I was referring to more "day to day" attitudes than situational though.
I'd say it's not as much a sign of trickery, as a sign of inner confidence, or to put it better, inner freedom. That's already standing out in 1984-like society, or society described in "Collective responsibility"[1][2]. And standing out there could bears risks. So no smiling can be perceived as an implicit defensive expression.
Because smiling is a thing you do (as opposed to something you actively avoid doing), and doing something with no reason is silly.
> Russian women do not have to worry about being instructed by random men to “smile.”
That’s also a very good reason.
It's a behavior outside of the norm and associated with men who don't respect social boundaries with women for whatever reason.
I've often heard it said that the Slavic soul is one of constant malaise. Who knows if it's true, but living up in an inhospitable climate and 1000 years of war and strife can certainly shape a culture.
My Ukrainian family also never smiles, even at the happiest of times it was barely more than a smirk, and laughter was never really a thing. No smiles in photos, ever. Yet all were stoic and content, probably happier than most.
I've been aware that my general cultural norms are not transferable worldwide but I'd always considered smiling a universal human thing that worked everywhere as a sign of friendliness.
Many cultures nod their head for yes and shake for no. Some do the reverse. This I get (eventually) but smiling - really? Well, yes ... why not?
I think that there is a more fundamental thing to smiling/frowning/scowling as opposed to nodding and shaking the head as expressions.
It's complicated.
Smiling is always a sign of friendliness. It's just that some places you cannot expect to smile at nothing and will end up looking silly. In those places even small talk is frowned upon unless you really want to be their friends.
The author missed the most important part in this: In these countries you cannot be friendly and not be friends. In western countries it's polite to smile and be friendly to strangers but we do not expect them to become our friends
>Many cultures nod their head for yes and shake for no. Some do the reverse.
I am not sure if you are thinking of India and it's a general stereotype that Indians do it reverse but we nod for yes and shake for no like the rest of the world with two exceptions: It's rude to say no to seniors in most asian cultures so juniors always say yes AND we have a third head shake which means I agree/ You are correct/ I will do it/Subject to interpretation
This is exactly it.
And it's much broader than smiling. You don't ask people "how are you?" as a greeting, for example, unless you actually care.
Me and my wife were born and spent most of our life in Russia, we were pretty well of and yet since moving to US we realized how sad it actually was.
The collective consciousness of Russia is still heavily polluted with pain, fear, uncertainty and mistrust of everyone because of the terrible events that unfolded throughout it's history, but mostly in 20th century. Millions were murdered and executed during and after the revolution, more were executed before 2nd world war, 10s of millions died in the 2nd world war.
Repressions, starvation, constant economic struggles nullifying people's saving and results of life's work and at the end of work life, a sight of a miserly pension that unifies everyone, regardless of previous status in life, in poverty. Most old people who live on a pension look like homeless people in US.
Russian families mostly are highly codependent and dysfunctional, a lot of men drink and women resort to constant unhappy nagging and displeased demeanor. A lot of spouse relationships play out the role child/parent, where the wife is being a parent and husband is being unruly child, avoiding the responsibilities and hiding from the consequences. Public displays of affection are almost non-existant, very hard to find genuinely happy couples, especially those who've been married for a while.
The country itself has terrible ecology, most cities struggle with crazy levels of pollution because of the car traffic and factories built within city limits. A lot of cars are from soviet times so they produce a lot of smoke, sometimes after a bus passes you by you can't see anything because of the clouds of black smoke.
The cities are covered in soot and the roads are covered in dirt, sand and road salt. That dirt is everywhere, covering the trees, cars, houses. It's unthinkable to live in Russia and don't clean you shoes every couple of days, because they get very dirty. After every rain the dirt is everywhere. All of this combined makes cities look grey, especially during the spring, winter and fall, excluding the short summer period that lasts usually around 3 months where green of the trees and grass dilutes all of this a bit.
Don't take my word for it, here's the real Russian news site of the city Krasnoyarsk, population 1 mil. It shows center of the city:
http://prima-tv.ru/news/incidents/43896-sosulka_ubila_muzhch...
To me all of that explains really well why there's not much to smile about. If you're smiling without a reason people see you as someone who have things going well and feel jealousy and want to bring you down in their own heads to justify their own misery.
A lot of people in Russia leave in the denial of the true causes of their suffering and unhappiness and I'm sure they'll downvote this.
A friend once described his reasons for moving from Manhattan. He said that he was depressed all the time and that he realized that everyone he knew was also depressed. Having grown up in a different part of the country, he saw that this was an environmental issue caused by his surroundings. He found that life was much more pleasant after relocating.
Point being, tt often takes the absence of something to become aware of its impact. We notice discomfort more when we have had comfort before it.
A lot of countries have been hit pretty hard during 20th century, but Russians were especially cruel to their own people and I believe that cuts much deeper. For example Golodomor in Ukraine is thought of as an external act of violence of Russians / Soviets, while concentration camps, mass executions in Soviet Russia were all done by Russians to Russians.
FWIW, I'm from Germany (way to the right on the graph) and probably somewhat of an outlier, since people kept asking me whether I was sad when I just made a neutral face. I ended up training myself to always curl my lips slightly to stop those questions.
"Germany"
:Confirmation Bias Engaged: People with bigger mouths tend to smile more than those with smaller mouths. :Confirmation Bias Disengaged:
I hate smiling for photographs (hate getting my photograph taken in general), as it just feels totally forced and false.
Unlike depression, and mathematics.