Part A of this assignment was quite difficult. I found that my partners felt quite threatened by my silence. I attempted this assignment on friends and family. They know me to be quite talkative. My silence made them very uncomfortable. I didn't use any type of hand gestures, nor did I speak in their conversations. I spent most of my time listening. Many changed the subject so much to the point the completely stopped talking. I noticed I was in charge of the conversation drift. The more silent I was, the more these individuals changed their topics to get me to initiate in the conversation. My partners were in charge of the topics, they kept stumbling on different topics to get me to respond to just about anything. What was completely awkward was when any of these individuals asked me a question and I didn't respond, I noticed they got completely offended. Replying back to me with an attitude thirty seconds after they have just asked me a question. It was nice to inform them after the fifteen minutes were up, that this was in fact an experiment. Out of the reactions I received, I believe I had the power over most of these individuals. Many of them would stop talking to pull me aside and ask if I was angry at them. Made it much easier to tell I was in power. If my partners and I were from two different cultures, I would believe they would have an advantage to come up with more complex ideas than I could. I represent an individual who isn't from the same culture as them and can not speak the language they speak, nor do I understand. English has the biggest advantage in communicating and coming up with complex ideas in their population. A big example that resembles this type of example would be a French speaker and a person who can only speak sign language. The complications of the two would be completely mind blowing.
Part B was much more difficult. To have a dull conversation without any hand gestures, tone changes or pretty much any expression to enlighten the conversation was much harder than it seemed. I found my partners either talking over me or just exiting out my conversation completely. One of my friends pulled me to the side to ask if I was okay, and to ask me why am I depressed. My siblings thought I was lacking self esteem, and even took me out to go get ice cream. Many individuals would scream "what?" in the middle of conversation to try and see if I would talk louder. Our signs are very important. It helps give an individual a greater aspect of the conversation. It helps us better describe a topic whenever hand gestures are used properly. Body language is the most important way we as humans can tell an individual is into or even paying attention to a discussion. If an individual is lacking body language, the person speaking about a topic feels as if they are boring you, so it will make any individual stop discussing the topic they were so deeply into. A perfect example of not being able to successfully read another individual body language correctly would be better described as dating. Individuals are always reading one another body language incorrectly and getting misinterpreted, which can always lead to embarrassment or someone getting their feelings hurt. When dating, body language is not a reliable source. A girl can just be confident enough to cross her legs and look at you in your eyes while you are speaking to her, that doesn't mean she is into you. Just because you can have a deep conversation with an individual, doesn't mean they may be into you or want you in any kind of way.
"I didn't use any type of hand gestures, nor did I speak in their conversations."
ReplyDeleteIt's true that you were not supposed to use speech or written language or the use of ASL, but using your hands and body to communicate were not only allowed, they were required. Kind of like a game of charades. It's not wonder that your partners were taken aback. The idea was to see the differences in responses between just body language (Part A) vs. just spoken/symbolic language (Part B). Without any use of communication whatsoever, I'm afraid you got some skewed results.
Yes, you did have the control over the situation, but you also weren't able to communicate anything at all, so is that power? Your family stuck with you and expressed concern, but that is because of their relationship with you. If you had tried this with strangers, how might they have reacted? Would they have tolerated it or would they have walked away? What does that say about who has the power in that conversation?a
Okay on your discussion of two cultures.
Good discussion on your Part B experience. I agree with the benefits your discuss but there is at least on additional benefit that is very important. Humans actually use body language as a bit of a lie detector. If your words don't match your body language, we tend to believe the body language, which is harder to fake, and assume you are lying. This causes problems if you know the person, but think about the implications if you are meeting a person for the first time. Would you trust them if their body language didn't match their words? Do you think you would trust them to be reliable, to help when asked, to act fairly in a business transaction? Probably not. Reading body language tells us who we can trust and who we can't and it has far-reaching implications throughout our lives.
People on dates may vary in their abilities to read body language, but that falls under normal human variation, and that is also dependent upon what body language is being displayed as well, how honest it is. There are people who actually have diagnosable disorders that make it difficult or impossible for them to read body language, including those in the autism spectrum.
Dating may be a situation where it is difficult to read body language but would that be a situation where you would be better of NOT reading body language? Can you think of other situations where body language is so unreliable that it really would be better to ignore it? How about if you travel to another country? Do all cultures use the same system of body language?