Assignment XI
1.Fridlund…
I disagree that people should limit signaling to beneficial situations because that would bring in an element of superficiality and a deception of sorts. Signaling as we have talked about it is with intent to display a quality. It may or may not be costly and yields benefits if successful be it honest or not. If expressions of emotions are to be displayed for the same reason in addition to the emotion then it is not an entirely honest signal and it is not really about the emotion. There is no way to identify signals when people emote and express in solitude unless others happen upon them or spy. When people are discovered by others, the expressions are honest unintentional signals and convey the truth about the person’s qualities. Moreover, some emotions like becoming conscious of an audience, awkwardness, or nervousness are involuntary. These emotions do not always yield benefits but are hard to control. For instance, I would like so much for my stage fright not to show when am performing, but it is hard for me to control it, so my solution is to ‘not be’ in that situation at all. How is one supposed to control these or display them for an audience? Thus deciding to which emotions the theory should apply seems pointless. That said, it is true that people laugh and cry harder when in company they know will react to the emotion being displayed.
2.Ekman…
From the studies done and examples used in the readings, it might be safe to say that both Ekman and Fridlund are correct and there is no real reason for them to reconcile. That all emotions are involuntary is agreed upon by both. However, Fridlund says the expressions of emotions can be controlled. But the studies also show that there are some aspects in which controlled expressions of emotion fall short of honest expressions.
Fridlund’s view is that emotions are entities always associated with a social motive and thus expressions of the emotion can be controlled. Ekman, feels that emotions are involuntary firing of neurons, which in turn cause facial muscles to react and thus emotions are hard to control and if controlled can be identified in some cases.
Yes, I think Ekman does believe that facial expressions are signals although they are unintentional, unlike Dridlund who believes that they are signals and should be used as such with intent. Although unintentional, expressions of emotions can be toyed with and controlled, making them unreliable. Examples of these are of a thief who succeeds in convincing the police that they did not commit the theft or when laughing aloud at a joke you think is not funny, by using even your body to avoid focus on the face.
Another thought that occurred to me when reading about conversational signals in the paper was that triggers of emotions and their intensity is not the same in everyone. So how are assumptions made of signals due to facial and/or emotional expressions? For instance, some people do not react emotionally to talk of death, which does not mean that they are without feeling and cold hearted.
3.Zebrowitz…
According to Zebrowitz , overgeneralization happens when people start identifying traits with appearances and expressions based on an argument with no fundamental standing. One person’s experience may cause the person to draw baseless parallels but it does not take long for an irrational group to generalize this to be a cause-effect situation.
An example of a physical overgeneralization is assuming that women cannot compete with a man in sport. Many women do have the capacity to compete and beat men at sport. A cultural overgeneralization I have experienced here in the US (no extensively though) is people assuming that Asian-Indians who come to the US mid-career are misers when it comes to spending money and enjoying a relatively decent quality of life. A personal overgeneralization instance could be identifying a person as a pessimist based on one instance of a negative statement.
Zebrowitz is of the opinion that while it is very important to understand the accuracy of facial cues in identifying trait and personality, it is not deciphered as to whether it is accurate or used by people for the same. Most people watch facial expression and body language to draw inferences about a person’s character. However, it is not clear as to what expressions and cues indicate what traits.
A group of women in their mid-40s was eating dinner at the restaurant we went to. Each of them seemed friendly and gossipy (if there were such a word) by the look on their faces and the tone. Of them seemed disturbed. One lady was on the cell phone the entire time and seemed quite serious by the expression on her face. She was not very involved with the conversation the others were having.
The other three women had friendly countenances and were engaged in an active conversation. They seemed to show keen interest in the other’s stories and were oblivious to their surroundings. My impression of them was formed by their selection of the restaurant, their body language of leaning in towards the table as they spoke, what they did with their hands, and the expressions on their face as they spoke or listened. Looking at just the face they seemed to be friendly and but did not have a certain warmth. Yes, I think overgeneralization did play a role in my deduction, because of the stereotyping of women and their love for gossip.
4.Faces are very interesting and carry a wealth of information about the person. It can be observed how people gravitate towards digital communities that require photos or how people search for others who have photos uploaded. Thus, benefits of these functions to the signaler are those of making their faces known to others in his/her social network, allowing receivers to gauge the signaler’s personality and state of mind.
People can use photos, webcam, video conferencing, avatars, emoticons and other technology to create as real and human an environment as possible to get as close to real-time personal communication as possible. I am not so sure emotions are conveyed accurately in a photo as they are in reality or that video captures every nuance of the face. However, these are attempts towards achieving rich communication and have been successful to a certain degree. The benefits of choosing a technology to get real faces or its like are those of identity and emotion recognition. Signalers would like the receiver to understand their point of view and the kind of person they are. However, a caveat here is that photos and video cameras make the signaler conscious and may not actually be an honest depiction.
The costs they incur are those of selecting a good picture or staging the picture or installing the technology. Majority receivers are part of the big group that over generalize based on appearances and benefit by the assumptions and inferences they make about a person. A face tells the receivers whether they want to form a relationship with the person. They try to judge the nature of the person but it could be hard for people to figure out emotion unless it is not as explicit as laughing, smiling, crying, or some indication of anger. This could be possible using video conferencing or webcams.
Animated faces and even emoticons might be a good way to show emotion without revealing identity. Signalers can pick an emotion or character from a range and indicate accordingly to the receiver. On the contrary showing identity without character or emotion is something equivalent to a passport picture, where you are not asked to smile and do anything to disturb the full face image, cut according to size requirements.
In my opinion, it is hard to make a choice. There are some who want to see the signaler’s face before the next step and yet others want to first, get to know the person before forming any opinions about appearances. I personally go for the latter but know a few people who strongly support the former. So seeing a person’s face and at what stage of interaction really depends on the receiver’s beliefs. When the signaler and receiver are both ready to show and see a photo, there should be a series of them of the person in different settings to depict their lifestyle, which can lead to inferences about characteristics.
Videophones are used by people who have strong bonds and want to feel the physical presence of the person they are talking to. It is to be debated whether they will replace telephones, it might happen eventually starting with the number of people who live overseas away from their families.
I disagree that people should limit signaling to beneficial situations because that would bring in an element of superficiality and a deception of sorts. Signaling as we have talked about it is with intent to display a quality. It may or may not be costly and yields benefits if successful be it honest or not. If expressions of emotions are to be displayed for the same reason in addition to the emotion then it is not an entirely honest signal and it is not really about the emotion. There is no way to identify signals when people emote and express in solitude unless others happen upon them or spy. When people are discovered by others, the expressions are honest unintentional signals and convey the truth about the person’s qualities. Moreover, some emotions like becoming conscious of an audience, awkwardness, or nervousness are involuntary. These emotions do not always yield benefits but are hard to control. For instance, I would like so much for my stage fright not to show when am performing, but it is hard for me to control it, so my solution is to ‘not be’ in that situation at all. How is one supposed to control these or display them for an audience? Thus deciding to which emotions the theory should apply seems pointless. That said, it is true that people laugh and cry harder when in company they know will react to the emotion being displayed.
2.Ekman…
From the studies done and examples used in the readings, it might be safe to say that both Ekman and Fridlund are correct and there is no real reason for them to reconcile. That all emotions are involuntary is agreed upon by both. However, Fridlund says the expressions of emotions can be controlled. But the studies also show that there are some aspects in which controlled expressions of emotion fall short of honest expressions.
Fridlund’s view is that emotions are entities always associated with a social motive and thus expressions of the emotion can be controlled. Ekman, feels that emotions are involuntary firing of neurons, which in turn cause facial muscles to react and thus emotions are hard to control and if controlled can be identified in some cases.
Yes, I think Ekman does believe that facial expressions are signals although they are unintentional, unlike Dridlund who believes that they are signals and should be used as such with intent. Although unintentional, expressions of emotions can be toyed with and controlled, making them unreliable. Examples of these are of a thief who succeeds in convincing the police that they did not commit the theft or when laughing aloud at a joke you think is not funny, by using even your body to avoid focus on the face.
Another thought that occurred to me when reading about conversational signals in the paper was that triggers of emotions and their intensity is not the same in everyone. So how are assumptions made of signals due to facial and/or emotional expressions? For instance, some people do not react emotionally to talk of death, which does not mean that they are without feeling and cold hearted.
3.Zebrowitz…
According to Zebrowitz , overgeneralization happens when people start identifying traits with appearances and expressions based on an argument with no fundamental standing. One person’s experience may cause the person to draw baseless parallels but it does not take long for an irrational group to generalize this to be a cause-effect situation.
An example of a physical overgeneralization is assuming that women cannot compete with a man in sport. Many women do have the capacity to compete and beat men at sport. A cultural overgeneralization I have experienced here in the US (no extensively though) is people assuming that Asian-Indians who come to the US mid-career are misers when it comes to spending money and enjoying a relatively decent quality of life. A personal overgeneralization instance could be identifying a person as a pessimist based on one instance of a negative statement.
Zebrowitz is of the opinion that while it is very important to understand the accuracy of facial cues in identifying trait and personality, it is not deciphered as to whether it is accurate or used by people for the same. Most people watch facial expression and body language to draw inferences about a person’s character. However, it is not clear as to what expressions and cues indicate what traits.
A group of women in their mid-40s was eating dinner at the restaurant we went to. Each of them seemed friendly and gossipy (if there were such a word) by the look on their faces and the tone. Of them seemed disturbed. One lady was on the cell phone the entire time and seemed quite serious by the expression on her face. She was not very involved with the conversation the others were having.
The other three women had friendly countenances and were engaged in an active conversation. They seemed to show keen interest in the other’s stories and were oblivious to their surroundings. My impression of them was formed by their selection of the restaurant, their body language of leaning in towards the table as they spoke, what they did with their hands, and the expressions on their face as they spoke or listened. Looking at just the face they seemed to be friendly and but did not have a certain warmth. Yes, I think overgeneralization did play a role in my deduction, because of the stereotyping of women and their love for gossip.
4.Faces are very interesting and carry a wealth of information about the person. It can be observed how people gravitate towards digital communities that require photos or how people search for others who have photos uploaded. Thus, benefits of these functions to the signaler are those of making their faces known to others in his/her social network, allowing receivers to gauge the signaler’s personality and state of mind.
People can use photos, webcam, video conferencing, avatars, emoticons and other technology to create as real and human an environment as possible to get as close to real-time personal communication as possible. I am not so sure emotions are conveyed accurately in a photo as they are in reality or that video captures every nuance of the face. However, these are attempts towards achieving rich communication and have been successful to a certain degree. The benefits of choosing a technology to get real faces or its like are those of identity and emotion recognition. Signalers would like the receiver to understand their point of view and the kind of person they are. However, a caveat here is that photos and video cameras make the signaler conscious and may not actually be an honest depiction.
The costs they incur are those of selecting a good picture or staging the picture or installing the technology. Majority receivers are part of the big group that over generalize based on appearances and benefit by the assumptions and inferences they make about a person. A face tells the receivers whether they want to form a relationship with the person. They try to judge the nature of the person but it could be hard for people to figure out emotion unless it is not as explicit as laughing, smiling, crying, or some indication of anger. This could be possible using video conferencing or webcams.
Animated faces and even emoticons might be a good way to show emotion without revealing identity. Signalers can pick an emotion or character from a range and indicate accordingly to the receiver. On the contrary showing identity without character or emotion is something equivalent to a passport picture, where you are not asked to smile and do anything to disturb the full face image, cut according to size requirements.
In my opinion, it is hard to make a choice. There are some who want to see the signaler’s face before the next step and yet others want to first, get to know the person before forming any opinions about appearances. I personally go for the latter but know a few people who strongly support the former. So seeing a person’s face and at what stage of interaction really depends on the receiver’s beliefs. When the signaler and receiver are both ready to show and see a photo, there should be a series of them of the person in different settings to depict their lifestyle, which can lead to inferences about characteristics.
Videophones are used by people who have strong bonds and want to feel the physical presence of the person they are talking to. It is to be debated whether they will replace telephones, it might happen eventually starting with the number of people who live overseas away from their families.
posted by Pal at 7:40 AM
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