The Definitive Book of Body Language

The Definitive Book of Body Language

children in every country that has television now wear baseball

caps backwards and shout 'Hasta la vista, baby', even if the

don't understand Spanish.

American television is the prime reason cultural

body language differences are disappearing.

The word 'toilet' is also slowly disappearing from the English

language because North Americans, who are rugged pioneers

and log splitters, are terrified to say it. North Americans will

ask for the 'bathroom', which, in many parts of Europe, con-

tains a bath. Or they ask for a 'rest room' and are taken to

where there are lounge seats to relax. In England, a 'powder

room' contains a mirror and washbasin, a 'little girls' room' is

found in a kindergarten and 'comfort stations' are positioned

on the motorways of Europe. And a North American who

asks to 'wash up' is likely to be gleefully led to the kitchen,

given a tea towel and invited to wash the dishes.

Cultural Basics are the Same Almost

Everywhere

As discussed in Chapter 3, facial expressions and smiles regis-
ter the same meanings to people almost everywhere. Paul
Ekman of the University of California, San Francisco, showed
photographs of the emotions of happiness, anger, fear,
sadness, disgust and surprise to people in 21 different cultures
and found that in every case, the majority in each country
agreed about the pictures that showed happiness, sadness and
disgust. There was agreement by the majority in 20 out of the
21 countries for the surprise expressions, for fear on 19 out of
21 agreed and for anger, 18 out of 21 agreed. The only signifi-
cant cultural difference was with the Japanese who described
the fear photograph as surprise.
Ekman also went to New Guinea to study the South Fore