*Affective Vs Neutral*

Affective Vs Neutral 

“Culture is the way in which groups of people understand and interpret the world”

Trompenaars & Hampden Turner, Riding the waves of culture

According to the theory of Trompenaars there are 7 dimensions in the comparison of different cultures.

One of these dimensions is the question of whether people are "neutral" in their approach to others, or show their emotions openly, and is thus defined Affective vs. Neutral.

People in emotional cultures show their feelings openly, seeking a direct outlet for their emotions. 

In neutral cultures instead members seek to keep their feelings under control.

Closely linked to whether we show our emotions in contact with other people, is the degree of involvement in our relations with others. The dimension that concerns this aspect is defined by Trompenaars and Hampden Turner  as diffuse vs specific.

In specific cultures people tend to involve other people in specific  aspects of their life and flying on separate layers of personality, while in diffuse cultures in regard to the involvement people have multiple areas of life and different levels of personality at the same time; there isn’t a clear separation between different areas like workplace, family, sentimental relationships, friends ecc. While in specific cultures there is an evident and very marked heterogeneity of “living areas” that seems to be separated so that you could have problems in the workplace but when you came back home you just leave them behind; in a way it’s like living different lives at the same time or splitting up your live in several "dimensions".

 

Let’s get inside the Belgian and the Italian models!

 

For example in Italy, when two people see each other after meeting a couple of times, they are immediately “best friends” and can talk about anything, even personal matters. In Belgium, this will be after a longer period of time. Firstly they will feel the need to know the other person a little bit better before talking about private things.

If we follow the theory of Trompenaars, we could say that the Italians as an affective culture show their emotions more clearly than Belgians, who keep their emotions more controlled.
It is also known that Belgians keep their volume of speaking at a lower level, less pronounced and don’t accompany it as much by hand gestures while Italians are very well known as people who raise their voices, have a style of speaking that might seem to others shouting, gesturing, in short, are not very sensitive in general!

 

After graduating from school, the Italians are more likely to stay at home for a longer period than Belgians. In Belgium they are more eager to leave the house they grew up in to go and live on their own, while Italians could easily stay at home till they’re 35 years old.

On the work floor, we see examples in Italy where employers and employees behave more friendly than formally. They can easily have dinner together or other extra activities like a birthday party, without taking into account what the hierarchy is between each other.
The Belgians on the other hand behave more formally. When it is someone’s birthday, it is usually celebrated by opening a bottle of wine or champagne after work, and a ‘congratulations’. They will stay for about half an hour but not longer and they won’t share presents.
Always with regards to the workplace, in Italy it is possible to have occasions during the year like Christmas or eastern holidays where employees receive presents from their employer. This shows that Italians, not only in their private world but also in work situations, are more willing to show their emotions.

Furthermore, you could be able to find Italian mothers doing a lot of things together with the daughters, like going shopping, going to the beauty centre, to the disco and wearing very similar clothes!
Belgian women do similar things with their daughters but not that extreme. Spending quality time together is an important activity and Belgian women spend it by for example by going shopping or going to a spa centre, maybe even by going on a city trip. The difference between Belgian and Italian mothers and daughters is that their social lives are mostly separate and the moms won’t go out with their daughters to the disco. 

With regard to the personal space, Italians are clearly people who don't have strict rules or behaviour they are willing to embrace, to kiss, to “slap on the shoulder” and they don’t like to be very distant when they speak to each other; so their concept of personal space is, let’s say, very limited!
Belgians on the other hand aren’t that open to other people. When they are around family, friends, or acquaintances they behave in a similar way but always a bit more formally than Italian people. Belgians are more fond of their personal space. But this doesn’t mean that they don’t hug or kiss someone on the cheek when they meet.

An exception is understandably the style- life of students. So we can see a clear difference between Italians and Belgians because Italian students don’t really come back home on weekends if they live in another city, of course until their mothers plead enough to make them come back.

Belgian students uphold the tradition of going home for the weekend, no matter in what city they go to college or university.

A similarity between these two cultures is eye contact. Looking each other in the eye shows that you are listening and that you let the other one know that you’re interested in what he or she is saying. It’s actually quite rude when you don’t. The message you’re giving your conversation partner is that you’re not really interested in the subject he or she is talking about.

Affective VS Neutral what do you think?! :)