a bit more discussion

One of the important questions of this research is how well do the non-Koreans interpret Korean emotional expressions. Predictably enough, sometimes the North Americans got it right, sometimes they were wrong and sometimes they got it partially correct. As part of the research methodology, the North Americans were informed of areas where they had made the same interpretations as the Korean informants, as well as where their interpretations differed. Their responses to the similarities and differences was telling in important ways. First when the non-native participant interpreted the emotions correctly, for any reason (ie, the two cultures share similar scripts, or the participant had developed sufficient understanding of the other culture), no one including the focus group facilitator felt cognitive dissonance; therefore, the group tended to move on in the discussion. When the participants did not interpret correctly—whether they were thoroughly of base, or they had simply misinterpreted the intensity—discussion always ensued.

One example illustrates both cases. In the scene where a parent interrupts a faculty meeting to accuse Mr. Kim of bribe taking and extortion of his son, the participants were fairly confused about the interpretation of situation and the emotions expressed:

Participant B: [When the clip was played without sound] I thought, I was thinking only anger. But when it came on again for the first few seconds I was thinking… “drunk anger”? (laughter) I’m not sure (more laughter)

Participant A: The only thing I can think of is that the teacher did something to his daughter.

(Overlap PB: yeah… that was on my)

Participant A: You see I was thinking that there is no other… which might be a woman thing (Participant D: laughter) I don’t know but I was just like what else can get a parent that angry, but then he talked about money and I was like “okay… I guess not”

Then later as part of the same discussion the question of appropriate intensity comes up:

Participant A: If I knew the situation, so I thought that maybe he had done something with his daughter. Had I known that for sure, my answer for how high is the anger would have been would have been would have been higher, do you understand? Then when I hear later it’s about money, I’m like “oh, he’s angry” but come on it’s money. That’s my judgment. … Come on, because I originally thought it was worse.

Clearly in this instance the participants required a good deal of conversation work to come to terms with the differences between their North American interpretation of the emotional expressions in this situation and the one suggested by the Koreans.