Spring break!

As his spring break came to an end, I asked my friend Kevin how his break was.  By a simple glance at his face, it seemed as if it wasn’t that great.  He responded with a plain “fine.”  He demonstrated the ultimate poker face, “the withholder” according to Ekman and Friesen’s facial expressions.  At this moment I knew it was going to be a challenge to read Kevin’s emotions and expressions, so I tried to dig deeper.  Knowing the insane schedule he has when he is away at school, I would assume his break would have been a time to relax.   I asked, “Well…did you do anything exciting, did you get a chance to just sleep?” He responds, “I feel so lazy when I am home, since at school I am all over the place with military plus art and work I don’t have time to sleep and am constantly busy.”  As he responded his face tilted down with knitted eyebrows, he sighed and his cheeks tightened, all expressing disappointment. 

I asked again, did you do anything exciting? Did you go out? Did you ride your motorcycle? Shooting?  As I mentioned a list of things I know he loves, his face lite up.  His eyes got large, raised eyebrows and he smiled from ear to ear.  As Kevin went on discussing riding and shooting, there was constant excitement on his face; the smile did not move.  I knew I had just learned the “best” part of his break.  While he was discussing shooting he was using his hands, demonstrating the stance he had and how close the bullet was to the target, he got so into it as if he was there again.  These expressions were easier to notice because they were such a drastic change from “the poker face” in the beginning of our conversation. 

In concluding the conversation, I asked him if he was ready to go back to school.  His response couldn’t leave his mouth any faster.  He leaned over with his elbows on his knees and looked at me and responded, “Yes, I don’t feel right just laying around, not doing anything. If I have down time, then I am not doing something right.”  With Kevin now having military background, it is very difficult to read his expressions; he is defiantly a withholder when it comes to serious discussion.  However, as previously mentioned when he is caught up in what gets his adrenaline moving he couldn’t be happier. 

Sneaky Observation

Being a female I find myself very dramatic and using a lot of facial expressions and hand movements when studying with others, therefore I was wondering if males perform in any similarities.   I thought it would be interesting to observe affect displays of two males working/studying together, which our nonverbal gestures, postures, and facial expressions that communicate emotion.

The two were sitting opposite sides of the table, parallel to one another.  In just “watching” the two, it was as if one was tutoring or reviewing work with the other.   One male seemed to have a mesomorph body type, broad shoulders with a bit of muscle.  He seemed to have a more relaxed posture than the other; he had his chair pushed back, with his legs sprawled out and hunched over just tapping his pencil, constantly on phone and occasionally glancing at his papers.  The other male, seen as tutor like was very thin, tall and studious looking, also seen as an ectomorph body type.  He was positioned closer to the table with an upward position, paying much attention to his notes. 

In a brief observation, I was able to distinguish that one boy was more focused and determined versus the other who seemed to just want to sit there and distract his self.  I was able to notice this by the nonverbal cues on their face.  Male one had undisturbed facial muscles such as in his face and forehead; his eyebrows were not crinkled and his cheekbones were not tense.  He seemed very comfortable.  Male two seemed determined; his eyes were never leaving his papers and every so often his head would make side tilt movements as if he was getting frustrated due to the other boys lack of focus.  It was very clear in my observing that these two men had different obligations in mind 1. wanted to study, get his work done and 2. Either not sure what was going on or simply did not care to do his work.

After observing two males it was clear to me that there are many similarities when two are studying. As like females, there is usually one who does not have any motivation to study and it constantly distracted by texts or other friends around them. This causes another if not more members of the study group to become frustrated because they are not contributing or annoying the rest of the group.