In life, the majority of people normally in some way experienced the time when someone misunderstood one’s intentions or information on their actions and leads to major attitude differences as a consequence. I’m not an exception either.
In my earlier childhood, I had once got in trouble because of teacher misunderstanding my facial expressions. The teacher was giving me a command to follow while I was giving him a little smile which he became more aggressive after that. The command was to copy down all the school rules on paper as I disrupted the class to answer questions for my classmates, which I felt very innocent about it. I was giving the teacher a little smile since I feel it very innocent about it and hope to be asked about the reasons for it, but the teacher, however, misunderstood it.
He assumed that I was being disrespectful to an adult as I smile back while he was talking, and even asked a faculty from the school to verify the fact that in Chinese culture student should not be smiling when teachers are speaking in a serious tone. In the end, I still didn’t get the chance to express my thoughts or even the intention of that innocent smile, which after that I had clearly remembered the importance of making the right expression in order to avoid unnecessary misunderstanding from people. Misunderstanding tends to make enormous differences in attitude by misinterpreting one’s intentions.
Do You Smile Too Much? by Minda Zetlin via inc.com / CC BY-NC-SA
The power of misunderstanding can be also shown in the story The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks. David Lacks misunderstood the intention of John Hopkins and signed the autopsy permission form of Henrietta Lacks.
“The doctors asked again about the autopsy. They said they wanted to run tests that might help his children someday.”(90)
David’s misunderstanding and the influence from John Hopkins had hugely impact on the further investigation of Henrietta’s body and most importantly public the discovery of Hela cells which the Lacks family turns out being dissatisfied about that.
Moreover, in the story, Skloot was on the trip with Deborah attempting to find the mysterious sickness of the members of the Lacks family. The first vivid conflict became to show up as Deborah misunderstood about the smile from Skloot’s facial expression.
“I smiled. Not because I thought it was funny, but because I thought it was sweet that she was protective of her sister”(283)
“You’re lying!” Who are you working for?”(283)
Deborah misunderstood Skloot’s smile and suspect that she was working for John Hopkins which in another way see her as a betrayer. However, this conflict as Deborah was aiming to test the limit of Skloot temper.
Thunder fans burn Kevin Durant’s jersey by Jacob DeLaughter via foxsport.com /
Similar cases also happened in today’s sports world. People tend to misunderstand the players that have been traded to another team. They turn from love to hate instantly. They tend to forget players’ former contributions to the team and criticized their leaving as a betrayal. However, as some people said, “It is still a business.”
Citation:
- Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Broadway Books, 2010.
Hi Henry,
Based on my past experiences, facial expressions do play a very important role in someone interpreting your intentions. For some reason, when I have a neutral face on, a lot of people think I am angry or sad, which led to them thinking that I was not as friendly. It was not until later on that I realized that people think wrongly of my normal face, and I learned the importance of facial expressions. Regarding the connection towards people burning KD’s jersey, I do agree with the part that people kinda overreacted towards his decision to switch teams. But I do also feel their perspective where they felt “betrayed” when he decided to go to the Warriors due to the fact that they were on a winning streak. Overall, I could really connect to your experiences and am looking forward in reading about them in future posts. 🙂
Hi Henry,
While reading your post, I found your personal experience of being seen as disrespectful due to your smile relatable and intriguing–the first thing that came to my mind was Paul Ekman’s study on facial expression (since we’ve been reviewing for the AP psychology exam). Please allow me to nerd out a bit: psychological studies have shown that facial expressions are relatively universal, but different cultures might display them differently. Your post (surprisingly) served as a real-life experience that helped enhance my understanding of such a concept! We usually smile to show happiness or positive emotions, but sometimes it could be interpreted differently due to culture and context. Personally, I feel connected with you and Natasha since facial expressions DO play a role in the interpretation of one’s thoughts and intentions. Contrary to Natasha, I’m a person who smiles too much, thus making people have an impression of not being as serious as I ought to be at times although that was never my intention. The lesson I took away from here is that facial expression ARE important.
Your connection to David Lacks misunderstanding and signing the autopsy permission in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is also very thought-provoking. I never realized how David Lacks’ mere misunderstanding on the autopsy permission led to the exploitation/research on HeLa cells and further caused trauma within the family. Isn’t this a perfect example of the butterfly effect where small changes eventually result in large differences? I also wonder if this misunderstanding was solely caused by David Lacks’ lack of knowledge or should Hopkins also be responsible for it? If I were David, I would’ve felt vastly disadvantaged and helpless in such a situation, thus I sympathize him. 🙁
Anyway, it was rewarding to read your blog post with all the connections you’ve made and all the ideas you inspired the readers to flourish!
Hey Henry,
I think we should have some discussion sometimes due to we have the same opinion on clarifying your thoughts. Based on my education on a people’s misunderstanding, I think it is always better to make things clear. In my experience, people called me stupid or dummy because of my size and what I look like. Yet after I explain my thoughts on my tragic nickname to those people, things changed immediately. However, don’t you think if you clarify your opinion first then there won’t be a further misunderstanding? Despite that, the result of modern discovery will have huge adjustment. Don’t you think David’s misunderstanding has a huge impact on modern cell discovery?
Hi Henry!
After reading your post, I completely understand your frustration of being taken the wrong way. I think that your story is so similar to what happened between Rebecca Skloot and Deborah. Skloot and Deborah’s misunderstanding was also caused by a smile that was a well intended action. However, it was interpreted in the wrong way, Deborah thought that the smile meant that Skloot was lying to her; In your story, your smile was also just a si gn of showing friendliness but your teacher thought you were talking back to him. I want to know: how can these situations be prevented? can we learn to not assume what the other people are thinking just by their facial expressions? I understand that facial expressions are often the first impression of many people but just think how many problems these expressions has caused. How many relationships are broken because of these misunderstandings?
I totally agree with you that misunderstanding are often caused by the differences in interpreting one’s intentions.