First, here’s a great example of the phenomenon this question is asking about:
Brazilians, like many Latin cultures, display their emotions openly and have no problem expressing their feelings. If someone is happy or frustrated, sad or angry, you will know.
For example, if a Brazilian is not happy with service at a restaurant, they will complain loudly and clearly. Additionally, other people often get involved in such events, either by agreeing with the complainant, or taking the opposite view.
Affection is often openly shown between siblings, parents, friends and relatives.
You will also commonly see young couples kissing, hugging, and exhibiting passionate behavior in public places (possibly because young, single people infrequently have their own dwellings, so privacy is hard to come by).
But why are they so expressive in relation to, let’s say, Germany or Great Britain?
This has to do with the cultural mindset.
Brazil is a “collectivist” or “relativist” culture. In this type of culture, emotions were conceived as relational to the group. For example, for someone in a collectivist culture, emotion is a thing that exists outside of oneself, and is experienced by everyone. Emotions are believed to occur between people, rather than within an individual.
Britain, however, is an “individualistic” culture. In this type of culture, people perceive emotions as independent internal experiences, occurring within an individual. The emotion is self-contained, and therefore becomes difficult to share or express.
The more individualistic a culture is, the less likely you will find people comfortable with expressing outward emotion. The more collectivist, the more likely you will find public displays of emotion and emotional language in the vernacular.
What’s interesting to note is that Brazil has more in common culturally with Russia and Turkey than with Spain. That’s kind of cool, right?
Originally Posted: https://www.quora.com/Why-are-Brazilian-people-so-affectionate-and-emotionally-expressive
Originally Posted On: 2015-12-21