»Many Chinese look alike to me and I find it hard to correctly read their facial expressions« was recently stated by the participant of a training with a China focus. He was responsible for negotiating important details in a Joint-Venture. What he described is scientifically known as the »cross-race effect«.
This phenomenon involves having difficulties in reading emotional facial expressions and distinguishing between people of other cultural groups. There have been different attempts to explain why the cross-race effects occur, yet there is currently no general consensus on any theory. Theories include that an individual’s interracial attitudes affects his or her face recognition or that one’s level of experience and contact with own- and other-culture individuals affects recognition ability.
Screenshot from »Reading Chinese Faces«
Global Emotion CEO Ansgar Bittermann had a very similar experience while studying on Hawaii amongst Asians, which for him was the initial trigger for years of research culminating in the development of the WBT Reading Chinese Faces. Some 4000 photos and 4700 film clips were taken in China by Chinese experts, depicting both different faces and facial expressions.
We had test runs of the program in our office and were delighted: it really worked! Some of us doubled their speed of correctly reading emotions within a week. After personally meeting Ansgar Bittermann, it became clear that both Global Emotion and intercultures where ideal strategic partners.
As of now, intercultures is one of only two intercultural service providers to work with the WBT, which we will introduce step-by-step into our trainings with a Chinese focus as a further step towards blended learning.