Affective or Neutral

     
  In international business, reason (logical thinking) and emotion are both important. Which of these is more important depends upon whether we are affective (easily showing emotions) or neutral (not showing emotions).
  People in neutral cultures do not show their feelings, but keep them carefully controlled. In cultures with high affect, people show their feelings easily by laughing, smiling, scowling - and sometimes even crying, shouting, or walking out of the room.
   Only some cultures like to express feelings openly. Emotional reactions were found to be least acceptable in Japan, Indonesia, the U.K., Norway and the Netherlands - and most accepted in Italy, France, the U.S. and Singapore.
  Reason and emotion are part of all human communication but different cultures show them in different ways. When expressing ourselves, we look to others for understanding of our ideas and feelings.

If we are highly emotional, we want an emotional response. If our approach is highly neutral, we want an indirect response to show that the problem has been thought through.

Summary

Affective
Feelings shown easily
Gestures and body language important for communicating
USA
Southern Europe
France
South America

Neutral
Thoughts more important than emotion
Words more important than body language
Japan
UK
Russia
Northern Europe