Masks and cultures
Beware the mask you wear, lest it become the truth.

We all have the potential to become the masks that we wear, so choose yours carefully. I have found that people generally make better employees than the two-dimensional “work faces” – masks - that many people employ. Being yourself authentically, in any given situation, is the best all the way around.

Culture, as I have said before, is a thin but critical layer over a personality and can have major impacts on behaviour. Real cultures are deep and significant things, and the truly successful entrants to a culture learn and behave according to the rules of that culture. Transients and those just getting by will often adopt a mask instead. Without a deeper understanding of the culture, a depthless overlay is often used to provide some measure of interaction with the culture. This thin overlay, however, disintegrates under any sort of prolonged interaction and scrutiny. And a deeper understanding changes this, whether or not the person agrees with the culture or not. (Just because you understand a culture’s rules doesn’t mean that you choose to follow them.)

American movies love the cliché of the mask hiding the “other”, whether it is a hero pretending to be a coward, a killer pretending to be an ordinary neighbour, or an abusive person pretending to be a loving spouse. They don’t show though the less dramatic, but no less intense, effect on a person and a group of prolonged mask-wearing.

People “become” the mask in particular situations. There can be social or environmental cues that trigger the mask. (I separate masks, which are dysfunctional approaches to interaction, from professional personas, which are functional personality aspects, that people may employ, such as emergency services personnel who take charge in an emergency.)

Masks are not people and they lack the insight, social skills and empathy of a real person. Wearing the mask too long, too often may actually impair the ability to respond authentically in a situation. People resort to mask when they feel that they cannot, for whatever reason, cope with the situation that they are in. It may be too stressful, too complex, too demanding or too unfamiliar. (Parents will be familiar with this in adolescents who act inappropriately and illogically in a situation because it is beyond their experience.)

The beginner’s mistake is to try to reason with the mask to the person beneath. But you can’t do that. You are only talking to the mask. You have to get to the person away from the mask, in a different environment, a comfortable place where they don’t need the mask.

This can be true of people in new cultures, people in the workplace or people in personal relationships.

Contact Details
Michael Wood                        
woodconsulting@bigpond.com
www.users.bigpond.com/woodconsulting
0405 595 200

I didn't write it. It was in an email from Michael Wood - see the contact details at the bottom.

I don't think he had Japan in mind. It's just that their masks are more obvious to us. He seems to see a lot about Australian culture and individual issues that most people are blind to.

He is a consultant so most of his stuff focusses on workplace issues. I usually read it in that context. But he obviously gets it from a psych book or something. I posted it in relationships because it reminded me of how people often try to be something they aren't on a date or some other stressful situation. I just hadn't thought of it like that before and found it insightful. I had no direction or goal in mind. I just thought it might start some interesting discussions.

Also, I think his suggestion about removing people from the stressful situation so you are talking to the real person rather than the mask could be useful for online debates. The Israel/Palestine thread is a good example. People get 'stressed' or wound up over the fact that a girl was shot, put their masks on, and suddenly everyone feels like they are talking to a brick wall.