sur ce questionnaire, on retrouve des reponses assez similaires meme si au premier abord les chiffres ne concordent pas vraiment. je m explique : 7 MIT voit du danger dans cette situation et pensent a s en extirper au plus vite. seul 3 INT ont la meme reaction. mais il y a assez peu de filles dans le cours de cultura de l INt or la question dit : dans une grande ville, ce qui explique qu une fille puisse se sentir en danger. Les mecs en general y voient souvent l occasion de draguer qu ils soient francais ou americains. enfin pour la grande majorité le reflex commun est de sourire en retour( pas loin d un sur 2 a l INT et 1 sur 3 au MIT); Qui a peur pour son portefeuille en france?lol

Tout ce que je pourrai ajouter, c'est que la plupart des américains se contente de sourire sans plus, alors que les français essayent plus d'entamer la discussion.

Je pense que les réponses reflètent plus la personnalité de chacun de nous et non une différence dans nos cultures. Certains sont timides, d'autres méfiants, d'autres engagent la conversation. Ceux qui invitent à boire un verre le feraient-ils vraiment dans la réalité ?

To Frédérique, Ceux qui invitent à boire un verre le feraient-ils vraiment dans la réalité ?

Fais moi un sourire, et tu veras. ;-)

La remarque de Frédérique peut à mon avis s'appliquer à la plupart des situations proposées dans le questionnaire.

Je suis plutôt d'accord avec Frédérique sur le fait que les différences de réactions dans cette situation reflètent plus des différences de personnalités que des différnces culturelles. Ils existent des personnes timides aussi bien en France qu'aux Etats Unis.

ya comme un côté "French Lover" qui ressort du questionnaire, me trompe-je ?? lolol :o)

A titre personnel,je pense que frederique n'a pas tout à fait raison. Bien sûr,la personnalité joue un grand rôle dans la plupart des situations proposée ,en particulier celle_ci.Néenmoins,la culture a ici aussi un réel impact.le francais semble plus sûr de lui,l'invite à boire un verre...et plus si affinités.Le mythe du latin lover,excitant et excité a encore de beaux restes en france. A l'inverse,on trouve certains americains quasi_paranođaque,ce qui peut aussi s'expliquer par la place de la ville dans les deux cultures (qui n'est que rarement un lieux de vie aux Etats_unis)ou encore la taille de celles_ci

Hello everyone: It seems that the most common response on both sides was to return a smile but the INT students were more prone to engage in conversation or entertain the thought. It seems that although you returned the smile or even said hello...many people still thought that the situation was a bit odd/suspicious. More MIT students were inclinded to be cautious/walk away which is understandable....there are weirdos out there. Frederique and Clara suggested that the reactions were a function of personality but I see it more along the lines that Nicolas does. In the US, danger is very real and people are more likely to be cautious(and often paranoid) if a random person says hello.

It's actualy quite normal to have people you don't know(around campus) smile at you. This is 'safe' since we're all students and less likely to be serial killers on the loose(for the most part anyway). But this changes once you get outside the confines of your campus.

Is it the same in France? Do you smile at people in the streets just to be friendly?

Thomas made a really good point about how girls are more likely to feel intimidated and since our class is about half girls, half guys, that might explain our results better than any cultural differences. However, it was a lot more obvious that you guys would talk or listen to the person rather than just smile back.

Also, as we've discussed before, since the setting is in a city and we've established that people in France in general feel safer in the city than in the suburbs whereas it's the exact opposite for us, do you think that might have had an effect on our reactions? Would you answer differently if someone smiled at you in the suburbs?

Cela m'arrive souvent qu'on me sourit dans la rue, juste pour échanger un sourire ou alors pour commencer à draguer (dans ce cas si le sourire n'obtient pas de réponse la personne laisse tomber). En tout cas cela ne me choque pas du tout et ne me fait pas peur, parce qu'un sourire est un geste assez anodin et sans conséquences.

La banlieue est un terme très vague car il y a des tas de types de banlieues différentes. En fait c'est la personne en elle-même qui peut inspirer confiance ou non, et c'est cela qui déterminera ma réaction.

I agree with Frédérique that smiling at strangers might be more of an individual difference than a cultural difference. I notice that it also varies by region... the West Coast of the US seems very different to me than the East Coast.

I also agree with Armelle's point to some extent. Many of the questions we answered seemed very sensitive to the implied context... who knows why the woman slapped her child? Many of the answers try to provide some of that missing context: if the person who cut in front of me in line is old and infirm, I don't mind, but if they are young and strong I demand to know their reasons.

I think that it is interesting how each side interpreted the question differently. The American side tended to see it as a reaction to what you would do if the person was attractive. If he/she was attractive then they would proceed and try to go out on a date if he/she wasn't then proceed like nothing. For the French side it seemed to be a bit more normal that strangers smile. The correct thing to do seemed to be to just smile back and say good morning, good afternoon, or good evening.

Is it normal for strangers to smile and two complete strangers to engage in a conversation?

As for the safety issue, I don't care what country I'm in. If a man or woman looks at me with a wicked smile, kind of telling me that they're going to hurt me, you better believe I'd get out of there. Forget being polite, smiling back and starting up a conversation.

Maybe I've lived too long in Boston, but when I see someone that I don't know approaching me in the street, I must admit that my first impression is that they might be begging for money. Of course, the question said "a person of the opposite sex". So if it was a young woman who was dressed nicely, I would have a different response than if she was old and looked like a homeless woman. I don't like to admit that, but it's probably true. If a man were to approach me in the street, I'm automatically on guard, no matter what. Women probably feel the same way.

So the French responses (more likely to engage in conversation) probably have more to do with the large excess of men in the INT class, versus our relatively equal ratio here at MIT, as Thomas mentioned.

A question: Is it common in France (Paris or elsewhere) to be approached in the street by panhandlers (beggars)?

Another point: I think that many of the answers are more indicative of what people would like to THINK they would do than what they would actually do. So it may not be a case of differences in personality, as Frederique suggested, but actually who is more honest. Maybe I am the only one who feels that way, though.

Many of the French students' responses on this forum said that it depended on the individual and not on the culture because the responses from the Americans and French students were very similar on this topic. I think the reason why some people react differently to this situation is a result of where you come from. There are areas of this country where people tend to be more trusting and friendly towards strangers. I think people from big cities tend to be a little less trusting and friendly towards a random person walking down the street. Personally, I would avoid interacting at all with a stranger because you never know what their intentions are. Maybe, that's wrong and unfair of me, but there are a lot of crazy people out there you have to watch out for.

Reading everybody's comments, I was contemplating on how different places and societies really are. Just consider the concept of smiling at a "potential serial killer" to that of "flirting with a beautiful stranger". It all depends on where you are. Yes, we all react differently but the different environments determine our reactions. I can only say that a smile from a stranger can be very unpredictable.

Réponse à Geoffrey. A Paris et plus généralement en France, on peut voir relativement beaucoup de mendiants dans les rues mais ils sont la plupart du temps assis sur les trottoirs et attendent que les passants s'arrêtent et leurs donnent quelques pièces. Il est vraiment extremement rare de se faire approcher par un mendiant. N'est-ce pas le cas à Boston ?

Réponse à Jeri'Ann. Les Français n'ont pas cette habitude de sourire à chaque instant dès qu'ils croisent une personne qu'ils connaissent vaguement (ce qui ne veut pas dire qu'il ne le font pas de temps en temps, mais ce n'est pas un automatisme).Le fait de sourires aux inconnus dans la rue juste pour être agréable aux autres n'est à la limite même pas concevable...

En revanche, j'ai du mal à imaginer que les Français qui ont une réaction de distance réagissent ainsi par peur de rencontrer un psychopathe ou une personne dangereuse, mais plutôt car ils n'ont pas envie de perdre leur temps à se faire draguer par un(e) inconnu(e). Rencontrez-vous beaucoup de problèmes de sécurité dans votre vie de tous les jours ?

I agree that feelings also depend greatly on where you are in the US. I'm from New York and might smile back, but definitely keep walking, whereas I was recently in LA and it wasn't uncommon for a car full of strangers to pull up next to us and try to engage in conversation. Also, if I'm on a college campus, I'm more likely to assume the person is a fellow student and engage in a friendly chat. (especially if it's an attractive guy)

Two years ago, I visited Paris briefly and everywhere I went, people were approaching my friend and myself and talking to us. I thought that it just may have been because they could tell that we were Americans and wanted to practice English (or make fun of our French), but by the French responses, it seems like make this is common. Is it?

There is indeed a cultural difference. Americans may be heldback from taking action because they can be sued in court for sexual harassment. You hear cases like that here, it is crazy....

Je dirais d'une manière générale que les français aiment bien "perdre leur temps" à parler, il n'y a quoi voir le temps que l'on passe autour d'une table pour un repas ou aux terrasses d'un bistrot. Je dirais comme Stéphane que le français parle assez volontier s'il n'a pas peur de perdre son temps, mais je crois que cela doit être un peu pareil chez vous comme semble le dire William et Gabrielle ( une explication à ce prénom d'origine française? ).

Ainsi un français en vacances ou de province parle beaucoup plus volontier qu'un autre d'une grande ville en pleine semaine.

Is it that hard to just smile and keep on walking?

we all noticed that INT students tend to engage in a conversation with the stranger in that situation more than americans do... an interesting point is, for those american students who may decide to flirt with the starnger, they add a very specific condition -- ' if he is cute' or ' if she is attractive', while a french student would invite the stranger to his house for a glass of wine without caring too much how does the person looks like.. we having been discussing about how the responses depend on factors like personality and whether the scenario takes place in the city, but it seems that physical appearance, the charm of the stranger in particular, preoccupies more americans..any comment? does that imply that americans flirt only when they find someone attractive and french people flirt regardless?

In reply to Stephane's question about panhandlers:

I hope I didn't make it seem like Boston was a city full of aggresive panhandlers! Generally they just sit somewhere and politely ask people passing by for change. Not a big deal. I was just using this as an example to show why I'm sometimes suspicious of strangers. Sometimes I have been approached more directly in the street for money (which is more unnerving), but it is rare.

The only place where I have found the panhandlers to be aggresive is in San Francisco, but I was only there for a week so maybe that's not long enough to say anything.

In response to Stephane,

Yes, very often people will approach you on the street to ask for money. But it doesn't mean you can't smile at them, and very few are threatening.

What kind of programs are there for homeless people in France?

Hello Stephane, I think that I am just pretty cautious and maybe a little paranoid. There are certainly issues of security here since we are in a big city. It's actually not that bad but just from watching the news for example and hearing some of the things that happen to people...it's really safer to be cautious. Thanks for answering my question...

Clearly, one can see from looking at the responses that the american studentsanswered more often that they would be afraid if someone of the opposite sex approached them in the street. It would be interesting to see how many people who responded in this manner were women. It might be true that men and women react differently in a situation like this one. Obviously, the treatment of women in society varies greatly across different cultures. My question is: Do you think that gender plays a role in the reaction to this situation? How does a woman's position differ from a man's in french society? Do their roles differ?

In response to the discussion about the french students willingness to talk: This reaction might be simply a difference in the way the two cultures view personal interactions. In other parts of the questionnaires, the french students clearly valued personal interaction more highly than americans. They placed a greater importance on both family and friends, while americans tend to be more materialistic, placing a high value on money, power, and cars. Do you think that the french propensity to engage in conversation is a product of the society's value system? On a side note: Perhaps the french willingness to strike up a conversation is simply due to their more highly developed social skills, in comparison to MIT students, who on the whole tend to have poorer social skills than the average american????.....:-)

La France est un pays catholique et latin. Les roles traditionnels qui sont attribues a la femme sont donc de se taire, d`obeir a son mari, de s`occuper de ses enfants, etc. Il faut bien noter que les jeunes femmes de l`INT n`ont pas ete eduquee de cette facon, sinon elle ne seraient jamais parvenues la ou elles sont. Je ne les crois pas du tout representatives des Francaises moyennes sur ce point.

Dans une telle situation, je crois qu`une difference majeure est l`association du sourire a un acte de drague. Il est tout a fait commun en France de sourire a quelqu`un d`inconnu si l`on a une information a lui demander, c`est une facon de l`interroger a distance , de savoir si la personne a le temps de repondre a notre question ou bien si l`on risque de la deranger.

Et bien Stéphane, c'est le MIT qui te met dans cet état la!!!

Je pense comprendre ce que tu as voulu dire sur la vision de la femme mais je ne crois pas que cela soit seulement à cause du "Catholique et Latin". Bien d'autres pays connaissent des situations semblables voire bien pires et ne sont pas super catho ni latins... l'Iran, l' Afghanstan, le Japon sont de bons exemples... Je crois que ce comportement est bien plus profondemment ancré dans nos sociétés (cf: les civilisations antiques... ) et cela est vraiment dommage.

Sinon, je suis bien d'accord avec toi au sujet du sourire, il est un passage quasi obligé à toute ouverture de conversation, pourtant il est pas devenu une habitude car rien n'est plus dèsagrèable qu'un sourire de facade. Qu'en pensez vous?