Social Engineering Blogs

An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields

Gestures & The Fist Bump

stockvault-closed-fist96492

Courtesy of StockVault

NPR reports on the Fist Bump as the new High-Five!  The fist bump became a big issue when President Obama used it in his 2008 campaign as a greeting to a restaurant employee.  As most of us know the fist bump has gained popular standings to signal a job well done, “I agree with you”, or “what’s up”.

Howie Mandel, a well known comedian, has also contributed to the popularity of this gesture as he uses it quite often in his role as a judge on  America’s Got Talent.  The question is, where did the fist bump come from and how did it become so popular that the President of the United States has come to use it as well?  Did this gesture originate in the U.S. and do other cultures have similar versions of this nonverbal gesture?

According to the article, the fist bump came about from America’s sports world, noted David Givens, an anthropologist with the Center for Nonverbal Studies.  The first bump was a way that friends greeted each other on and off the field.

“The fist bump is one of the few gestures that is equal,” Givens told Goats and Sodas (NPR’s new blog, covering health and all sorts of development around the world),  “You could do it with President Obama, and you’d both be equals at that time.“

Usually when two people shake hands its a nonverbal communicator of who wants to be or who is in control of the meeting. Usually the person who’s hand is on top is in control, but with a fist bump neither person has the “upper hand”.

Humintell’s Director Dr. David Matsumoto also commented on the Japanese greeting of the bow, which is similar to the American greeting of a hand shake.    “The bow is a form of respect,” Matsumoto,  psychologist at San Francisco State University noted, “But the varying degrees of angle of the bow, when bows are performed, and to whom, all show something about hierarchy.“

The fist bump is spreading widely across the nation, and according to Givens, is due in large part  to the fact that it is NOT just a greeting but also a  sign of approval and triumph.

Other cultures have varying degrees of the high five or greeting gesture.  Many nonverbal gestures have multiple meanings depending on the culture they belong to.

To learn more about gestures and what they mean…Check out Humintell’s newest webinar recording:  “World of Gestures”

Music & Our Emotions

Spotify is a music streaming service (much like Pandora) that provides digital rights management-restricted content from record labels to the greater public.

With the inception of the mobile phone, specifically the iPhone (and iPods), music had become a more intrinsic part of  our lives. Music can have powerful effects on our emotions and with today’s technology we can listen to tunes in almost any part of the world.

Spotify worked with Cognitive Psychology and Neuroscience  Professor at the University of Groningen, Jacob Jolij, to reveal some of the songs that trigger the clearest emotional responses from their listeners.

Below is a listing of popular songs and the emotions they elicit:

1. Happiness – Mostly uptempo, major key note songs such as Katy Perry’s Birthday.

2. Sadness – I Need from One Republic. Sad songs tend to be in a minor key and have a slow tempo – exactly what one would expect the opposite of songs that evoke happiness. In a previous blog post we explored research that looked into why people enjoy listening to “sad” music.

3. Anger –  Songs with negative lyrics and in a minor key David Guetta – Bad

Anger, opposed to sadness, is what we call an approach-emotion: it involves movement, a dimension anger shares with happiness.

4. Overcoming Fear – Coldplay’s, Magic has a slower beat and has major cords

Fear is a negative emotion, characterized by a stress response that prepares you for a ‘fight-or-flight’ reaction. In order to overcome fear, the very first thing you need to do is to minimize your stress response, followed by managing your internal thoughts.

If you want to preview the songs listed above check out the links below provided by Spotify.

Cherry Trees & Honesty

stockvault-cherry-blossom---sakura134654

Courtesy of StockVault

How do we get our children to have moral integrity and tell the truth, at least when it really matters?  Most of us have a hard time telling the truth ourselves, let alone teaching a child the intricacies of truth telling and the importance of  being honest.

Kang Lee, a professor of human development and applied psychology at the University of Toronto, has been studying this subject for years.  He notes, “Talking to kids about the moral importance of honesty and the moral negativity of lying has no impact on kids’ tendency to tell the truth.“

Lee and his colleagues understand that the developing mind of children along with their imagination leads them to tell very interesting and fantastical stories.  However, the researchers studied not only the kinds of behaviors that teach children how to lie but also if young children, who know how to lie, can tell when others are lying and how this affects their ability to learn about morality.

One of their decade long studies, published in the journal Psychological Science, tested whether children could effectively learn about honesty from childhood stories that had morals at the end such as Pinocchio or George Washington and the cherry tree.

They studied children ages 3 to 7 years old and asked them to identify familiar toy sounds such as a dog bark.  They then played a sound that was harder to identify and told the children they had to step out of the room for a moment. The child of course was told not to peek at the toy.

When the scientist returned she covered up the toy and had the child turn around.  She then read one of three childhood tales (George Washington and the Cherry tree, Pinocchio, or the Boy Who Cried Wolf. A control group heard “The Tortoise and the Hare”, which has no moral ending.

The children were then asked if they peeked at the toy while the researcher was gone. About 90% of 3-year-olds peeked. More than 60% of 7-year-olds did, too. Overall, 65% lied about peeking.

Surprisingly, however, those who heard the George Washington tale only lied about half the time, a significant improvement over the other groups. Those who heard “Pinocchio” and “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” were just as likely to lie as those in the control group.

The researchers speculate that the children were responding to the positive benefits of telling the truth rather than the negative consequences of getting caught lying.

Some words of wisdom from the researchers into embedding morality into your children.

1.  Model Honesty –  Admit when you made a mistake instead of scapegoating it. Instead of listing all the things you had to do before work, which “made” you late, say “I should have gotten up earlier.”

2. Reward honesty don’t punish it. Say a child/teenager gets a bad grade – address how they can go about improving their grade and what kind of help they might  need. But if a child/teenager lies about getting a bad grade then punish the lie not the grade (after all they could have been trying their hardest).