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Can Zoom Fatigue Be Related To Your Personality?

Since the Covid-19 pandemic hit, we’re on video calls more than ever before – and many are finding it exhausting.

There have been many articles addressing this “zoom fatigue” and the potential reasons for it. One reason often cited is the mental work and effort it takes to process nonverbal cues like facial expressions, the tone and pitch of the voice, and body language; paying more attention to these consumes a lot of energy. But can our exhaustion from remote meetings somehow be tied to our personality?

Many researchers today believe that there are five core personality traits that speak to the characteristics or qualities of an individual. These traits have been found by research to exist in humans all around the world, though the degrees to which people possess each trait differs.

One may find it helpful to use the acronym OCEAN (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) when trying to remember the big five traits.

Extraversion is one of these cross culturally universal underlying personality traits. A person who is extroverted is generally outgoing, friendly, sociable and happier more of the time than others. In contrast, a person who is introverted may be shy, quiet, reserved, and typically don’t seek out social events.

How introverted or extroverted are you? Find out here with a FREE test!

One suggested characteristic that’s associated with extroverted individuals is that when they meet people, they receive energy. When they meet people, teach classes, or socialize with others, they become energized. Whereas an introverted person uses energy when interacting with others, which can leave them drained. So how does this all relate to zoom fatigue?

Extroverted individuals may find themselves particularly drained after a remote meeting or class. Dr. Matsumoto suggests that although they may be interacting and seeing people they normally interact with, they’re likely not receiving the energy transfer they would in real life that normally invigorates them. Thus, these digital interactions leave them more exhausted than if the same interaction happened in real life.

The remoteness eliminates the interaction quality that allows them to give and receive energy.

Interestingly, there’s cultural differences in mean levels for extroversion as well. Americans generally have high extroversion, low neuroticism, higher conscientiousness, high agreeableness and high openness. Which means as a society as a whole, Americans may be suffering more from Zoom fatigue than other countries who have lower rates of extroversion such as Malaysia (see table below)

 

In addition to the many emotional consequences of digital communication we’ve covered, being remote may also eliminate the possibility of energy transfer we normally get in live interactions.

What are your thoughts? As an extrovert do you find this to be true? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section!

Want to learn more about the role of culture in shaping personality? View the video below to learn more!

Why face masks make it so hard for us to express how we feel

Health workers rely on positive non-verbal communication to show care for their patients: close physical proximity, touch, head nodding, smiling, open body language and a focused eye gaze. It’s such an important part of the work they do, that the world’s largest nursing body, the UK’s Royal College of Nursing, has a section of its website dedicated to the importance of body language.

A doctor or nurse’s body language sets the trajectory for treatment from the moment the patient first sees them. Positive non-verbal communication has been shown to decrease patient anxiety and give better outcomes. And it gives the patient confidence that a physician is sensitive and understanding. As a result, the patient is more trusting and communicative.

Even with pain, patients who get high non-verbal support from their physicians show increased tolerance. Doctors’ detachment and distancing behavior — such as the absence of smiling and direct eye-gaze — has the opposite effect and is linked to worse patient outcomes. A recent study of 719 patients with the common cold found that the more empathic they perceived their doctor to be — the faster they recovered. Each patient was asked to score the doctor for empathy shown to them on a 1-10 scale. Those who scored the doctor a perfect 10 (around a third of patients) had reduced severity of symptoms, recovered faster and also had higher immune function, about 50% better than others.

Face coverings significantly limit a doctor’s ability to gauge a patient’s emotions. The masks can hamper health care workers’ attempts to provide non-verbal support to people in their care.

Not only that, imagine being alone in hospital, very ill and afraid, and the faces of the doctors around you are almost unrecognizable. This is the reality for so many in the Covid-19 pandemic. CNN explores the science behind facial expressions and why they’re so key to human interaction.

How Wearing a Mask Makes it Difficult to be Polite

Now that everyone is wearing masks, we have to understand that we lose a major portion of the entire communication package when interacting with each other. This is significant considering that 65-95% of messages are communicated nonverbally. However despite this loss, it is still possible to pick up cues in the face, which we covered in a past blog. But are there particular expressions you can’t see when people are wearing masks? The answer is yes.

There are many different types of happiness including elation, euphoria, excitement, and amusement. However, research has shown that these enjoyable emotions are all expressed on the face the same way: by the Duchenne Smile.

A Duchenne Smile occurs when the lip corners move up and the muscle around the eyes moves as well. Oftentimes you see wrinkles around a person’s eyes. This is often described as a “twinkling” or “sparkling” in the eyes. This smile is a true indicator of enjoyment and because the muscles around the eye are activated, it is possible to see this expression even when someone is wearing a mask.

But what about other smiles?

In addition to the Duchenne smile, humans also display what Dr. Matsumoto calls a “social smile”. This smile involves the pulling up of the lip corners, but the muscle around the eye generally does not activate.

Below you can see examples of a true smile (left) and a social smile (right).

Unfortunately because the muscle around the eyes are generally not activated, one is generally unable to see these social smiles that are important in everyday life and culture.

Even though social smiles are not emotional expressions, they serve an important purpose in all of our daily interactions and communications. Social smiles serve several different purposes including:

  1. Serving as a note of politeness or courtesy or greeting

Things like social smiles are incredibly important techniques that we use to grease the wheels of society and bind people together. Since are unable to see social smiles, those wheels are not greased and it may make passing a stranger a little bit rougher. Although the effort to try and be pleasant is not an emotional signal, for social affordances, it’s an incredibly important expression. The social smile has a lot of social and cultural meaning that we consciously and unconsciously attribute.

  1. Telling you something about the person who is smiling

When a person smiles at you, they are showing you they’re more sociable, more outgoing, and approachable at that time. These social smiles give insight into their personality and intentions for that interaction at that time.

  1. Commenting on things that we say or other emotions that we show

If you deliver a harsh comment with a smiles on your face, it’s perceived differently than if you said the same thing with an angry expression. Social smiles comment on things we say and without them, words could be misconstrued to be interpreted differently than what we intended.

It’s clear that social smiles are important for every day interaction. Without the ability to see them, we may have to take some extra steps to compensate.

Here are some helpful tips we suggest when passing a stranger when wearing a mask:

  • Nod when you see someone
  • Wave “hello”
  • Saying “hi” in a pleasant voice

Please weigh in on the comments if you can think of any more!

Can you tell the difference between an enjoyment and social smile?
Put Yourself to the Test