Social Engineering Blogs

An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields

Living with Moebius Syndrome

msad-logo-300x300As we enter the New Year, it is time to prepare for Moebius Syndrome Awareness Day on January 24. While often ignored, a better understanding of this rare condition can lead to a better understanding of facial expressions – and the people who cannot show them.

Moebius syndrome is characterized by a craniofacial/neurological disorder that results in facial paralysis, stifling the ability to exhibit basic emotional expressions like frowning or smiling. While Moebius syndrome is quite rare, affecting approximately 1 in 50,000 to 1 in 500,000, it profoundly affects the lives of those who live with it.

By being unable to show emotion through facial expression, Moebius syndrome poses distinctive challenges for social interaction. Dr. Kathleen Bogart, a psychologist who is afflicted by the condition but also studies it, has elaborated on this challenge.

Dr. Bogart explains how hard it is to reciprocate emotions without the benefit of facial expressions, saying “I wasn’t able to return [expressions]. I tried to do so with words and tone of voice, but it was no use. Stripped of the facial expression, the emotion just dies there, unshared. It just dies.”

Despite these challenges, Moebius syndrome does not prevent people from living happy and successful social lives.

Humintell’s Dr. David Matsumoto and Dr. Bogart have worked together to better understand how people without facial expressions cope. In a 2010 study, they found that Moebius syndrome does not prevent the recognition of emotions in other people’s faces.

This is notable, given the role of “facial mimicry” in developing emotion recognition skills. Most people learn to recognize emotional expressions by mirroring the expressions seen in others. This allows us to feel their emotions ourselves, helping us connect the visual presentation of an emotion with how we feel it ourselves. Because those with Moebius syndrome cannot do this, they must have found another way to recognize emotions.

Dr. Matsumoto explains that people can develop compensation skills, just as they would for other senses: “Just like for blind people, whose senses of touch, smell, hearing become sharper… Same thing here, I think, only it’s in the domain of nonverbal communication.”

This compensation takes several different forms. Matthew Joffe, a therapist with Moebius syndrome emphasized developing an expressive laugh and sense of humor. “I use humor a lot,” he explains, “It’s a way of showing my humanity, for one thing, and over the years people have said I have a great laugh… I have many different laughs for different occasions, each one looks distinct in my body”

Similarly, Dr. Bogart has learned to be an effective reader of people. “At a party, I feel like I can tell whether someone will be worth talking to within seconds… I can read people’s comfort level, or whether they can work through discomfort, very quickly.”

These tactics seem successful too! In another study by Dr. Bogart and Dr. Matsumoto, they found that participants with Moebius syndrome were no more likely to experience anxiety, depression, or general dissatisfaction with life.

For more information of Moebius syndrome, read Humintell’s past blogs here and here.

Resolving for a New Year

new-years-eve-1905142_1280Are you already stressed about your New Year’s resolution?

As we prepare for the New Year, it is important to remember that attempts at self-improvement are deeply rooted in psychological principles. It may be hard to stick with our resolutions, but an understanding of how to motivate ourselves can help you make lasting and powerful resolutions.

Of the millions of Americans who make them, only eight percent manage to stick with their goals throughout the year. In fact, less than half make it through the first six months, and only 64 percent last through January!

This rate of failure certainly does not signify weakness or lack of commitment, instead it is deeply rooted in how we make and change habits. We need to understand why New Year’s resolutions so often fail, and then we can look at some ways to make them stick.

Harvard social psychologist Dr. Amy Cuddy helps shed light on this question. Dr. Cuddy contends that resolutions suffer by focusing on outcomes far off into the future. If we aim to lose 30 pounds or quit smoking, it is incredibly difficult to realize those goals or to see any concrete progress. This leads to short-term failures completely derailing the whole process.

The author Charles Duhigg agrees. Mr. Duhigg, who has spent a reporting career analyzing the power of habits, argues that many resolutions fail by coming into conflict with deeply ingrained habits.

Mr. Duhigg encourages us to focus on developing new habits, creating goals that can be attained a little bit every day. This could involve beginning to go to the gym, rather than losing weight, or developing a substitute habit for smoking, instead of quitting outright.

Building off of this advice, the American Psychological Association (APA) compiled a series of tips on how to maximize the potential of our New Year’s resolutions.

They build on Dr. Cuddy and Mr. Duhigg’s advice in encouraging the development of new habits. Specifically, these habits should “start small,” making modest commitments and targeting only one behavior at a time. We cannot totally reinvent ourselves in the New Year.

Similarly, remember that you are not in this alone. It is easier to change habits if we talk to friends, family, or even join a support group. By talking to other people, we can open up about our challenges and be reassured that we are on the right track.

Finally, the APA stresses that we must be patient and kind to ourselves. If we fail in that diet or just really need to have that smoke, it is not a reason to abandon the whole endeavor. This often involves patience as different people form habits at different speeds. As behavioral psychologist Dr. Paul Marciano points out, “making lasting change takes time.”   

For more holiday-related blogs, see our past content here and here.

Staying Jolly for the Holidays

christmas-1909456_1280The Christmas season is certainly a happy time for many people, but it’s often hectic nature can cause a great deal of stress.

Thankfully, there are easy ways to manage this stress without distracting from the necessary shopping, cooking, and family time. The psychologist, Dr. Tara Brach, claims that this is a perfect time to see how meditation can help relieve stress and boost overall happiness.

Meditation, Dr. Brach contends, promotes the idea of mindfulness, encouraging us to simply sit in the present moment. This helps stop our mind from dwelling on past interactions or from stressing about future events. This allows us to relax and regain a level of focus and perspective.

If you are experiencing holiday stress, you are not alone. The American Psychological Association offers a few recommendations to help you relax. They encourage each of you to “take time for yourself” and “be mindful and focus on the present,” connecting to the idea of meditation.

Many readers may instantly roll their eyes and dismiss these notions of mindfulness and meditation as fully of trendy, New Age buzzwords, but Dr. Brach points to the scientific evidence for an actual neurological effect from meditation. This research suggests that meditation can have a positive effect on the emotional sectors of your brain.

This is just one example of the evidence showing that mediation has a beneficial impact on your brain. A 2011 study at Yale University found that meditation helps prevent the mind from wandering, promoting happiness by maintaining mindfulness. Similarly, numerous studies have shown that meditation can reduce depression, anxiety, and even help treat addiction.

The practice of meditation may call to mind a multiple hour Zen retreat or stories of practitioners sitting for days on end, but that sort of time commitment is unreasonable for beginners, especially beginners overwhelmed by the Holiday season! Instead, Dr. Brach explains that meditation does not have to take longer than a few minutes.

Even devoting just a couple minutes can be enough to help you relax. If you do not have the physical space to sit in peace, taking deep breathes and focusing on the feeling of those breathes can help you realize benefits even amidst the hustle and bustle of holiday preparation.

Finally, it is important to remember that the holiday season is not a happy time for everyone, and the Mayo Clinic has released some tips for dealing with this phenomenon. Remember to reach out to others and acknowledge that it is acceptable, and common, to feel stressed and depressed around this time.

For more information on mindfulness and meditation, see our past blogs here and here.