Dr.  David Matsumoto, Humintell’s director and professor/director of the Emotion and Culture Research Lab at San Francisco State University was interviewed by The Defense Insider to comment on cross-cultural gestures.  This podcast examines inter-group aggression and violence as it pertains to studies of emotions and culture.

What role do emotions play in aggressive behavior and how is this information used for viable and actionable intelligence for the military?

Dr. Matsumoto is one of the leading researchers in the field of cross-cultural psychology.  He has developed a product specific for learning to adapt in our global world, IntelliCulture- Humintell’s Cross-Cultural Adaptation tool.

IntelliCulture is perfect for individuals who interact with people from other cultures: from the student studying abroad to the businessman or woman engaging in international negotiations.

The Defense Insider’s interview covers the main lessons learned from the ‘Mivera Grant’, and touches on tools and technologies aiding this Cross-Cultural research.

Emotions have become a popular topic as global communication becomes more widely spread not just to businessmen and women but to social media junkies as well.  One of the biggest social media sites is Facebook.

Facebook continually updates its site to keep up with the needs and desires of its followers.  As emoticons have become more popular on the iPhone and Android, many Facebookers tried to include them in their status updates.  These would either not show up or show up but later disappear.

Engadget writes about Facebook’s new sharing option for user status updates.  They have created not only a group of “emoticons”  for people to capture and share how they are feeling with a picture or two but icons that let your friends know exactly what you are doing.

The company began testing this new sharing option back in January and has now released it to their general users.  Some might remember way back to 2006 and note that this is similar to a previous MySpace feature.  However, Facebook has taken it a step further (as they often do) and added icons of books, TV shows, music, food as well as emoticons for emotions.

The question now is, is this really a good thing?  For many people it is and will add a little drama and color to their otherwise monotone written dialogue.  However, some fear that for the younger generations it will replace the already too short acronym style communication.   Could future posts just be linear images of pop culture icons?

Most of the icons (excluding the emoticons) are also linked to their product websites so not only is this a “convenience”  for the social media communicator but it has the ability to generate revenue as well, which in a consumer driven county is on high demand.

So end it with a smiley, winky face or a an image of the Game of Thrones and bring your friends along for your ride of life.   To find out more on the benefits of this new feature and how it works click here.

 What is your take on this new feature ? 
Are you for it or think it will cause communication issues with future generations?