Social Engineering Blogs

An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields

You Can Buy Happiness!!

Two recent studies show that acts of kindness such as doing a good deed or buying a gift as long as it’s for someone else will make you happier. Perhaps, that ‘s why Saint Nicholas AKA Santa Claus is so jolly.

The first study, which was published in the Journal of Social Psychology had participants perform acts of kindness for a mere ten days.  The Great Britain researchers formed three groups out of the 86 participants in the study.  The control group was given no instructions and at the conclusion of the ten days were not happier than before the study began.  However, the group that was instructed to perform an act of kindness each day reported a significant elevation in their happiness.

The second study, conducted by researchers at Harvard Business School and the Univeristy of British Columbia suggests that kindness has a long lasting effect on our happiness.  This study’s findings reflected that people felt happier simply by recalling a time they bought something for someone else rather than when recalling a time when they purchased something for themselves.

Another intersting fact about the second study, which was published online in the Journal of Happiness Studies, was that the price of the gift didn’t seem to have an effect on the level of happiness the person experienced.  It didn’t matter if the gift had cost $20 dollars or $100 dollars. Also, the happier the participant felt about past acts of kindness, the more likely they were to choose to continue doing for others in lieu of themselves.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This is all according to the Greater Good website from the University of California, Berkeley.

With the holidays just around the corner, we all have the opportunity to test these findings.  The new mantra Give and Be Happy.

Below is a video about enjoying life

Perception Variation?

The seven basic facial expressions of emotion can be dubbed the world’s universal language.  Numerous scientific studies have qualified the fact that facial expressions are innate human behaviors, so they do not differ across cultures.

Eureka Alert has just reported that there is a new study that examines how people from divergent cultural backgrounds, particularly East Asians and Western Caucasians, perceive facial expressions through their own mental representations.

Lead researcher Rachael E. Jack, PhD, of the University of Glasgow commented, “Our findings highlight the importance of understanding cultural differences in communication, which is particularly relevant in our increasingly connected world.”

This research purports that some facial emotions are expressed differently in East Asia; therefore, questioning the validity of the universality of facial expressions especially the ones outlined in FACS.

It suggests that facial expressions categorized using FACS  focus on the nose and mouth region of the face, but the study, which has been published online in APA’s Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, states that East Asians focus on the eye region of the face; therefore, making errors when delineating between facial expressions of fear, surprise, anger and disgust.

“By conducting this study, we hoped to show that people from different cultures think about facial expressions in different ways,”

Humintell understands the importance of cross-cultural adaptation.  Different Cultures respond to situations in divergent ways.  It is important to be able to recognize this difference and understand its cultural relevance.

Through research and applications Humintell has developed a Cross -Cultural Adaption Course to help people handle business and personal moves with ease.  For additional information on this product, check out the Coming Soon section of our website.

What do you think about Jack’s findings? Do you think they have any merit?

Social Networking

Facial expressions are are a major part of communication and can be critical in a conversation between two hearing impaired individuals.

Business Standard Technology reports that a new program RockeTalk, a mobile social networking platform, allows users to send video messages which make conversing for the hearing impaired easier by allowing them to see each others facial expressions.

Rajesh Ketkar, head of a Vadodara-based NGO, Mook Badhir Mandal (MBM) states, “With video messaging, talking to one another becomes easy. In addition, users can also send their video messages to an interpreter who in turn would talk to a normal person on their behalf over the phone.”

This new app allows users, in India, to place free calls to social platforms such as Mig33,a moblie social platform and  Nimbuzz, a cross-platform chat app, over WiFi without using any voice minutes.

What are your thoughts on this?  Should these social applications allow the hearing imparied access to video talk for free?