Social Engineering Blogs

An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields

Body Language & Work

A recent article on an Australian website delineates how a person’s body language is interpreted by others.

Body language expert David Alssema, doles out the five worst body gestures during an interview.  They are:  not enough or too much eye contact, slouching, fidgeting or touching things, crotch display or foot on leg position and hands behind your head or arms folded.

Alssema suggests that one always match the interviewer’s level of eye contact and sit with their hands in their lap.

Suggestions for women in male dominated fields:  have your desk facing the door from a corner in your office, always make eye contact and match a man’s handshake, lean forward when listening and stand straight when speaking.

Alssema goes on to state that women are twice as good at reading body language than men.  Harvard research suggests that when reading expressions and decoding situations, women were correct 87% of the time while men scored only 42%.

What do you think about body language in the work force?

Joe Navarro , a former FBI agent and non-verbal expert, also has some very interesting and insightful remarks on body language and its influence on others.  Here is his video about the Art of Influence.

Click here to view the embedded video.

To learn more about body language check out this video:  David Alsemma Analysis or view our previous post on lying during an interview.

Do you believe Aiden?

This 8-year old boy was subdued by police using pepper spray after threatening his teachers at school. Meredith Viera talks to the young boy and his mother on the TODAY show.

Do you believe them? What do you see when you watch this clip?

Thanks Aaron for the link!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Negative Emotions

Science Daily reports that toddler boys may have more trouble in coping with negative emotions than their girl counterparts.

Boys, more often than girls, display negative emotions and social fearfulness according to a new study performed by the University of Illinois.

Nancy McElwain, an associate professor of human development at the University, observed 107 children in gathering data on children’s social and emotional development and parent-child relationships.

Children were examined at 33 months and again at 39 months and their parents were asked how they would respond to their children’s behavior in several hypothetical situations.

“We investigated two types of parental reactions to children’s negative emotions.  One type was to minimize their child’s emotions; for example, a parent might say, ‘Stop behaving like a baby’.  Another type of reaction was punishing the child for these emotions.  A parent might send a child to their room or take away a toy” Engle stated.

Parents who punished their kids for fears and frustrations were more likely to have children who were anxious and withdrawn.  This type of response to punishing parenting styles was more prominent among toddler boys.

Engle observed, “When children are upset, it’s better if you can talk with them and help them work through their emotions rather than sending then to their room to work through their feelings on their own.  Young children, especially little boys who are prone to feeling negative emotions intensely, need your comfort and support when their emotions threaten to overwhelm them.”