Social Engineering Blogs

An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields

Self Deception – The Power of Expectation and Belief

Michael Shermer debunks myths, superstitions and urban legends, and explains why we believe them.

In his insightful TED talk on self deception he delves into the cognitive and psychological science behind delusional, irrational and unconscious self deceiving thought that attempts to manifest itself as a category of reality in the world.

“We have association learning and naturally find patterns in the things around us” Shermer states.

He goes on to note, there is a danger to pseudo science and believing in that science.  “We evolved there was a natural selection for a propensity for our belief engines, our pattern seeking brain processes to always find meaningful patterns.”

The “Kissing” experiment at the end of this 19 min video is worth the watch.

 

Click here to view the embedded video.

Hearing Emotions

New research suggests that emotions such as anger, sadness, and happiness are expressed in the same way in music and movement across cultures.

 Live Science reports on this interesting discovery.  In the past, scientists have found that animals like different music than humans and that music stimulates the same part of our brain as food, sex, and love.  The study is outlined in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers asked  Dartmouth undergraduates and members of a remote Cambodian hill tribe to use sliding bars to adjust traits such as the speed, pitch, or regularity of music.  Interestingly, both groups used the same types of characteristics to express primal emotions.  The study also found that the same types of patterns were used to express the same emotions in animations of movement in both cultures.

Outside observer Jonathan Schooler, a professor of brain and psychological Sciences at the University of California at Santa Barbara,  said, “The study suggests why music is so fundamental and engaging for us.  It takes advantage of some very, very basic and , in some sense, primitive systems that understand how motion relates to emotion.“

Thalia Wheatley, a neuroscientist at Dartmouth University, says that the team traveled to the remote highlands of Cambodia to verify if this trend held across cultures. They asked 85 members of the Kreung tribe to perform the same task as the Dartmouth students.

Interestingly, the Kreung tended to put the slider bars in roughly the same positions as Americans did to capture different emotions, and the position of the sliders was very similar for both music and emotions.  Wheatley pointed out that none of the tribes’ people had any exposure to Western music or media,

“Emotion is the same thing no matter whether it’s coming in through our eyes or ears.“

Culture and Body Language

Body language, unlike one of the seven facial expressions of emotion, is not universal.  In fact, research has shown that it is culture specific.

myGuidon.com writes that many of our body movements and gestures are culturally determined, some gestures have different meanings in different cultures. What can be seen in one culture as a compliment is often taken as an insult in another culture.

With our internationally connected world it is important for the business traveler, teacher, psychologist, doctor etc. to understand that one culture’s set of acceptable body language gestures or movements may not be interpreted the same way in a different culture.

One can simply look at the greeting style of various cultures to see this cultural discord come to life.  There are huge differences between the way Americans, Asians, and Middle Eastern people greet each other.

When dealing with cultural differences or a difficult cultural encounter Knowledge Is the Key!

Humintell’s IntelliCulture has a section devoted to gestures of different cultures and what they mean.  If you encounter individuals from varying cultural backgrounds, you would benefit from this cross-cultural adaptation tool.

 To read  more about gestures and how they are received in varying countries  read the entire article.

 Use Coupon Code:  COMP15 to receive 15% off your IntelliCulture purchase.