1.Academic Journal: The Job Interview: Body Language and Perceptions of Potential Effectivenss

Source:

https://dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2312/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pdh&AN=1979-14647-001&site=eds-live&scope=site

Sterrett, John H. “The Job Interview: Body Language and Perceptions of Potential Effectiveness.” Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 63, no. 3, June 1978, pp. 388–390. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1037/0021-9010.63.3.388.

Key words:

Body language, job interview, ambition, motivation, self-confidence, self-organization, responsibility, verbal ability, intelligence, sincerity.

Main thesis:

In 1978, a research was conducted where actors were asked to pretend to attend a job interviewer with a fake interviewer and differ their body language for different interviews. Managers were asked to analyse these tapes and give every applicant a rating our of 10 for different components. There were no significant results from this study indicating that the applicants’ body language affected their performance at the job interview.

Supporting elements:

• According to videotapes of male job applicants displaying different intensities of body language, women rated applicants using high-intensity body language low on ambition, while men reacted the opposite way.

• The body language components that were analyzed were eye contact, hand gestures, dress, and pause length.

• In each of the tapes, the applicant and the interviewer were the same two actors.

• The interviewer asked the applicant a series of questions such as “is the trafic bad?” Before continuing on with the interview questions. A “stress” question was asked at the end. The applicant’s body language was analyzed throughout their responses to these questions.

• The managers viewing these videotapes were asked to rate the applicant from 1 to 10 on eight scales: ambition, motivation, self-confidence, self-organization, responsibility, verbal ability, intelligence and sincerity.

• Results indicated that there were no significant differences due to the intensity of body language.

What I think about this source:

This article was published in 1978, does this mean body language has become more important with time?

2. Youtube Video: Former FBI Agent Explains How to Read Body Language | Tradecraft | WIRED

Source:

WIRED, director. Former FBI Agent Explains How to Read Body Language | Tradecraft | WIRED. YouTube, YouTube, 21 May 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jwUXV4QaTw&feature=youtu.be.

Key words:

Body language, non-verbal communication, FBI, spies, reacting to stimuli, habits, a change in habits, analyzing

Main thesis:

An FBI agents explains what tricks he used to unmask spies during his career. He explains how the most minute details can lead to big discoveries about a person’s intentions.

Supporting elements:

• Non-verbals are anything that communicates but is not a word.

• How we dress and walk have meaning.

• The FBI’s safety is based on non-verbals.

• We are never in a state where we are not transmitting information.

• Self-soothing is the action of calming or comforting oneself when snappy or distressed (example: crossing your arms).

• When we think about things, we look in certain ways to process information.

• There are a lot of misconceptions about that certain habits mean, such as crossing your arms, looking away or scratching your nose.

• The FBI agent was able to uncover a spy by the way he held his flowers (he held them in an eastern-European way).

• He looks at behaviour to see what a person is transmitting based on a stimuli.

• Stress is revealed in the forehead.

• Red eyes could mean not enough sleep.

• Bunny nose = dislike.

• When something bothers us we tend to suck in our lips.

• When we are stressed we rub our tongue on the inside of our cheeks.

• A head-tilt signifies a person is more relaxed.

• When something is troubling us, we tend to stiffen our fingers and interlace them.

• When something is at issue we put our hands on our hips and become territorial.

• Men tend to ventilate at the neck when something bothers them.

• Any brushing of the legs with the hands is a pacifier.

• Differences in behaviour can go down to the posture of someone walking down the street or analyzing someone’s blink rate.

• Amongst most western cultures, the first time people touch is when they shake hands.

• When we like things, we tend to move our hands forwards, and when we don't like things, we move them away.

• When looking at footage of non-verbal, you can even look at it at 2x speed because the non-verbals tend to jump out like a caricature.

• You can have a poker face, but not a poker body.

• We primarily communicate non-verbally and we always will.

What I think about this source:

This source was recommended to me by my sister and I am glad that I watched it. It was very interesting to see how mucb analysing body language can matter in the FBI.

3. TED Talk: Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are

Source:

Cuddy, Amy, director. Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are. TED, June 2012, www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_may_shape_who_you_are?language=en.

Key Words:

Body language, confidence, power-posing, testosterone, cortisol, non-verbal communication, power.

Main thesis:

While often being concerned by other people’s body language, we forget that our own body language influences the way we think, act, and are perceived by others. Studies show that the way we hold ourselves actually influences the levels of testosterone and cortisol in our body. By faking confidence (such as power-posing), you can become confident.

Supporting elements:

• We are interested in other people’s body language.

• When we think of non-verbal behaviour, we think of what our bodies communicate to each other.

• Body language influences major life decisions like who gets promoted, or who you want to date.

• Judgement of political candidates’ faces in just one second predict 70 precent of race outcomes.

• Emoticons used properly in virtual communications can make one’s arguments seem more valid.

• We tend to forget that we are also influenced by our own nonverbal.

• Nonverbal expressions of power and dominance are about expanding, taking up space and opening up.

• When we feel powerless we wrap ourselves up and make ourselves small.

• If someone is making themselves powerful with us, we tend to make ourself smaller.

• Women are much more likely to make themselves smaller than men.

• You can fake it till you make it.

• Our nonverbal govern how other people think and feel about us, but do our non-verbals govern how we think and feel about ourselves?

• We smile when we feel happy, but if we force ourselves to smile, we also feel happy. The same thing goes for power; if you pretend to feel powerful, you will actually feel powerful.

• Powerful people tend to be more assertive, more confident, and more optimistic. They take more risks. They have more testosterone (power hormone) and less cortisol (stress hormone).

• Power is also how you react to stress.

• Within the animal kingdom, when an individual needs to take on an alpha role, their testosterone level rises significantly, while they cortisol level drops.

• The body can shape the mind.

• Role changes can also shape the mind.

• Adopting high-power poses and low-power poses affects testosterone and cortisol levels.

• Can power posing for a few minutes really change your life in a meaningful way? Yes.

• People before job-interviews tend to fold onto themselves when in reality, they should go to the bathroom and power-pose.

• Confidence brings presence to the speech.

• Our bodies change our minds, our minds change our behaviour and our behaviour changes our outcomes.

• Do not only fake it till you make it, fake it till you become it.

• Tiny tweaks can lead to big changes.

What I think about this source:

Watching this TED talk was actually life changing. I have recommended it to a lot of my friends and I truly believe it can help anyone get through life more confidently. I almost cried towards the end. It is crazy what body language can do for ourselves and how much it can help us. I had no idea maintaining certain poses could actually affect our hormone levels!

4. Academic Journal: Asymmetry in Facial Expression

Source:

Paul Ekman, et al. “Asymmetry in Facial Expression.” Science, vol. 209, no. 4458, Aug. 1980, pp. 833–836. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.1684659&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Key words:

Brain hemispheres, emotional expressions, right side, left side, facial nerve, facial muscle, voluntary facial movements, spontaneous facial movements, hemispheric specialization, facial asymmetry.

Main thesis:

The researchers are unsure wether or not asymmetry in emotional expression is really due to voluntary versus spontaneous movements, as it could also be due to a difference in muscle, fatty deposits, facial nerves, and general size of the face.

Supporting elements:

• The researchers analyse the results of a study that claimed that the right hemisphere has greater importance in the involvement in the production of emotional expressions.

• The differences that are perceived between the right and left part of the face when someone expresses an emotion may only be due to the size of the muscles in different parts of the face, the fatty deposits, and in neural supply from the facial nerve nucleus to the facial muscle.

• Notable difference between voluntary facial movements (the ability to perform requested actions) and spontaneous facial expressions.

• Lesions of different parts of the brain can leave one of the above mentioned abilities intact while paralyzing the other one.

• When the models in the pictures were spontaneously happy, there were no left-right differences in their faces. This might be due to the fact that all positive emotions are not asymmetrical.

• Voluntary facial expressions can be perceived as more intense on the left side than on the right side of the face.

• This may be due to the fact that the left side of the face is generally smaller than the right side, therefore there is a smaller area to distribute the same features.

• The theory that the left side of the human face is narrower than the right side is questioned.

• Facial asymmetry in intensity of emotional expression is related to hemispheric specialization.

• 91.5% of smiles start off with one corner of the mouth travelling faster than the other, and by the end of the smile, the other side has caught up, sometimes beating the first side.

• However, asymmetry in the emotional expression of the resting face of right-handed people is related to family history of left-handedness as well as lateral eye dominance.

• All in all, facial asymmetry in emotional expression is believed to reflect hemispheric asymmetry of function.

What I think about this source:

I think it is interesting that there has been research done about the asymmetry of the human face when processing emotions. I am a little bit disappointed that they did not reach any mind-blowing conclusions and that the researchers determine that the asymmetry in our facial expressions is probably only due to how our body is physically and neurally made, but it is informative nonetheless.

5. Academic Journal: Detecting Lies in Children and Adults

Source:

Robin S. Edelstein, et al. “Detecting Lies in Children and Adults.” Law and Human Behavior, vol. 30, no. 1, Feb. 2006, pp. 1–10. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.4499456&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Key words:

Lie detection, children, adults, biased opinions, lying, truth, perception.

Main thesis:

Not everyone is good at determining when someone is lying, but some, who are, are good at spotting a lie, whether it come from a children or an adult. Additionally, women are more likely to trust something to be truthful.

Supporting elements:

• To this day, little is known about how accurately people can determine when children are lying.

• Usually, people’s ability to detect lies is close to chance (close to 50%).

• When children age, their understanding of deception improves and they become better at deceiving others.

• Participants of a study where they had to determine wether children were lying were more likely to judge the children to be telling the truth.

• By the seventh grade, children have become good enough at hiding their non-verbal behaviour to hide indicators of the fact that they are lying.

• Some individuals can detect lies much better than other individuals, and these lie-detectors can detect lies told by children an adults.

• Participants in a study were better at perceiving adult’s truth telling, and better at perceiving children’s lying.

• Women were more likely than men to think that the liars were telling the truth.

• Observers might be biased when observing children/adults, thinking that the children will lie and the adults will tell the truth.

• Law enforcement officers, however, are biased towards judging adults as untruthful.

• There are less women in law enforcement, and this may be why.

What I think about this source:

I think this is a very interesting source and I am glad that I read it. However, it did not have much information about body language, which was a bit disappointing. It has definitely peaked my interest in terms of lie detection through body language and I will further my research on this topic.

6. Academic Journal: Emotions revealed: recognising facial expresisons: in the first of two articles on how recognising faces and feelings can help you communicate, Paul Ekman discusses how recognising emotions can benefit you in your professional life

Source:

Ekman, Paul, and Gavin Yamey. “Emotions Revealed: Recognising Facial Expressions: In the First of Two Articles on How Recognising Faces and Feelings Can Help You Communicate, Paul Ekman Discusses How Recognising Emotions Can Benefit You in Your Professional Life.” Student BMJ, vol. 12, Apr. 2004, p. 140. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsgao&AN=edsgcl.114923794&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Key words:

Micro-expressions, subtle expressions, emotions, facial expressions, understanding people, psychology, feelings, anger, sadness, cultures.

Main thesis:

Micro-expressions and subtle expressions can be key to understanding the people who surround us in order to give them the best help we can.

Supporting elements:

• There are seven emotions that are represented on the face in the same way universally. Even blind people represent these emotions in the same ways.

• Our acknowledgement of how someone is feeling can make a great difference in our relationships.

• When patients cannot put their emotions into words, they tend to translate them through their facial expressions.

• Micro-expressions are very brief expressions that last about 0.2 seconds.

• Subtle expressions tend to last a bit longer, but are often missed because they are so faint.

• When in anger, a person’s jaw is likely to thrust forwards and their lips be pressed together.

• When sad, a person’s inner eyebrow corners angle upwards and their eyelids drop.

• As a psychologist, when perceiving these facial expressions, you can tell your patient that you seem to have thought that they might have felt a certain way and invite the patient to explain why.

• Facial expressions can also be helpful in clinical scenarios, in order to reassure the patient as a doctor.

• In a study analyzing patients with heart disease, researchers were able to analyse who would have further ischaemic episodes by analyzing their facial expressions (the patients who seemed to be able to get angry more easily).

• Facial expressions are common through all cultures, though in some cultures, people tend to try and hide their expressions more than in others.

What I think about this source:

This source was a great read! It was exactly what I was looking for; a little bit of information about micro-expressions and in what context recognizing them might be useful.