It’s sad. 365 days after the disappearance of Malaysia airlines flight MH370, the report that was recently published offered no satisfactory answers. The locator beacon without a battery was a false hope indeed.
The emotion was touching. The sadness could be felt even when the victims were not related to you.
One of the posters, “Dad I miss you,” stirred a nerve in me.
In Nigeria, the Chibok girls abducted on April 14, 2014 have not yet been found. The President, Goodluck Jonathan, made a promise recently that the girls were safe. At the approach of another anniversary for dearly beloved missing persons, we could be faced with another false hope? Maybe, maybe not! I’d place my cards on the maybe.
If I was taking a trek to the mountains, going scuba diving, or visiting Northern Nigeria, I’d be wise to take along a personal locator beacon. Did you know locator beacons could also be fitted to one’s person?
I searched on Google and found some myself. Like this site that offers personal locator beacons for rent.
I was wondering: maybe the demand for locator beacons should be on the rise!
A friend once told me: “I’d rather an enemy I know than a friend whom I don’t trust.” Not the actual words but something along those principles.
Losing my teaching job a week ago, I thought up this cartoon on the way from an interview.
Photo credit: S.J. de Waard via Wikimedia CommonsSpeech bubbles created using Phrase It.
I still haven’t gone over the lose because I thought I was doing my best and didn’t deserve it.
Maybe I shouldn’t; I shouldn’t have been working the extra mile.
Maybe!
The brain perceives color when light falls on the retina and interprets these colors by sending the light, as electrochemical signals, to the brain. The rods perceive night vision while the cones at the retina perceive color.
It’s not so simple as that because vision involves more than just perceiving darkness and color. It includes, as this BrainHQ.com article describes it, distilling foreground from background, recognizing objects in various orientations and accurately interpreting spatial cues.
A dress was recently posted on tumblr.com (click to see it yourself), the social networking site, and the question was: what is the color of the dress? Is it white and gold, or blue and black?
The question brings up the concept of how the brain interprets color. At least, the following factors determine how your brain interprets colors so you do not go about thinking you must have an eye problem.
Time of the day, whether during the day, when the cones are at work, or the night, when the rods are more at work.
Surrounding light conditions or illumination.
Distance between the eyes and the object or dress, in this case.
Medium of perception: air, monitor, cellphone screen or TV screen.
Stored memory of past experiences and interpretations.
You can find these explained on abcnews.go.com.
Actually, the dress is not white and gold, but shades of black and blue. The brain at work tweaks colors in varied ways that no color stays true throughout the day.
MOOCS which stands for Massive Open Online Courses provide learning opportunities for millions of people who are working full time or part-time.
The link below is to an infographic that summarizes the essentials of MOOC: definition, providers, statistics etc.
MOOCs.com: Massive Open Online Courses.
Thanks. Pass it on.
I can prove it! I'm smarter.Battleofthesexes by Welleman via Wikimedia Commons
If we tend to label boys as stupid and girls as cleverer, the answer does not lie in the gene. It lies in us, the adults and how we have structured the society. The answer lies in the self-confidence we have imbibed in these young adults as teachers, parents and guardians of their psycho-social, moral and intellectual capabilities.
The answer lies in parental and educational expectations we place on them. These expectations have created a gender inequality in education in Africa because most parents believe girls are good only in the kitchen and for giving birth to babies, so what uses wasting hard-earned money investing in them?
The answer lies in our cultural biases; as noted also above. How many girls are taught leadership education? A girl would be scoffed at if her aim is to be the President of the country in the future.
It is also found in the school system. How are the curriculum developed? What is the aim of policy, educational programs and teacher professional development programs in our schools?
Let’s start making these issues straight before labeling those young adults as clever, stupid, dull, smart, brilliant etc, especially writing gender labels that won’t wipe away easily.
What message does an MJ goodbye mean or make you do?Source:Wikimedia Commons.
Some of the implications of the EASI model are:
Emotions can be used to regulate human social life.
Based on the perception of the observer and the interpreted or responded to emotion, people can adaptively respond to the signals of their environment, to fight or flight, and to send signals about their intentions to their immediate environment.
Emotions can be used to coordinate one’s social life.
If you believe a partner is committed to a relationship because he is attentive to your demands, then you’d want to be yourself.
Emotions can ensure human survival.
A society without the mechanism of language would have to rely on non-verbal cues for communication. But that would serve as a disadvantage when danger lurks and such danger is of immediate or spontaneous concern.
Emotions can be used to change the destiny of others.
Followers react to their leaders anger and are happy when he is happy. Nations go to war on the say-so of their President. When a lover feels loved, he wants to love in return.
Emotions are influencing tools.
People respond readily to emotions of trust and want to reply in like. Most persons dislike treachery and are disgusted to hear accounts of such.
Emotions are signals of intentions and desires.
By watching a deaf-and-dumb sign, you can deduce sometimes if they are angry, happy, sad or annoyed. When other methods that serve as vehicles of communication fail, people often resort to emotional cues.
Emotions can be used to shape behavior.
People can decode emotional signals differently. Persons with high information processing abilities react to a leader’s anger while those with low information processing abilities believe the leader is insensitive, dislikes them etc when he expresses the emotion of anger. The accuracy to decode the message transmitted by an emotion and the degree of emotional expressivity can greatly shape other’s behavior.
Emotions are tied to cultures.
Remember display rules? Also, traditions and customs can greatly shape one’s emotions. I can particularly testify to that this year when I went to the village to attend my grandmother’s burial. I even blogged about it.
So, the EASI model can be a good tool in understanding, regulating and coordination our social life using emotions interpretation and responses.
The EASI model is a groundbreaking work by Van Kleef. You can read the full textual explanation here.
The six series of blog articles that are focused on this theme are:
Response and interpretation of emotions also depends on the peculiarities and characteristics of the social environment of the observer. A case in point is competitive and cooperative behavior. Inferential processes are more dominant in situations of competition and conflict than cooperation, while affective or emotional response processes are more dominant in cooperative settings.
Some cultures have specific rules on how, when and where one can express emotions. This is referred to as display rules in psychology. Some examples from the Psychlopedia are:
In Islamic culture, females are not to disagree because it is seen as a sign of disrespect.
Children in Asian cultures are often taught to mask their emotions (especially negative ones), whereas American children are generally advised to express them.
In other countries, the middle finger is meaningless, where as here, it's very impolite and generally a sign of anger or hate.
Sticking out your tongue in America usually signifies disgust, where as in China it can express surprise.
Slurping your soup in America is viewed as socially unacceptable, while in Japan and Hong Kong it is seen as a sign of approval of the cook and appreciation of the food.
In American culture, it is disrespectful to not make eye contact when talking to people, where as in many African cultures it is considered a sign of respect to look down when speaking to someone, particularly elders.
In America, holding up your middle finger and index finger conveys the message of peace; however, in England and Australia, this is known as an obscene way of telling someone off.
In Italy, biting your thumb is a way of showing disrespect or insulting someone, while in other cultures it doesn't mean anything.
In Japanese culture it is known that burping after a meal shows politeness and enjoyment of the food, but in American culture, after burping, you must say "excuse me" as to be ashamed for burping.
In America it is considered socially unacceptable for men to display their emotions.
When an observer perceives an emotion, how he interprets it and his reaction to it depends on his motivation and ability to process the information conveyed by that emotion. By processing that information, the observer seeks to understand it and to relate it to himself whether for good or bad.
Let’s take an example. When one is forced to find answers to ambiguities such as racism and authority, his response, whether he is affected by the question and reacts emotionally to it or avails himself of every means to find suitable answers depends on if he seeks immediate answers or wants deeply probed and meditated answers. Psychologists refer to this as the need for closure. Persons with a high need for closure, or for immediate answers, have shallow information processing motivation. They tend to accept the status quo, are averse to diversity and diverse opinions, are influenced more by emotions and react to it, resist change, adopt conservative views and are easily law abiding. They usually have reduced creativity. Generally, individuals with high need for closure have low powers of processing emotional information and tend to react to rather than make inferences from perceived emotions.
A related study on persuasion and need for closure found that persons who were low on the need for closure were easily persuaded and receptive to divergent opinions because they had high information processing abilities.
In the area of leadership, followers with high information processing abilities are better able to interpret the negative emotions, like anger, of their leader and infer that they had to work harder while followers with low information processing abilities are more receptive to happiness or positive emotions. If the leader becomes angry, they become annoyed and then dislike the leader.
Power also reduces an individual’s ability to correctly process information and draw inferences from emotional expressions. People with low power can easily make inferences and more objective than those who have power.
The next blog article, Series 5: The social context in responding and interpreting emotions, will examine how cultural norms shape our reaction and interpretation of emotions.
The rest of the series:
An inference is a conclusion drawn from evidence or reasoning. In this case, the evidence and reasoning are responses to an initial perceived emotion.
We can make inferences about others feelings, we interpret what messages is conveyed by the nod of a head, a gentle smile, a stolen kiss, which influence us, the observers. The inferences could be wrong or right depending on the circumstances. An example could be taken from culture shock, the impact you feel when you enter a culture very different from your own. An example is that Asians consider it rude to meet gazes too long (longer than a second), however, it is just the opposite in some western countries. So when a westerner meets an Asian, the Asian thinks the westerner is rude, the westerner thinks the Asian is sneaky. Some more examples from the website:
In Argentina, the usual way of greeting among friends and family is a kiss on the cheek… Don't ever kiss an Indian.... There is no such provision for kissing a person to greet him or her. It is considered as a sexual act.
Inferences drawn from observed emotions shape our behavior. Some persons interpret guilt as a need for approval, that the expresser wants the relationship to continue while others perceive guilt as emotional blackmailand would completely reject such emotions. Non-verbal cues can be used to express the emotions of power and dominance. In rounds of negotiations, the emotions expressed by an opponent can lead negotiators to discover win-win agreements that satisfies all concerns. Emotional intelligencecan impact on a leader’s ability to be effective and can be used by followers in a business environment to draw inferences about their performance levels.
Students in school are particularly keen in observing the emotions of their lecturers. A smile or a nod of the head is all the encouragement a student needs sometimes to outperform others in group-based learning.
Therefore, by eliciting a second emotional response or helping the observer to make inferences based on how they read the emotions, emotions do help in decision making.
That brings us to the fourth blog article in the series, Series 4: Information processing of emotional signals.
The rest of the series:
A child sees his mother smoking and is soon found with a twig in his mouth, copying the way she holds and inhales from a cigarette. A sociable imitation of another person’s behavior is termed mimicry. A woman crying on the streets sometimes makes one shed a tear. The sensation of crying was carried to the brain and fed back to your senses as pity that you’d want to share with.
The two examples above demonstrate that emotions can influence others. Emotions can spread like gangrene. Happiness spreads faster than anger. Patriotism is contagious. Anger makes others to like you less and to feel dissatisfied with your company.
The contagious effect of the emotions is particularly noticeable in group settings. We all love inviting gregarious and charming Sandra to our parties but allow introverted Alex to his lonely musings. An angry member of a group can spoil the group climate and create an atmosphere of negativity. Teams that were coached by a leader in a positive mood developed one.
When anger is directed at you, you can use the tools of effective listening to defuse the anger or fuel it by responding in kind.
All these are a second emotional response which are reactions to an observed emotion.
As humans, we register emotions in the brain, process them and decide to react emotionally or make other interpretations of these registers.
The next blog article,Series 3: How emotions play a part in decision making, describes emotions role in shaping decisions.
The rest of the series:
Emotions are our responses to internal or external events. A woman having a headache demonstrates it by either touching her hands to her head or saying it out that she has a headache. When we see a crime being committed on the street, our faces register signs of dismay and shock. On my face, your face, by body movements, by choice of words, by a silent whisper, a nod of the head, a smile of approval, a loving kiss, a hateful glance, emotions are expressed in countless ways that the senses can perceive and receive a message.
Some emotions are spontaneous. In my middle high school classes, it amazes me how the children sometimes begin drumming on the desks or exclaiming in alarm in reaction to some information in the lecture or to an answer to a question. Some are also premeditated.
Whatever the case may be, emotions are message bearers in that they convey to the observer the feelings, goals, needs, desires and social intentions of the creator of the emotion. Whether love at first sight exists or not, the reaction expressed by an observer to sex or other visual stimuli, was as a result of a emotion produced.
If happiness is appraised as a favorable and benign emotion that we all are attracted to, then what is anger? An expressive emotion that translates into a frustrated goal and taking the blame out on others.
Emotions surely convey messages and not just few, but lots of messages. Emotions then are worth studying and understanding if we want to build healthy social relationships.
The next blog article, Series 2: Why emotions can drive a second emotional response, describes the influential role of emotions in social life.
The rest of the series:
MJ captivated thousands with his emotional music.Source:Wikimedia Commons.
If you watch any video of Michael Jackson, you’d be amazed at how he creatively uses his emotions – his voice, face, hands and body movements – to convey messages that are meant to influence you. Emotions are not only meant to influence others in social relations, it also determines our reactions and personal feelings. Take for example a man who sees a snake on his path. He feels the emotion of fear and decides either to run or look for a stick to kill it. Emotions regulate and coordinate humans and their relationship with others. Emotions could trigger a fight or a flight response.
A nation could go to war riding on the wave of emotions.
Understanding how our emotions determine our existence and using them to human advantage both at an intrapersonal and interpersonal level is then important. This end-of-year special series of blog articles will describe a model developed by Van Kleef that was developed towards this end, but on the interpersonal level. The model is named Emotions As Social Information (EASI) model.
The EASI describes human emotions as signals from one’s face, voice, bodily posture, choice of words etc that were expressed to influence the observer and trigger either an emotional response or trigger his brain to make deductions on what message(s) the emotion was meant to convey based on his information processing ability and social context.
The six series of blog articles that are focused on this theme are:
What is X?
Hint: You can change the angle of view - 90, 180 degrees, turn it upside down, whatever, to make out a different series.
I can't wait for the first correct answer!
