When a prepared teacher walks into a classroom his aim is to make the students active participants in the learning process. That is what engagement is about. Engagement of students in active learning brings about predictable outcomes – increased achievement in standardized test scores and assessment, reduced dropout rates and enrollment in challenging courses. Student engagement should cut across the three dimensions of learning, hence, affective, behavioral and cognitive, whether at the classroom or school level.
Active student participation is a learning good.Credit: Woodleywonderworks on flickr
How does a school, administrator or teacher measure the frequency of his/her students’ engagement?
According to research from student motivation and psychology, when students participate in class, they could be driven by many factors. One of them is the desire to cooperate in the process and learning, so that the teacher, the oppressor, should not bother them. This is what a teacher wants to avoid. Another is to put the maximal effort without any external compulsive force to show exemplary academic behavior. This latter is a good in a class.
Another reason why an engagement measuring tool is important is that children learn across different developmental stages. The learning predisposition of kindergartens, elementary school, middle high and senior high school students are different. It is known that elementary and kindergarten school pupils are more attuned to affective or emotional learning styles more than high school students.
To fill this knowledge gap in measuring engagement, Ze Wang, associate professor of educational, school and counseling psychology in the College of Education at Missouri University, MU, along with other colleagues produced a classroom engagement inventory (CEI) tool.
The classroom engagement inventory or CEI tool measures student engagement in both the classroom and school level. School level engagement is a prompt for teachers and educators to test why students chose or exempt themselves from out-of-school learning; it measures their interest in schooling at a holistic level. Classroom level engagement would answer questions such as: what can teachers do to make their students participate more in class activities, how can a teacher’s teaching effectiveness be evaluated, how can teachers know and understand how their students perceive them, and understand the relationship between engagement and learning.
The CEI tool has been shown by studies to be consistent and validated. It has been consistent whether the students or pupils have variable characteristics such as ethnicity, income of the family, age, subject and gender. According to Ze Wang, the goal of a tool like CEI is to lead the teacher and students to greater learning.
You can download a copy of the research.
Procrastination, to put off doing something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness. Some people allow panic, complicated tasks, fear and nervousness to get over them, and delay doing that important job. Procrastination is not a problem when it happens once, but it becomes so when you repeat it again and again that it becomes a habit. As the cartoon below shows.
Created on Bitstrip.com. See the full image.
This is the time to take control of your life. Step back and ask yourself: "Am I allowing situation and complications to get over me?" "Do I put off doing important things and rush over them just seconds to the deadline?" Many people have lost opportunities of making a significant progress in life because of the weakness of procrastination.
If you see yourself under the spell of procrastination, try to imagine yourself under the spell of taking action, of approval by others who trust in you and are inspired by you. Which image do you desire?
Comments in the comment box below, please!
Credit: Flickr.comCan you draw the Apple logo? When some UCLA undergraduates were asked to test their memory of the ubiquitous Apple Logo, they failed the memory test.
I want you to pass. Take the test.
Hold your breath! Now Click to enter!
If you cannot draw the logo, take a look at it on that mac!
“There is nothing as sweet as success” might be a trite statement but the realization that success will always thrive when disaster strikes is not stale. Archaeology, linguistics, psychology and now genetics attest to it. Successful people have a greater chance of giving birth to children, of getting married and on average, of surviving disease outbreaks like Ebola.
When diseases like Ebola strikes, success will always thrive.Credit: DFID on flickr.
A recent research conducted globally on genetic diversity during a period where genetic diversity was declining globally found that those who were wealthy and successful had a better chance of having their genes inherited than those who were not. The consequence of this is related to chances of surviving against diseases and inheritance of genetic traits.
In another related archaeological study it was found that men who were wealthy, measured by the tools recognized with the rich at that period, the Neolithic, or stone age, had access to better land than those buried without tools. Class existed in the stone age!
These two studies conducted at about the same period, the stone age, are not treatises on materialism. They emphasize what is known by man for ages: the successful will always dine with Kings.
But the question those researches did not breach is: what is the definition of success? I really wanted to read the article, the first that related wealth and success to genetic diversity, because it made a relation to “survival of the fittest.”
Fittest is a quarrelsome word in biology. Take a Bill Gates. Is he the fittest on earth? Yes, if you were living in a democratic country where the rule of law is adhered to, but no if you were living in a country ravaged by years of warfare like Afghanistan or Iraq. Well defined property rights do not exist in such countries!
During the Neolithic the main occupation was sedentary farming. Farming requires physical prowess and knowledge of the supernatural forces that controlled agriculture. That was sufficient to be successful. Success does not always translate to material wealth, but success is enough for genetic advantage. Success in the information age is related with the ability to code, to use multiple intelligences, to understand data and how data relates to the world around us and to make money, physical cash.
The two researches above are not treatises on materialism but an exhortation to be successful. Success is what nature wants. Success is what everyone smiles upon. Excellence is a good that must be pursued by the modern man.
Geese migrating in V formation.Credit:Karthijaygee on Wordpress
It is not a new phenomenon in nature: creatures migrate in a patterned leader-follower fashion. For example, geese fly in a V formation with the leader ahead of them. When tired, the lead goose drops back and hands over leadership to another goose. Researchers working in the field of bioengineering have discovered that cells migrating to the site of a wound exhibit this same pattern.
A delicate biomechanical and biochemical interaction is at play during the cell migration of wound healing cells. At the site of a wound the cells sense that the force between cells, what holds them together, is missing and a protein called DII4 is released. This protein then transmits a signal that activates the migration of wound healing cells to that site. During the migration, the cells are divided into two groups: leader and follower cell groups. The leader cells are distinguished by the possession of a token. That token is a protein called mRNA or messenger RNA which is used for sending biochemical signals to follower cells during migration. Eventually, when the cells arrive at the wound site, the wound healing process is begun.
Astonishingly, just as for migrating geese, it was found that if a leader cell gets missing, in a randomly chosen process, another leader cell is chosen from the ranks of follower cells.
This discovery has much application in medicine.
In tissue and organ transplants.
Bio-engineers can speed up the process of tissue and organ transplants in humans if they can successfully coordinate this process of wound healing.
In tissue regeneration.
Since wound healing is similar to tissue regeneration, understanding and controlling this process could help in regeneration and elongation of life.
Treatment of diabetes.
A non-healing diabetic wound which is the number one cause of lower limb amputations in the United States could be cured when this process is under medical control.
In cancer treatment.
Cancer cells that invade healthy tissue could be prevented from succeeding when this cell migration activity is coordinated and regulated.
This discovery can open doors to innovations in medicine and engineering.
Why do men and women cheat? That is one of the oldest questions humanity has asked. I asked it when I was in my late teens. The answers I receive are numerous.
Cheating presupposes a relationship. Cheating supposes that someone has gone outside the agreement of that relationship. It could be a marital, financial or emotional relationship.
The picture below illustrates one.
Most of the times, we think emotional and marital relationship when we associate the word cheating in our minds. Lack of reciprocal sex, lack of love, lack of trust and willpower to be faithful are some of the reasons given for cheating.
Greed is one of the principal reasons why people cheat in financial relationships.
Could we add more? Please do. I’ll be privileged to have your comments
Probably helped by Toxoplasma gondii.Credit: The New York Times (NYT)
The predator-prey rivalry between the cat and rat is famous. It inspired a popular cartoon series, Tom and Jerry Show. One parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, can bring about changes in the rat so that it forgets its natural fear and apprehension for the cat. The parasite makes the rat to love its enemy, the cat.
The preferred site of the Toxoplasma gondii parasite is the brain. When it eventually gets there and encounters the lymphocytes, cells that protect the body, it retreats and encysts itself. The parasite sleeps when encysted, awaiting when the host’s immunity is compromised.
The same story for the rat can be told for man. Yet, the behavioral changes the parasite causes in the rat have not been demonstrated with certainty for humans.
When the cyst persists until favorable conditions, it attacks the nervous system, causing behavioral changes. The rat takes to liking the odor of the cat. Eventually, it gets attracted to the cat and does not take it as an enemy. The rat becomes easy prey and is then eaten.
Having the rat eaten is advantageous to the parasite because the cat’s intestine is where it undergoes sexual reproduction. Therefore, finding a cat host is more important than living inside a rat.
What about humans? Research has discovered that humans can have behavioral changes based on gender when infected with Toxoplasma gondii. Males have been found to be introverted, suspicious and rebellious while women could exhibit extroverted, trusting and obedient behavior. Pregnant women infected with the parasite could have a miscarriage or birth defect.
Lifecylcle of Toxoplasma gondii.Credit: ScienceNews.org
As you can see from the picture above, the life cycle of the parasite involves these three hosts. Humans are not prey for the cat, but they can make themselves susceptible to parasitic invasion through unhygienic practices – not washing hands carefully after handling cat litter, eating unwashed vegetables and undercooked meat.
Scientists have not yet decided if the parasite changes human behavior to docile obedience in face of danger like the rat. Such a discovery could help in treatment of schizophrenia and helping persons infected with the disease when their immune system is compromised.
Breastfeeding has benefits beyond childhood.Credit:U.S Department of Agriculture on Flickr.
The benefits of breastfeeding for children health and development are not in dispute. It strengthens mother-child bonding, protects children against early childhood diseases and stimulates brain development. In a recent study, Dr. Bernardo Lessa Horta of the Federal University of Pelotas, Brazil, has established that breastfeeding has benefits beyond childhood. It can persist even to adulthood.
He found that longer duration of breastfeeding is linked with increased intelligence in adulthood, longer schooling and higher adult earnings.
This study was conducted on nearly 6000 infants born in Pelotas for 30 years, starting from 1982. In the study, he discounted for well-known facts about breastfeeding such as the linkage between duration of breastfeeding and social class and income, effect of mother’s smoke on childhood development, and the effect of parents’ education on the child. In Pelotas, every mother breastfeeds her baby irrespective of social class, income or education.
The results of the study showed that infants breastfeed for at least a year had more significant adulthood gains than infants breastfed for less than a month, and that the longer the duration of breastfeeding, the greater the gains. Such gains included a full four IQ points, 0.9 more years of schooling and a higher income, of about 341 reais per month, when they get to the age of 30.
According to Dr. Horta, the likely mechanism at work are long-chain saturated fatty acids (DHA) found in breast milk which are essential for brain development.
Roadable Aircraft - Jess Dixon's flying automobile, c. 1940Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Cars kill people. Cars lose you time. They cause pollution of the environment. Building roads for cars, trucks and major vehicles costs money, planning time and involves infrastructure overhaul. Cars are cheaper and getting faster, you’ll agree. But can cars fly?
Yes, cars can fly. Prototypes have been tested and they are workable. Welcome the “Flying Roadster” by AeroMobil (the video). Version 3.0, according to official sources, will be available in 2017. Jacob Hall, who covered a South By South West (SXSW) pitch by AeroMobil for the Entrepreneur.com quotes AeroMobil co-founder and CEO Juraj Vaculik as saying: "We deeply believe we need a revolution in personal transportation.”
In another related development, which is no longer news because Apple, a rival technology company has publicly made its intention of going into electric cars known, Google has announced that its driverless cars will be available to the public come 2020.
Imagine cars that change colors on-demand, or bridges and buildings whose colors reflect the amount of strain or stress applied to them. We would all benefit from such innovation.
Last week, March 12, researchers at the University of California, (UCL), Berkeley, announced the creation of a thin semiconductor film of silicon, 120 nanometers thick, that when flexed or bent can reflect colors on a wide variety of the light spectrum; a color-changing sensor film.
Attempts at creating a color changing sensor is not new. Last year, in a research funded by the National Science Foundation, (NSF), researchers at the same University, but the Riverside campus, created a nanosphere-laced polymer that changes color under stress using gold nanoparticles. What differentiates the silicon film from other sensors is that the range of reflected light is much flexible and the material used was much more permeable to bending or flexing.
The colors of a butterfly excites the emotions.Credit: Stux on Pixabay.
The idea behind the invention came from nowhere but nature. They conceived the idea of imitating butterflies and beetles who create iridescent displays of colors.
According to one of the researchers, "the next step is to make this larger-scale and there are facilities already that could do so," said Chang-Hasnain. "At that point, we hope to be able to find applications in entertainment, security, and monitoring."
Cars of tomorrow might respond like a chameleon to its environment, or change to colors reflecting the amount of pressure applied to the body, or in relation to the amount of stress or strain undergone during its lifetime. The possibilities are enormous.
You will not believe it. The house of the world’s number one terrorist, before his death, looks like an everyday house you can find on the streets of Lagos.
It’s not his house actually; just a hideaway in Pakistan.
This series of 21 pictures on Time.com shows a man running away from the world, lost to worldly splendor but surrounded by death, destruction and disaster. A man who had seen his dying days and that of the terror organization he helped to create.
The room has an ordinary bed, common wardrobes and looks like an everyday suburban house.
One would have hoped his hideout was somewhat luxurious; with the wealthy and powerful of Pakistan. Wishful thinking!
Osama Bin Laden's Paskistan Hideaway.
Choices are a basic fact of life. Some choices can be a turning point in our lives while some are inconsequential and will only satisfy some ego.
Whatever choice you are making, now and in the future, judge the merits of the possible outcomes of that choice before taking the leap.
Take a look at the picture below. This is a horrible sight. The deed is a barbaric act. The victim concerned has accepted her fate; look at how calm and composed she appears! Justice will never come to her aid. The mob has decided on her. The mob is justice.
This is barbaric, oh Nigerians!Credit: Onlinenigeria.com
That is the face of Nigerian law. The rule of law has vanished. It exists only for the well-to-do. As a Nigerian, who reads the daily news, I understood that the people, our people, are scarred beyond repair, both mentally, physically and emotionally. The stories of crimes that go perpetrated without the criminals getting punished, rather the criminals become victors, is aplenty. The quest for riches and money is beyond imagination.
These and many more reasons have made people to resort to taking laws into their hands.
The rule of law can go to hell, a typical Nigerian on the street will tell you. If you cross check his stories, he’ll turn out speaking the truth.
Does it mean our society should endure mob injustices like this?
No matter the crime she must have committed, as a human, she deserves to be taken to the authorities; handed over to the police. The law should be a constraint upon human behavior and not something to be shunned because the poor and the weak are not protected since they do not have the money to fund a case.
In Nigeria, let respect for human rights be a platform we should be standing on.
Do you have cataract? It is a disease of old age. Most times, cataract affects an individual due to exposure to radiation, chemicals and other environmental factors that reduce the ability of the eyes to function properly. Cataract, as a disease, is due to the lens that captures light in the eyes becoming opaque, thereby preventing light from passing through to the photoreceptor cells at the retina.
I wrote an article this week on the dress that caused a sensation on social media circles because of the difficulty it imposes on a viewer as to light perception. Persons who suffer visual problems like cataract do not enjoy and revel in the sensation of light and color as others. French impressionist, Claude Monet, is in that class. Her visual problems made her paintings imprecise and muted in colors. If you suffer from visual problems, you have to cope with inefficient light reception.
Is it white and gold, or blue and black?Credit: User swiked on www.tumblr.com
Apart from the cones and the rods in the retina which distinguishes daylight from night vision, there is another group of cells in front of the retina which work towards our enjoying color.
Those cells are called Müller cells or müller glia. These cells function as light and color filters. Their position in front of the retina makes sure that the light getting to the rods and cones are already sorted, filtered and organized. Clever, not so?
Müller cells, according to Dr Erez Ribak from Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, are at just the “the right height, and their light-bearing trunks are just the right width, to filter the wavelengths correctly”.
So, as you look at the dress again, and if you wonder why so many persons disagree on what color they perceive, you could place the müller cells as one of the candidates at the heart of their visual problems, if not a disease like cataract.
In the nineteenth century, there were many prodigious inventors. One of them believed in inventing weapons of warfare and wanted them for pacifist uses. He was Alfred Nobel (21 October 1833 – 10 December 1896), nicknamed “the merchant of death” in an obituary published in error. I wonder if he would turn in his grave if he were to witness the power packed in directed-energy weapons, or weapons of warfare that use light and electromagnetic radiation to produce their powerful devastating impact. Some call them laser weapons.
It is no longer news that laser weapons are now commonplace in military research. What makes news is when they are made deadlier, more portable, more efficient and more affordable.
Introducing ATHENA (Advanced Test High Energy Asset), a directed energy prototype, developed by Lockheed Martin; a 30 kilowatt single-mode fiber weapon system. From a distance of a mile (1.6km) it reduced the engine of a car to flames.
Imagine the power packed behind the ATHENA fiber optic laser system!Photo credit: www.ibtimes.com
A mile is just a distance for the prototype. ATHENA can go farther and its uses can go furthest, even beyond the military.
The potentialities for such portable weapons is beyond the imagination. Sci-fi and Dr. Who will be shows of the past. Welcome to the real world. The same way guns replaced knives and arrows, these weapons could be the weapons of the streets of the future.
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!
It is not always possible to suppress emotions like anger or sadness during a crisis. When corporate image is at stake, it is rather that conventional wisdom be rethought. For the sake of the public image, to motivate the workforce, and for so many other seemingly positive reasons, demonstrating negative emotions was perceived as against the corporate good. Does it mean that all negative emotions are bad? When angry employees voice their opinions are they rebels who should be shoved out the door? Positive management leads to positive leadership.
Sometimes, the prevailing attitudes do not reflect desired positive outcomes (pdf). Sometimes, the status quo could be wrong although there are exceptions to every rule.
Bereavement could build social connections. Source: Wikimedia Commons
When, could expressions of negative emotions at the corporate arena be a force for positive results or positive changes? Management should evaluate these facts when making a decision.
Every situation is unique:
Sometimes, workers should be encouraged to express negative emotions. Managers should ensure that such negative demonstrations are constructive and for the “common good. Even positive emotions like compassion, a positive emotion, when taken to extremes, can lead to what is termed “compassion fatigue,” which has been shown to induce stress in perfectionists and overly conscientious individuals. No two situations can be the same.
Political nature of the situation:
When workers perceive injustice or unfairness, they usually have channels for lodging complaints. When these channels become unfair or inefficient, employees organize themselves. The consequences for doing so could be grave or positive; the outcomes depend on the individuals involved, their corporate political ambitions, the genesis of the negative emotion as well as other factors.
Organizational leadership style:
When management is ineffective, would it be wrong for workers to voice their complaints with a view of eliciting change? A company whose personnel department is inefficient could be recruiting workers who are unfit for the roles employed. It has been found that when followers in the organization highly agree with the top management leadership style, staff response to negative emotions turn out most times to be more positive than negative.
How the emotion is directed:
Some emotions like sadness motivates the positive behavior of building social connections when motivated by social loss rather than status loss. Corporate workers want to appear in control of their emotions so they’d rather do away with negative emotions. Yet, when a loss is shared with others, whether positive or negative, it offers an opportunity for openness and intimacy, for expanding personal corporate social circles.
Status associated with the job function:
Some workers like teachers and helpline workers are looked down upon in the society. These are negative emotions directed maybe to them as individuals and/or to their job functions. People do not want to be associated with those “kinds of jobs”. Helpline workers who deal with isolated, upset, abusive or suicidal individuals are perceived as carrying social “dirt” and they’d rather not be tainted with it.
How the emotion is perceived:
Just as every situation is unique, the individuals to which the emotion is directed to are also unique. Everybody reacts differently to anger and happiness. Some show a strong sense of affection for emotions that are directed towards them while others tend to interpret extreme and moderate meanings to emotional situations, depending on their ilk.
Positive corporate leadership desires outcomes to positive and negative emotions that reflect the expected bottom line: motivated employees, agreeable follower-ship, emotionally healthy workforce and profits. It would be conventionally wise then for management to recognize the existence of negative emotions and their place in corporate life.
These images look archived but I liked them that was why I'm having them on my blog. For sake of the memories.
Actually, I was tinkering with R software after a little lull in the Probability and Statistics book I am presently reading: Probability and Statistics for Engineering and The Sciences by Jay L. Devore.
Then I chanced on a Venn Diagram Package made for R Software.
Looks like four atoms juxtaposed. 4 sets intersecting actually.Venn Diagram Package, R Software
As the caption says, it looks like atoms falling on themselves like noodles. I just loved it. Hmmm! It is actually four sets intersecting. Very good work!
Then the second one, like a spacecraft. Funny, right?
5 sets intersecting, a quintuple, but looks like a spacecraft. Venn Diagram Package, R Software
The graphics might not be state-of-the-art, but I love them.
If you simultaneously browse the Web, listen to music, play video games, use e-mail or talk on the phone while watching TV, then you are a victim to media multitasking. By engaging in this practice, you leave yourself open to losing control of cognitive and emotional abilities that are essential for resolving anxieties and depression. This is because media multitasking decreases grey matter in the brain controlling these functions.
MRI. Side of the head. Ranveg
It’s true. A negative relation has been found between media multitasking and grey matter density. To refresh your science, grey matter is in the brain and includes regions involved in muscle control and sensory perception such as seeing and hearing, memory, emotions, speech, decision making and self-control. By engaging in activities that can decrease your grey matter density, you could lose control of important functions such as enduring stress, ability to maintain your sense of balance under distraction and also make yourself open to much emotional problems.
In a first of its kind study, two researchers have found only a link, and not a causality chain, between grey matter density and media multitasking. A decision on causality has not been reached for two reasons:
Low grey matter density is linked to lose of cognitive and emotional control
Persons with low grey matter are more attracted to media multitasking.
Exposure to multitasking can result in reduced grey matter density.
It’s been found that a high and regular use of several medias do reduce grey matter density by altering the structure of the brain.
So, it’s like the chicken and the egg problem. Which caused which?
This question is particularly pertinent since the use of social media through various channels is on the rise and this is believed to be likely addictive.
If you often media multitask and you cannot help it, take back control of your life. You could be losing your grey matter. You can reclaim it though through various activities that can change the plastic structure of the brain like learning to play music and studying to be a mathematician. In fact, studying mathematics increases grey matter density in the frontal part of the brain if studied for a long time, improving your ability to handle complex problems. Learning to juggle and understanding the maps of a city are also of help in increasing grey matter density.
This calls for discretion in the use of media. Activities like media multitasking that can cause brain structure alterations should be approached with care, otherwise you’d be faced with permanent brain damage.
The list is growing of the number of measurable characteristics for which labeling and description could be applied to you and I – fingerprint, vein scanning, DNA, face recognition, retina, body scent etc. In a unique way, a Swedish engineering student has made biometrics currency.
The innovation, scanning your palm to pay for items in a supermarket, scans the vein pattern on your palms for a payment to go through. Faster, easier and cheaper than a credit card.
Thumbs up to Fredrik Leifland. Your palm can now rest in your purse.
Are cellphones addictive? If cellphones are addictive, would you take your kids off one? Both questions are controversial and pose serious challenges for parents because teenagers are presently using cellphones more often in school that they seem to be dependent on those devices.
What is addiction? www.psychologytoday.com, defines it thus:
Addiction is a condition that results when a person ingests a substance (e.g., alcohol, cocaine, nicotine) or engages in an activity (e.g., gambling, sex, shopping) that can be pleasurable but the continued use/act of which becomes compulsive and interferes with ordinary life responsibilities, such as work, relationships, or health. Users may not be aware that their behavior is out of control and causing problems for themselves and others.
Parents, you can do more! Source: Wikimedia Commons
So, do cellphones fall into this category? Parents should be on the lookout for telltale signs that cellphone use by their kids are causing problems. Some students have been ingenious in using cellphones to cheat in class. College students have been reported to be agitated when their cellphone is not with them which behavior could result in internal and external conflict in the classroom. Your kids could find themselves unable to face the vagaries of life if they dodge behind a cellphone when challenging and awkward situations arise in school. Parents should be on the lookout for telltale signs.
This conclusion and more were arrived at in an extensive study of the cellphone use of college students in 24 cellphone activities of which 11 were found to be close to being termed addictive. The activities include calling, texting, emailing, banking, taking photos, using apps like iPod, Bible, Google Maps and Pinterest. Texting, sending emails and checking on Facebook took much of the students’ time than necessary.
Parents should help their kids map out a boundary for cellphone use. A useful tool like the cellphone should not turn out to be a device that should disrupt their lives because they lacked self-control. I think this is a call for action.
When it concerns remembering conceptual information, taking long notes with your pen or biro triumphs over taking notes using your laptop.
As for recalling common knowledge or facts, both methods of transcription were found equally adequate.
Your mind tends to process the information it receives while taking long notes; when using a laptop for taking notes, most persons just write out what they hear verbatim without processing them. One more reason why when you’re involved in an important meeting or session, you’d better go for taking long notes with a pen and paper.
Lastly, long note takers tend to recall facts jotted down a week or more after the original notes were taken better than persons who typed them out originally using a laptop.
Overall, even where taking notes on a laptop will be the norm, the good old pen and paper still triumphs, especially when that note will be important weeks later.
When you were in high school what was more important to you: passing your exams so you can qualify for University education, or understanding in-depth the subjects being taught so you can use them later in life?
To be honest, the latter was more important to me, but on the day of my matriculation at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, to study Zoology, I decided University teaching and learning was a whole new ball game. I had to change my orientation in learning from cramming facts to understanding reasons.
I believe I’m not the only guilty party. A recent report from the University of East Anglia’s leading researchers in education and sciences reveals that many university freshers struggle to remember basic concepts from their A-levels.
Is the problem at the doorstep of teachers at the high school levels or the fact that they students have to adjust to a different approach to learning at the university level, or on the motivation of the students themselves, the report doesn’t tell. Yet, the report involved students from the leading UK universities committed to research and outstanding teaching and learning experience, or the Russell Group. These highly motivated students could only remember forty (40%) percent of what they learned at the A-levels.
That calls for concern for all parties involved. Maybe A-level curricula has to be redesigned to reflect our age of iPhones and smart phones, where a considerable number of high school students even use these devices in class, or at the undergraduate level.
Wherever the solution lies, it is instructive to know that the longer it takes you to enter the university after you’re A-levels, the lesser of your A-level knowledge that will be retained. It calls for sober reflections, right?
Prior to a sporting event detecting persons who could develop cardiovascular diseases or suddenly fall dead from a cardiac arrest is a challenge. Sudden death during sporting events, especially endurance races of 10 to 20km, is likely in a high number of both professional and amateur athletes. Cardiac arrhythmia, often termed irregular heartbeat, has been reported more often than heat stroke as a cause of sudden death during sporting events.
On the other hand, Lior Yankelson, MD, and Pinchas Halpern, MD, are of a different opinion; life-threatening events during endurance races are more likely to be caused by heat stroke than by cardiac arrhythmia, especially in warm climates. The high incidence reported is not limited to sporting or endurance races but is also found in college football players, high school athletes and experienced runners who were thought to be immune.
What then are some ways to prevent heat stroke during sporting events, and other causes of cardiovascular collapse?
Acclimatization to warm climates
It is recommended that athletes give themselves a 10 to 14 days period of environmental acclimatization before engaging in endurance races. Event planners should also acknowledge the need for athlete proper adjustment to the racing environment. Of 10.9 million runners assessed in the United States during a 10 years period, 59 (incidence rate: 0.54 per 100,000 participants) had cardiac arrest.
Recently ill or persons recuperating from a febrile illness should be discouraged from participating in endurance races.
Exercising imposes heat stress on the body and elimination of body heat is necessary for proper adjustment. Fever impairs the ability of the body to do this.
Prompt diagnosis.
When heat stroke is promptly diagnosed, health care providers can immediately initiate cooling therapy. Athlete’s temperatures are usually monitored using rectal or core probes and where necessary, cooling procedures are instantly instituted. It is a challenge though to record core body temperatures during physical activity. A potential solution is an ingestible telemetric body core temperature sensor.
Routine screening.
Mandatory screening of all athletes prior to participation in competitive sports has been recommended where cardiac death is a possibility. For screening to work, the benefits should be higher than the costs, effective tests should be available, and it can be proved that avoidance will prevent the risk. Some events carry out a pre-participation electrocardiogram (ECG) screening. Exercise or cardiac stress testing have also been used. Some events require participants sign a declaration of “good health” which might not be adequate enough.
Don’t forget water.
Ingest adequate amount of water during sporting activities, including endurance races. Also, take electrolyte drinks and have frequent rest breaks.
My beloved grandma died last month. It was a deeply felt pain for me and other members of our family. I and tens of her grandsons attended the burial which took place at our family compound in Otulu village. From the day I stepped my foot in the village at Otulu, on Wednesday, the 27th of August, to the night of the burial, I have been learning lots of things about customs, traditions and the legacy of grayheadedness.
1. A family is composed of different individuals with different point of views.
A family cannot be controlled by one single person, no matter how rich or influential. A family moves towards a singular direction as if controlled by a single head, as if with a singular purpose but is ready to derail from that direction at every moment – even a second’s notice. If you fail to recognize the rights and responsibilities of even one member in the family, the direction, no matter how noble, how grandiose, can be scuttled and scuttled without interference from any quarter in the world.
2. Your home can be a warzone or a refuge of peace.
Your home can be a bed of roses. A place that is filled with love; peace its lifeblood. Also, your home can be a warzone with historical wounds and fighting. It depends on how you turn the screws. The father, mother, children and extended family members each have their rights and responsibilities which each one of them is jealous of; neglect any and you’ll be creating a home of rancor and bitterness.
3. Customs and traditions are fallible.
True, we cherish our African customs and traditions, but they are fallible. It will be against my conscience to sacrifice cows or goats to bury my grandma. We cannot throw all of them overboard without scrutinizing each and every one of them. These customs were what preserved our Africanhood before the dawn of civilization; they helped our people to survive before education came. I believe we can cherish the joyfulness of understanding these customs and rejecting the ones that are against our humanity; those that were created in the age of ignorance. But the ones that make us unique and great, that bring out the best in us, should never be trampled with.
4. Advanced preparation is a key to safety.
Preparing for an event weeks or months before they come is cheaper and can save lives. Making ad hoc arrangements because you are trying to cut corners or because you are harboring sentiments against other members in the family could be costly and unwise.
5. Marriage is a sacred institution that ensures human survival.
Have you been to an event and realized that singleness is a disadvantage? I discovered this during the burial of my grandma. Singleness is not only a curse, it is the greatest disadvantage a man can give to himself.
6. Money makes things happen.
Money can make things happen but left on its own, money is a useless commodity. With people driven with purpose who are ready to make things possible, money becomes a vehicle that has unprecedented reach. If you have people who are behind you and no money, you’ll all be sitting ducks. If you have money without people behind you, your money is just useless commodity. Join both together, and you can move mountains.
Are there any realities you have discovered from a burial, wedding etcetera that is related to our African customs? Share them on the comment box below.
