The Positive Impact of a Handshake

Posted on 2012/10/23 by Jason Hensel

Personally, I’m a hugger. However, most of those hugs precede handshakes. One can’t move too fast on the whole getting to know you scale. Plus, shaking hands first eases a stranger’s feelings about you. Don’t believe me? Science says so.

Beckman Institute researcher Florin Dolcos and University of Illinois postdoctoral research associate Sanda Dolcos found that “a handshake preceding social interaction enhanced the positive impact of approach and diminished the negative impact of avoidance behavior on the evaluation of social interaction.”

That makes sense. Their study, published in the December issue of the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, gives scientific proof for the first time about why a handshake is important.

The study showed “increased sensitivity to approach than to avoidance behavior in amygdala and superior temporal sulcus, which were linked to a positive evaluation of approach behavior and a positive impact of handshake.” Also, the “nucleus accumbens, which is a reward processing region, showed greater activity for Handshake than for No-handshake conditions” — proving a link to “the positive effect of handshake on social evaluation.”

“Overall, our study not only replicated previous reports that identify activity in regions of the social cognition network, but also provided insight into the contribution of these regions into evaluating approach and avoidance social interactions, and grant neuroscientific support for the power of a handshake,” Sanda Dolcos said.

Florin Dolcos says that a firm, confident, and friendly handshake leads to positive feelings.

“In a business setting this is what people are expecting, and those who know these things use them,” he said. “Not a very long time ago you could get a loan based on a handshake. So it conveys something very important, very basic. Yet the science underlying this is so far behind. We knew these things intuitively but now we also have the scientific support.”

There you have it. But beware: I’m still giving you a hug when I see you next.

(Story materials and image via the Beckman Institute.)

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Flirtatious Women Score More

Posted on 2012/10/222012/10/23 by Jason Hensel

Jessie States wrote the following for another blog. I’m posting it on here, because I find that it’s a really interesting study. It’s one of those topics that is known to be true, but quietly ignored in the hopes that it will go away. It won’t go away, though, if it’s not discussed.

Flirtation is an effective way for women to gain negotiating mileage, according to a new study by Haas School of Business Professor Laura Kray. And the whole idea that it works kind of makes my stomach turn. But I get it.

“Women are uniquely confronted with a tradeoff in terms of being perceived as strong versus warm. Using feminine charm in negotiation is a technique that combines both,” said Kray, who holds the Warren E. and Carol Spieker Chair in Leadership at the Haas School.

The study, “Feminine Charm: An Experimental Analysis of its Costs and Benefits in Negotiations,” was published in October in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and co-authored by Haas Ph.D. alumna Connson C. Locke of the London School of Economics and Haas Ph.D. candidate Alex B. Van Zant.

Flirtation that generates positive results, Kray says, is not overt sexual advances but authentic, engaging behavior without serious intent. In fact, the study found female flirtation signals attractive qualities such as confidence, which is considered essential to successful negotiators.

To determine whether women who flirt are more effective in negotiating than men who flirt, the researchers asked 100 participants to evaluate to what extent they use social charm in negotiation on a one-to-seven scale. Earlier that week, the participants evaluated their partners’ negotiating effectiveness. Women who said they used more social charm were rated more effective by their partners. However, men who said they used more social charm were not regarded as more effective.

In the second experiment, the researchers asked subjects to imagine they were selling a car worth US$1,200 and asked for how much would they sell the car. Next, the subjects read one of two scenarios about a potential buyer named Sue.

The first group meets Sue, who shakes hands when she meets the seller, smiles, and says, “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” and then “What’s your best price?” in a serious tone. The second group reads an alternate scenario in which Sue greets the seller by smiling warmly, looking the seller up and down, touching the seller’s arm, and saying, “You’re even more charming than over email,” followed by a playful wink and asking, “What’s your best price?”

The result? Male sellers were willing to give the “playful Sue” more than $100 off the selling price whereas they weren’t as willing to negotiate with the “serious Sue.” Playful Sue’s behavior did not affect female car sellers. Kray says many of her students who are senior women executives admit they love to flirt and describe themselves as “big flirts.” Kray maintains flirting is not unprofessional if it remains playful and friendly.

“The key is to flirt with your own natural personality in mind. Be authentic. Have fun,” Kray said. “That will translate into confidence, which is a strong predictor of negotiation performance.”

Read the full paper here.

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Confucius on Reading

Posted on 2012/10/212012/10/23 by Jason Hensel

Whenever people tell me they don’t have time to read, I think of this quote.

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Makes You Think

Posted on 2012/10/202012/10/22 by Jason Hensel

I’m going to have to put this up in my cubicle at work and in my study at home.

this isn’t happiness™ (The Economist), Peteski.

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Let the Buffalo Calm You

Posted on 2012/10/192012/10/22 by Jason Hensel

There’s something very calming about this image. I’ll let it lead me into the weekend.

HOBART.

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The Rewind Button: Rumours

Posted on 2012/10/182012/10/21 by Jason Hensel

The Rewind Button is a group blogging project that I’m participating in. We’re taking on Rolling Stone‘s Top 40 albums of all time and writing our own reviews of them.

I took a peek at the beginning of this project at the list of albums we would be reviewing, and Rumours was one that I was most excited about reviewing. It’s not that I listen to the album every day (or even own it). But I’ve heard it enough via friends and the radio that I feel like it’s been a part of my whole life.

It’s the production that draws me to this album. The warm sound of the bass in “Dreams” takes me back to riding in the car with my dad, the windows down, the moon above, and nothing but music between us. After “Dreams” comes “Never Going Back Again,” with its folky composition. I love the stark contract between the two songs.

When you read about this album, you’ll learn that there was a lot of strife among the members due to their relationships falling apart. All great bands have an element of strife. Out of that chaos, beauty is born.

I know I said that this is one of the albums I most looked forward to reviewing, and here I am not really writing much. That’s because I’d rather be listening to it than writing about it. If you haven’t heard this album, do yourself a favor and go listen to it now. I’ll be listening, too. Just you, me, and the music between us.

Please visit these other blogs participating in The Rewind Button project:

Betty Livin

Love As A Verb

Life Doesn’t Have to Suck

Renée Sylvestre-Williams

Sara Bynoe

Musicqwest
Be a River With Me

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“The Embrace” by Nichita Stănescu

Posted on 2012/10/172012/10/19 by Jason Hensel

I had never heard of Nichita Stănescu until I read about him on Writers No One Reads. I love the following poem, and I should really look for more of his works.

“The Embrace”

When we saw each other, the air
between us quickly tossed aside
the image of those trees, indifferent and bare,
it had before allowed to come inside.

Oh, we rushed, calling our names,
together,—thus did we quicken
that time was pressed between our chests
and the hour fell into minutes, stricken.

I wished to hold you in my arms
as I hold the body of childhood, in the past,
with its unrepeated dyings.
And I wished to embrace you with my ribs.

— trans. Thomas C. Carlson

via When we saw each other, the air between us… • (un)justly (un)read.

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Foreign Lands

Posted on 2012/10/162012/10/19 by Jason Hensel

I saw this poster online the other day, and it grabbed my interest. I love the design. More so, I love the message.

this isn’t happiness™ (Foreign lands), Peteski.

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Die Antwoord at House of Blues Dallas

Posted on 2012/10/152012/10/17 by Jason Hensel

The plus one and I went to another concert tonight. That’s two shows within four days. It’s really reviving my love of seeing live music.

Tonight’s show was the South African rap-dance group, Die Antwoord. Their sold-out performance was at the House of Blues, which I’m happy to report has done away with wanding down people as they go through the doors. I never understood why they did that before, and it really irritated me. After going to one show years ago, being subjected to that treatment, and paying for overpriced drinks, I vowed to never return until they did away with the unnecessary wanding. I heard reports from friends that they don’t do that anymore, so I took a chance because I really wanted to see Die Antwoord. The reports were true, but the drinks are still way over priced.

Die Antwoord put on a great show. The crowd matched their energy, and I heard several people around singing/rapping along to almost every song. I look forward to when come back to Dallas for another show.

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Are Your Meetings Making People Dumb?

Posted on 2012/10/142012/10/17 by Jason Hensel

A person’s decision-making performance indoors can be negatively affected by moderately high concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO₂), according to a recent study from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

“The primary source of indoor CO₂ is humans,” wrote Julie Chao for the Berkeley Lab News Center. “While typical outdoor concentrations are around 380 ppm, indoor concentrations can go up to several thousand ppm. Higher indoor CO₂ concentrations relative to outdoors are due to low rates of ventilation, which are often driven by the need to reduce energy consumption. In the real world, CO₂concentrations in office buildings normally don’t exceed 1,000 ppm, except in meeting rooms, when groups of people gather for extended periods of time.”

Meetings, eh? I can already imagine the sensational headline I will write and use: “Are your meetings making people dumb?”

The researchers suggest that it’s too early, though, to make recommendations, as more tests have to be done, especially on a larger scale.

“Assuming it’s replicated, it has implications for the standards we set for minimum ventilation rates for buildings,” said Berkeley Lab scientist William Fisk, a co-author of the study, as reported by Chao. “People who are employers who want to get the most of their workforce would want to pay attention to this.”

Until then, let’s just have meetings outside when possible. Sound good?

(Image via Flickr: Patrick Lauke / Creative Commons)

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Erasing Fear From Your Brain

Posted on 2012/10/132012/10/15 by Jason Hensel

The emotion of fear can be erased from the brain, according to researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden. Take it away, Uppsala news center:

When a person learns something, a lasting long-term memory is created with the aid of a process of consolidation, which is based on the formation of proteins. When we remember something, the memory becomes unstable for a while and is then restabilized by another consolidation process. In other words, it can be said that we are not remembering what originally happened, but rather what we remembered the last time we thought about what happened. By disrupting the reconsolidation process that follows upon remembering, we can affect the content of memory.

In the study, the researchers showed subjects a neutral picture and simultaneously administered an electric shock. In this way the picture came to elicit fear in the subjects which meant a fear memory had been formed. In order to activate this fear memory, the picture was then shown without any accompanying shock. For one experimental group the reconsolidation process was disrupted with the aid of repeated presentations of the picture. For a control group, the reconsolidation process was allowed to complete before the subjects were shown the same repeated presentations of the picture.

In that the experimental group was not allowed to reconsolidate the fear memory, the fear they previously associated with the picture dissipated. In other words, by disrupting the reconsolidation process, the memory was rendered neutral and no longer incited fear. At the same time, using a MR-scanner, the researchers were able to show that the traces of that memory also disappeared from the part of the brain that normally stores fearful memories, the nuclear group of amygdala in the temporal lobe.

‘These findings may be a breakthrough in research on memory and fear. Ultimately the new findings may lead to improved treatment methods for the millions of people in the world who suffer from anxiety issues like phobias, post-traumatic stress, and panic attacks,’ says Thomas Ågren.

Does anyone else think about the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind upon reading this news?

(Image via Flickr: jj_judes / Creative Commons)

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