Is North Koreans’ Grief Authentic?
Wig & Pen ponders whether the intense displays of mass, hysterical mourning of the death of Kim Jong Il are genuine, and the facials “tells” for faked sadness:
Two weeks ago, while gazing at photos of North Koreans in mourning–including grown men chewing the scenery–I recalled head shots depicting emotional states in the books and training materials of Paul Ekman. What, I wondered, would Professor Ekman, our leading authority on “reading” emotions from facial expressions, make of that frenzy of facial contortions from the Hermit Kingdom?
Kim Jong Il…knew exactly how the [his] population lined up: loyal core, 5-25%; wavering, 50-75%; hostile, 8-27%. But those who dissented–even in a whisper, even by hanging his portrait askew–ended in prison camps, subjected to forced labor and starvation.
How might Dr. Ekman audit the “grief cred” of our North Korean subjects? He’d certainly have us look for any upward angling of the eyebrows’ inner corners. It’s a…
Giant Emocon Reflects The Mood Of The City
Installed in Lindau Island, Germany, the Feel-o-meter sums up the populace’s collective consciousness. Pass by with a frown, and you could slightly dampen its smile. (You wouldn’t want to do that, would you?) Via Information Aesthetics:
Fuehlometer (Feel-o-meter) by Richard Wilhelmer, Julius von Bismarck, and Benjamin Maus is a light installation consisting of a giant smiley face that reflects the average mood of the people living in the city. The average emotional value is calculated through the computational analysis of the faces of people passing a camera located in a specific part of the city.
Upper-Class People Have Trouble Recognizing Others’ Emotions
A window into the behavior of CEOs and politicians? Science Daily writes:
Upper-class people have more educational opportunities, greater financial security, and better job prospects than people from lower social classes, but that doesn’t mean they’re more skilled at everything. A new study published in Psychological Science finds surprisingly, that lower-class people are better at reading the emotions of others.
The researchers were inspired by observing that, for lower-class people, success depends more on how much they can rely on other individuals. For example, if you can’t afford to buy support services, such as daycare service for your children, you have to rely on your neighbors or relatives to watch the kids while you attend classes or run errands.
One experiment used volunteers who worked at a university. Some had graduated from college and others had not; researchers used educational level as a proxy for social class. The volunteers did a test of emotion perception,…
Scientists Identify The Brain’s Emotional IQ Centers – And Prove It With A Marshmallow
People with high emotional intelligence tend to be more successful in life than those with a lower score – even without a higher IQ! (I love how Stanford proved this – using a marshmallow with children!) And now scientists have also pinpointed the brain locations responsible for two kinds of emotional intelligence: experiential and strategic.
