Expressing Control or Displaying Expression?

When understanding how other cultures express emotions, it is almost as important to reflect on our own cultural norms as it is to recognize differing ones. This is essentially what Humintell’s Dr. David Matsumoto and his team find in a recent publication. Dr. Matsumoto studied the role that one’s own cultural norms and sense of…

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Universal or Just Deceptive Emotions?

We spend a fair amount of this blog discussing the role of universal emotional expressions, but not everyone agrees. Some emerging research, such as a recent study by Drs. Carlos Crivelli and Alan Fridlund, has begun to challenge some fundamental ideas related to the concept of basic emotions. This research questions whether facial expressions reflect…

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Framing a Reciprocal Interview

What is the impact of offering an interviewee a bottle of water? This seemingly innocuous question actually delves into major questions both with regard to communication but interviewing techniques more specifically. By looking at this basic question in a recent study, Humintell’s Drs. David Matsumoto and Hyisung Hwang were attempting to look at the notion…

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Olympic-Level Emotions

Can the Olympics teach us anything about reading people? Most of these blogs have been devoted to reading people’s emotions when they are being actively concealed, such as during efforts to detect deception. However, the Winter Olympics give us an opportunity to read people exhibiting unfiltered, raw emotions. With emotions as high as they are…

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