While research into cross-cultural non-verbal communication often focuses on facial expressions, body posture is also an important consideration. This may seem intuitive, as we all have experienced the role that body posture has in communicating emotions, but it has been neglected in most research, at the expense of its valuable potential for effectively reading people.…
Read MoreCultural Gestures and Verbal Cues
Many gestures may be universal, but are associated verbal cues translatable? Last week’s Olympics blog discussed the universal gesture of triumph and touched on Humintell’s research into the universal nature of many gestures. However, just knowing that many gestures are universal is not enough to effectively read people. Instead, it is important to connect them…
Read MoreThe Challenges of Cross Cultural Communication
You may be great about reading some people, but there are still a lot of people whose distinct outlook and culture may elude you. One of the most important parts of learning how to read people is accepting that this process varies considerably across different cultures, despite the presence of universal basic emotions. In a…
Read MoreThe Case for Musical Emotions
For many people, listening to music is a deeply emotional experience, but does that tap into universal emotions? In a 2016 study, psychologist Heike Argstatter sought to determine whether universal basic emotions are recognizable in music across cultures. This built on her previous research which found that, within one Western culture, both trained musicians and…
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