MicroExpression: Sadness

This is the face of an Air Force official after he was asked if they ever get it wrong when making missile strikes from unmanned drones. This is a sadness microexpression. If you watch the clip it's quick, he's trying to hold it back. It's about 16 seconds into the clip.

Obama's body language

46 seconds into this press conference about the stimulus plan, in the middle of a statement about the people of Elkhart, Indiana, Obama quickly flashes a microexpression that indicates contempt, a smile on one half of your face (captured in photo above). "The people who have lost them [their jobs] have no idea what to do, or who to turn to."

Contempt is an intense feeling or attitude of regarding someone or something as inferior, base, or worthless. The connotation of contempt is repulsive, but a more nuanced definition is "my way is better than your way."

Other examples of microexpressions can be found here and here.

MicroExpressions: contempt and scorn

Since I have been studying micro-expressions, I see them frequently. Here is a recent example: Jim Cramer called the Obama Budget the "Greatest Wealth Destruction By a President". Rober Gibbs, Obama's press secretary, was asked to respond (video below). At 11 seconds, he flashes a micro-expression for scorn (disgust and anger). Watch the first video on Paul Ekman's site and he explains it with an example of Kado Kaylin. Gibbs also shows the contempt micro-expression at 35 seconds. He then validates the expressions and admits he is concealing the way he really feels by saying "This is where I have to probably be careful."






Scorn at 11 seconds


Contempt at 35 seconds

Crystal Castles: history repeats itself

In the 80s, technology progressed to the point of making low resolution electronic keyboards financially practical. The sound has made a huge comeback for some time now... from Intergalatic by the Beasty Boys to more recently Crystal Castles.

Truthfully, the keyboards sucked... eventually they were replaced by keyboards with higher resolution and sampling frequencies... Today I think we are seeing the same thing in finance... Long Term Capital Management imploded  in 98, was bailed out by the government, and probably set a bad precedent. Complex mortgage backed securities and quantitative hedge funds wouldn't be possible in their current form without the advances in computers. I'm saying Long Term Capital Management is the Herbie Hancock of finance.  

I have worked on programs that are used to do analysis for mutual and hedge funds. At this point, computers can only do what they are programmed to do.  Many expert systems fail because they don't take into account the real factors experts use like intuition, of which the experts aren't fully cognizant. 

CRYSTAL CASTLES - Crimewave (new official video)
Uploaded by Differentrecordings

Seek and ye shall find

I have heard this... "Be careful what you look for, you will find it." It seems that people don't have much control over what they look for. They seem to compulsively recreate their childhoods, frued called it repitition compulsion.

I suspect it's an evolutionary instinct. In the days of early man, life expectancy was not very long, and your parents were likely to die before you finished raising your children, so I think it's ingrained in us to recreate our childhood. For some people that had relatively good childhoods, that's a good thing, they recreate that type of environment for their children. For others that were traumatized as children, it's not so good... it's why some people seem to make the same decisions repeatedly, even if they are unhealthy... whether it's choosing your relationships, the way you treat your children, whether you believe in god, or if you abuse drugs or alcohol. It influences what is in your heart. How do you recreate your childhood?

Open ended questions

Lately, I have been learning about open ended questions.  By definition an open ended question is one that can not be answered with a yes or no reponse.  For instance, "Did you have a good day?" is not open ended, whereas "how was your day?" is more open ended, even though most people would consider them largely the same question.

Another concept along the same lines is to avoid using the word why in quetions because it sounds accusatory and makes people defensive.  For instance you would say "What makes you feel that way?" rather than "Why do you feel that way?"  When you ask "What makes you feel that way?" you are indirectly validating their feelings.

5 tips to get out of speeding and traffic tickets

I just got out of a traffic ticket. I have probably been pulled over 30 times and I've only gotten 5 tickets. The key is to show them respect because most cops deeply crave respect. Why else would they take a low paying, dangerous job?

1) It helps to have a decent car, one with no dents, that is clean on the interior, that doesn't have any offensive bumper stickers. Hopefully, you are dressed well and don't have any outstanding warrants. You can't convey respect to the cop if he doesn't respect you in the first place. One flip side to this is, if your car is really a piece of junk they may have pity on you and assume you can't afford the ticket.

2) If it's night, cut on your interior lights. This shows you have nothing to hide, and puts them at ease. It also shows respect in that you are considerate of their situation, walking up to a stranger that could be armed or have warrants.

3) Roll down you window and put your hands in plain sight. Often I put one hand outside the window and the other on the steering wheel. This also puts them at ease. Also, by showing this deference they may assume that you know a cop.

4) Address them as "officer." Don't call them dude or bro.

5) When they ask you "Do you know why I pulled you over?" Go ahead and confess. Tell them the truth... "I was speeding. You caught me." "I am running late." "I need to go to the bathroom." "I wasn't paying attention." Cops hear a lot of bullshit, and most of them are good at sniffing it out. If you give them lip or attitude they will become defensive and give you a ticket or worse, but if you are respectful the only way they have to further fill their need for respect is to be magnanimous and let you off.

As the situation unfolds you may find other ways to show respect or feed their egos. Another idea is to be sure to pull over far enough so they don't have to stand in the road. A lot of girls, say they cry to get out of tickets. I doubt that would work for men. I haven't tried it. Some times you are going to get a ticket. Usually when I get tickets, it's in a trap, and the cops barely speak to me. I assume they are trying to fill a quota.

I learned some of these techniques intuitively, and from listening to police. However, later I found the general idea is well articulated in the book "How to win friends and influence people."

Do you know any ways to get out of a ticket?

There is one more way, don't speed : )

Practical uses for psychological research

Here is a post from guy kawasaki's blog
I found a great article called "10 Practical Uses for Psychological Research in Everyday Life." It explains how to detect lies, make your smile more attractive, persuade people, avoid getting scammed, and reduce your cholesterol level.
To make your smile more attractive smile slowly and tilt your head in the direction you are looking or toward your partner.