hotmedfax2018

Not all smiles are pretty. And some are even mean.  All in all, smiles can have a physical impact on our bodies, according to newswise.com. Not all smiles are expressions of warmth and joy. Sometimes they can be downright mean. And our bodies react differently depending on the message a smile is meant to send, the website notes. Research led by Jared Martin, a psychology graduate student at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, shows that smiles meant to convey dominance are associated with a physical reaction — a spike in stress hormones — in their targets. On the other hand, smiles intended as a reward, to reinforce behavior, appear to physically buffer recipients against stress. “Facial expressions really do regulate the world. We have that intuition, but there hasn't been a lot of science behind it,” says Martin, whose study was published today by the journal  Scientific Reports . “Our results show that subtle differences in the way you make facial expressions whil...

Who wouldn't rather eat out ?  I know I surely would.  But now I maybe need to think about it. A new study has found that eating out exposes us to chemicals that may cause cancer, especially our teens who consume nothing but burgers and fries.  Someone, tell the president. According to newswise.com, dining out more at restaurants, cafeterias and fast-food outlets may boost total levels of potentially health-harming chemicals called phthalates in the body, the new study notes. Phthalates, a group of chemicals used in food packaging and processing materials, are known to disrupt hormones in humans and are linked to a long list of health problems. The study is the first to compare phthalate exposures in people who reported dining out to those more likely to enjoy home-cooked meals.  People who reported consuming more restaurant, fast food and cafeteria meals had phthalate levels that were nearly 35 percent higher than people who reported eating food mostly purcha...

What's the old saying about liars (and now, Donald Trump)?  How can you tell if they're lying ?  If their lips are moving.  A new study says non-verbal cues can't always tell you. There often is something in someone’s behavior that can serve as a clue to trigger a search for hard evidence that can settle the uncertainty, according to the results of a new study in the Journal of Nonverbal Behavior by Mark Frank, a professor in the University at Buffalo Department of Communication, as reported at newswise.com. The findings suggest that lie detection is a process often initiated by non-verbal clues, rather than a moment, determined by non-verbal communication. “There is no Pinocchio response,” says Frank, an expert in non-verbal communication and deception who has worked with many federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, including the FBI and the CIA.  “There is nothing like that in a human being. You cannot prove a lie by looking just at behavior.” ...

Just think about this, ladies.  Remember when your parents pushed you to keep your GPA up?  Well now it's looking like they might have been wrong.  According to newswise.com, a high GPA only works for men.  So what else is new?  A new study says that it's only men who get callbacks -- twice as much as women -- when they excel at grades. Stellar grades in college could hurt – rather than help – women new to the job market, according to a new study that suggests employers place more value on the perceived “likability” of female applicants than on their academic success.  Male applicants with high grade point averages were twice as likely to be contacted by employers as women with the same grades and comparable experience and educational background in a study from The Ohio State University.  The picture was even worse for women who majored in math. Male math majors who excelled in school were called back by employers three times as often as thei...

OK.  So now we know all the data we post on Facebook isn't safe. Look out.  Here comes Twitter. According to newswise.com, your data can be used for science. Say what? Researchers routinely collect social media posts for studies, but most users don't realize this happens, and many don't like it, according to a new study, newswise.com reports. The majority of Twitter users are unaware that researchers freely collect and analyze their tweets – including deleted ones - in the name of science. Most believe that this shouldn’t be allowed without their consent. And many wrongly assume it would be a violation of Twitter’s terms of service, according to a new study by researchers from University of Colorado Boulder and University of Kentucky. “There is a ton of research right now using Twitter and other social media data,” says lead author Casey Fiesler, an assistant professor in the Department of Information Science at CU Boulder, at newswise.com. “Yet our study f...

Now what do you think of the pitch of Donald Trump's voice?  If it were lower, a new study says, he might have been elected.  Oh, wait.  I forgot. The study, according to newswise.com, found that lower-voiced candidates seemed to have a better chance of winning elections than their higher-pitched competitors. But here's where Trump comes in.  Lower-pitched candidates may sway voters, but they're not necessarily better leaders. Voice pitch, the perceived “highness” or “lowness” of a voice, influences how people are judged on a variety of dimensions such as attractiveness, physical strength and social dominance. In fact, studies have shown that individuals with lower-pitched voices are more likely to win elected office because they are believed to be superior leaders with greater physical prowess and integrity. But is voice pitch a reliable signal of leadership quality? And is the bias in favor of selecting leaders with lower voices good or bad for democracy? ...

Why am I not surprised at this?  But new research suggests that creative people do not excel in cognitive control. I believe that's thinking. Well, as the scientists put it,  the mind’s ability to override impulses and make decisions based on goals, rather than habits or reactions. According to newswise.com,  University of Arkansas researcher, Darya Zabelina, assistant professor of psychology, has found that people who have creative achievements do not engage in any more or less cognitive control than less creative people. Zabelina and co-author Giorgio Ganis of Plymouth University set out to compare the cognitive processes of people who have achieved creative success in their lives with those of people who scored well on laboratory tests of creativity.  Laboratory tests had previously relied on laboratory tests, rather than real-life achievements, to measure creativity. In one study, a "divergent thinking test," 15 participants were asked to write a ...

Now this is depressing. According to a new study, companies don't have much motivation to stop workplace sexual harassment. Newswise.com reports that new research by  Vanderbilt  economist  Joni Hersch  finds there are not strong enough incentives to push companies to eliminate or mitigate the risk of workplace sexual harassment. In  an article  in the latest issue of the  Georgetown Journal of International Affairs ,  she notes that while companies face some financial risk such as litigation costs, compensation costs, loss of workplace productivity and higher turnover, “the large share of charges of sexual harassment filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission  indicates that these costs to firms’ bottom lines are evidently insufficient to incentivize firms to eliminate sexual harassment.” Hersch also finds two key issues – under-reporting by victims and lack of regulation – contribute to employers not responding to...