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ToShinTim
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11 Apr 2014, 3:22 pm

I think this belongs here, but I'm not quite sure. Anyways, here we go.


Back-story - In the 11th grade (I was 18 then, I'm 21 now) I had a psychology class, and that particular day, we were discussing human emotions. As part of the lesson, our teacher showed us a segment of the pilot episode of the television show "Lie to Me". I was already interested in psychology, though at the time I was hoping to major in mechanical engineering. Fast forward to my second semester in college, and I figured out that M.E. was not going to work out for me. My backup plan was (and had been for a while) was psychology. SOCIAL psychology. So I changed courses and went on to that. A few weeks later, I "re-discovered" 'Lie to Me' and soon became incredibly interested in the concepts that were portrayed in the show. After figuring out the things behind it (such as finding out Paul Eckman was the "founder" of this particular science, and reading some of his work) I decided that this was to be my specific "career of interest".


Skip ahead in time to today, when I am still heavily interested in the concepts that Eckman put in place.
Just earlier, I found this article that basically says what Eckman found isn't necessarily true (link at the bottom). The universal microexpressions that were put in place are no longer universal, from what I can tell from the article.

So....what does this mean for everything that I was planning on doing? Does anyone have any input?

http://www.popsci.com/article/science/f ... SOC&dom=fb



Willard
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11 Apr 2014, 4:18 pm

I've noticed Lie to Me, as well as CSI and other modern cop shows frequently including references to beliefs and ideas that come from Neurolinguistic Programming, which has also been debunked, that they insert into their scripts as though they were "facts."

Human cultures can vary so much in the way they interact socially, I don't see how it would be possible to pin down any set of nonverbal social signals as being universal to all of them.

It's always disappointing to have an interesting theory not pan out, but I don't see why that should affect your pursuit of your goal. I mean the psychological dynamics of socializing haven't ceased to exist. Some of them just may not be as easy to categorize as previously assumed. That leaves more potential accomplishments and discoveries for you.



khaoz
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12 Apr 2014, 12:11 am

I don't think the idea that people occasionally find flaws in different areas of study like this should completely invalidate previous understandings or findings. Just because there is a small subset of people who don't fit the profile does not mean that a statistically significant number should not be considered an accurate representation to work outward from. I may be wrong, but is not Neurolinguistic Programming similar to the studies on Body Language?

I don't see it as studying body language. What does the word "programming" infer? I don't body language is programmed. Conditioned, maybe. Maybe I don't really understand the point behind this thread.



ToShinTim
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12 Apr 2014, 12:20 am

Quote:
Maybe I don't really understand the point behind this thread.


ITT, I'm trying to see if anyone has anything to say about this particular area of social psychology, especially after reading the article



khaoz
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12 Apr 2014, 12:35 am

ToShinTim wrote:
Quote:
Maybe I don't really understand the point behind this thread.


ITT, I'm trying to see if anyone has anything to say about this particular area of social psychology, especially after reading the article


I'm interested in this too and I take free online classes whenever I can. Do you view this as being similar to understanding body language or does the programming title read as behavior modification to you.?



ToShinTim
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12 Apr 2014, 12:39 am

A bit of both, honestly. Though body language is similar to facial expressions, the two convey different things (although subtle)



khaoz
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12 Apr 2014, 12:46 am

ToShinTim wrote:
A bit of both, honestly. Though body language is similar to facial expressions, the two convey different things (although subtle)


Is physiognomy something that would interest you? I got interested in it the same time I started buying body language books.



ToShinTim
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12 Apr 2014, 12:48 am

Eh....not so much - I'm more interested in the microexpressions from Eckman that span out to motives/reasoning and such things like that