--Original published at Ally'sCollegeBlog

I was surprised at my results for the reading facial expressions test because of how high my score was. I received a 13/20 and I seriously believed I would get not more than a 10/20. Secondly, I have never been a social person, which I had concluded being the reason I would have gotten a low score. Which is confusing now because I got a slightly over average score, so where does the social aspect of my life work into that? I think I need to just trust my gut. Try not to overthink and analyze as I usually do. I can apply this information to my life with trusting myself to not just understand people, but in other aspects of my life. For example, if I get B for more than two answers in a row, I go back because I do not trust my answers.

Although this quiz gives you some insight into your ability to recognize emotions, but I do not find it very credible. It uses actors to recreate the emotions, which is not realistic. I also believe that a lot of those emotions pictured could have been multiple emotions. Say embarrassment could also be sadness. This quiz is very informative and helpful, but not the most credible, or academic way to measure someone’s ability to interpret facial expressions.

--Original published at MaddieHinson

I chose to analyze the song Wannabe by the Spice Girls. When I was a kid, my sister and I used to listen to this all the time, but I never really thought about the lyrics until recent year. The song starts off by saying “I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want”. This seems to be a good thing, because all anyone ever wants to know is what someone else wants when it comes to a relationship. Going into the first verse, the line is, “If you want my future, forget my past.” This makes sense, because you can’t really fault somebody for what they did before you met them. Then the song to gets slightly concerning, when they get to the chorus, “If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends”. I can one hundred percent guarantee that no, if you like someone, do not try to “get with their friends”, it’s not what they want.

Also, in the bridge section, it talks about “Easy V” which after doing some research was they Spice Girls reference to ecstasy. Obviously, ecstasy probably isn’t the best thing to be doing, especially when trying to figure out a relationship with someone. Even though the song may have some sketchy meanings behind it, I still think it’s fun to listen to.

--Original published at Maddy Vingom's PSY105 Blog

In Dan Gilbert’s TED Talk he discusses the idea of happiness. We are able to create happiness within our minds, as opposed to finding happiness as we tend to believe. He called this synthetic happiness, it allows us to feel happy with the outcome of an event even when things don’t go as planned. Psychological studies have shown that three months after a positive or negative experience all people have the same level of happiness. I found this to be very interesting, because once I think about this I do it all the time. For example, at the time doing poorly on an exam seems like the worst thing in the world, but even just a month later it is not a huge deal. In addition, Gilbert stated often times we build up these expectations for something in our minds and the actual event does not live up to what we hoped. Knowing about synthetic happiness will allow me to reduce my stress levels, because I now understand that these seemingly important events won’t matter in a few weeks. It will also reduce the amount of time I spend building things up in my mind only to be disappointed by the actual event. 

Gilbert spoke with confidence and appeared to know what he was talking about by using data from past experiments that he conducted. To ensure that he is a credible source I read about him on the TED website. I learned that he is a Harvard psychologist who studies happiness, making him an even more credible as the source for this information. 

--Original published at Olivia's College Blog

              Our interactions and relationships with others are largely influenced by how we interpret their emotional expressions. Non-verbal communication is a huge part of connecting with others by picking up visual cues that are indicative of mood or emotion. I could parallel the importance of reading facial expressions to body language. In my social psychology class, I learned that body posture and facial expressions give us a lot of hints to how an individual is feeling. For example, crossed arms or an outward leaning posture may mean that someone is uncomfortable, and they separate them self by creating distance. Someone with averted eyes with their head tilted downward may be feeling shame. These are both examples of how picking up small non-verbal cues can be very useful in communication.  

Before taking the Emotional Intelligence test, I hoped to correctly match most of the expressions with their respective emotions. I scored 15/20 and hard expected to do well. I am a very compassionate person and find it gratifying to help people through problems and give advice, so understanding these social cues is necessary. Additionally, my career aspirations as a clinical psychologist revolve around non-verbal communication. I think the test is a valuable tool; it would help me be more effective in reading emotions. I believe people should be concerned about their ability to discern emotional expressions, as it facilitates healthy communication. I can vouch for this in an example we all can relate to. Texting has a reputation for producing miscommunication. I believe the source of this miscommunication comes from the lack of face-to-face contact. The crucial difference is that text messages don’t supply us with the necessary non-verbal cues to help us read emotions.

The emotions that were the most difficult to tell apart were fear and embarrassment. I incorrectly guessed embarrassment when it was fear. I misinterpreted her appearance of an open mouth and pulled-up eyebrows as fear. The test is fairly credible in that it gives a general score of how accurate I was in discerning the 20 facial expressions. I don’t think any one quiz is enough of an indicator to tell you concretely how well you read emotions. Other variables must be taken into account, like the atmosphere and overall tone of the conversation, which are absent from the quiz.

--Original published at Ariana's Blog

The score of my facial recognition test was a 13/20. I think this is pretty accurate for me. I believe I am better at reading body language then reading faces. Sometimes someone’s face doesn’t reflect how they are feeling but their body language may. I can also tell how a person is feeling by their tone or actions. If I think something is wrong with a friend or family member, I usually ask “What’s wrong?” which is the easiest way to figure out how they are feeling. I think these ways are better than reading facial expressions because some people put on a happy face when they are not. I can use this information in my daily life to determine how a friend is feeling and try to be there for them if they are sad or upset etc. 

 It was easiest to tell anger and happiness apart since the faces are so different. It was a lot harder to determine whether it was love or happiness for example. They were both just smiling so it was hard to distinguish which it was. I thought the quiz was pretty credible except that some of the faces were too dramatic and some were unrealistic. Most people don’t make those type of facial expressions. Usually when someone is sad they won’t make a pouty face, they may just simply be quieter and not smile as often as they normally do. I also believe that some of the expressions have the same faces such as shame and embarrassment or love and flirtatious. These are all very similar and it was difficult to distinguish between them. 

--Original published at AlexisPattersonBlog

I chose to take the quiz to see how well I could read facial expressions. I clearly cannot as I received a score of 10/20. I often found myself looking at the photo and saying “that is none of the ones here” and played the close your eyes and guess game.

I don’t find the quiz to be very creditable. It was on some website that an ad to subscribe kept popping up, which led me to think they want more people to be tricked into subscribing because they believed the computer diagnosed them with being able to read someone based off 20 pictures. I did find the quiz to be interesting as it explained the answers and why they were correct, and I found some of the reasonings to be surprising.

I could obviously pick out the easy ones like happiness, sad, or anger. One I struggled with was love for instance. Everyone expresses love differently, and before the quiz I didn’t think there were certain facial expressions that showed love, but apparently there are. One that also stumped me was a person who was staring straight and sticking her tongue out. I remember looking at the choices and questioning why something like “being silly” wasn’t on there.

I could use this for my life as it helped me think about how everyone expresses things different, and you can’t assume someone is feeling a certain way based off a face they made one time.