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Dominance, Trustworthiness, and Competence in Body Motion During Speeches

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On October 18, 2022

In Leadership & Influence

Highlights

  • Body movements of politicians giving speeches were turned into stick-figure videos.
  • Stimuli were rated on dominance, trustworthiness, and competence.
  • Simple nonverbal cues were linked to perceptions of dominance and trustworthiness.
  • Male speakers from opposition parties received the highest ratings on dominance.
  • Body motion has ecological validity and is a nonverbal cue of social relevance.

People read dominance, trustworthiness, and competence into the faces of politicians but do they also perceive such social qualities in other nonverbal cues? We transferred the body movements of politicians giving a speech onto animated stick figures and presented these stimuli to participants in a rating experiment.

Analyses revealed single-body postures of maximal expansiveness as strong predictors of perceived dominance. Also, stick figures producing expansive movements and many movements throughout the encoded sequences were judged high on dominance and low on trustworthiness.

In a second step, we divided our sample into speakers from the opposition parties and speakers that were part of the government, and male and female speakers. Male speakers from the opposition were rated higher on dominance but lower on trustworthiness than speakers from all other groups.

In conclusion, people use simple cues to make equally simple social categorizations. Moreover, the party status of male politicians seems to become visible in their body motions.

References:

FDA Investigating Metformin for Possible Carcinogen

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On December 6, 2019

In Health & Vitality

Global health regulators are looking into whether widely used diabetes drugs may contain unsafe levels of a carcinogen that has previously been found in heart and gastric medications.

The FDA has begun testing samples of the diabetes drug metformin for the carcinogen N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), the agency announced Wednesday. Contamination with this same substance led to recalls of blood pressure and heartburn medications within the last 2 years.

Metformin is generally the first medication prescribed for type 2 diabetes, according to Mayo Clinic. It lowers glucose production in the liver and boosts your body’s sensitivity to insulin so that your body uses insulin more effectively. More than 30 million people in the U.S. have diabetes, and 90 to 95% are type 2, the CDC says, and metformin is the fourth-most prescribed drug in the United States.

The FDA’s announcement comes on the heels of a recall of three versions of metformin in Singapore and the European Medicines Agency’s request that manufacturers test for NDMA, according to Bloomberg News.

Singapore health officials recalled three of 46 versions of metformin marketed there after finding NDMA amounts “above the acceptable level.” The recalled drugs had been sold locally for only a short time, and the risk to patients who had taken them is low, Singapore’s Health Sciences Authority said in a statement.

“The agency is in the beginning stages of testing metformin; however, the agency has not confirmed if NDMA in metformin is above the acceptable daily intake (ADI) limit of 96 nanograms in the US,” FDA spokesman Jeremy Kahn says in an emailed statement. “A person taking a drug that contains NDMA at or below the ADI every day for 70 years is not expected to have an increased risk of cancer.”

Valisure, an American online pharmacy that tests every batch of drugs it sells before dispensing them, has rejected 60% of its metformin since it started testing for NDMA in March.

“The public definitely should be concerned about the rapidly growing discovery of carcinogens in medications, especially in those that are taken on a daily basis where even small contaminations can add up over time,” says David Light, CEO of Valisure.

While the FDA investigates, officials urge patients who are taking metformin to continue. “This is a serious condition, and patients should not stop taking their metformin without first talking to their health care professionals,” the statement says.

Resources & References

  1. Medscape article > https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/922248?src=soc_fb_191207_mscpedt_news_mdscp_metformin&faf=1
  2. Diabetes Drugs Latest to Be Targeted for Carcinogen Scrutiny via Bloomberg > https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-04/diabetes-drugs-latest-to-be-targeted-for-carcinogen-scrutiny
  3. Metformin description on drugs.com > https://www.drugs.com/metformin.html

Cost of Mental Illness

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On February 9, 2009

In Health & Vitality

A recent study of 30,000 workers showed that individuals suffering from depression took an average of 30 days off work while stress-sufferers were away for 21 days.

This research shows just how important it is for managers and HR professionals to take early action to support individuals before their condition deteriorates into a long-term sick leave problem.

– Chartered Institute of Personal Development

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