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Reducing the Stress of Dealing with People While Wearing a Mask by Body Language Expert and Speaker Patti Wood

As I giving consulting advice and offer training programs on customer service and wearing a mask I discuses why its stressful and what you can do. It's stressful dealing with people wearing masks because anything emotions in facial expressions are ways we decide if someone is safe to interact with and how they are feeling and responding to us. Reading those facial expressions is wired into our primal brains. In my book  Snap: Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language, and Charisma  I share the importance of establishing rapport and how behaviors like handshakes and smiles help reduce help us and know it's stressful to interact without them. Their are barriers to overcome.
How can you show your sadness, glee, or anger while still protecting ourselves and others from 
COVID-19?

One change you can make if your interacting with a mask on is to say your emotions out loud. For example, instead of just saying, "Good Morning," say, 'I'm smiling. Good morning." Instead of just saying, "Goodbye." Wave, and say, "I enjoyed being with you, Goodbye." Naming your emotions is a great way to improve communication.

Naming your emotion is also a great way to monitor your feelings and reduce stress. When you check in on your emotional state, you create a sense of control of your emotion, you can even choose to feel and go deeper into an emotion that your would like to feel. So say, for example, you are feeling stressed out on a trip to the grocery store during Covid 19. You want to reduce that stress. You can change what you think, feel, say, and do by calling out a good emotion. For example, as you approach the cash register, you can tell yourself that you want to feel happy and grateful for human interaction. You can know it relatively safe because you are both wearing masks and distanced. You can make the decision to reduce the stress for both you and the cashier, smile under your mask, and say, "I am smiling hello under this mask because it's great to see you today."  Grab that confidence and kick away the stress.

You can also change the way you sound if you smile under your mask. When you smile, it changes the shape of your vocal cords, so when you speak while smiling, it sounds different and enjoyable to others

Smile under your mask. People can't see your smile, but they can see the raise of your cheeks and a little lift below your eyes, and the crescent shape your eyes make, as well as the little crinkle folds around the eyes that occur when smiling so a smile CAN be seen when wearing a mask. Plus, smiling sends a message to your brain to release feel-good chemicals, some of the same ones we get from warm touch like hugging! 

For more tips and or coaching or training on Body Language While Wearing a Mask, including training on Customer Service While Wearing a  Mask Contact are office at Patti@Pattiowood.net 


Problems With Racial Profiling in Facial Recognition Software, Body Language Expert Patti Wood

I am an expert in first impressions and body language. I wrote the book SNAP Making the Most of First Impressions Body Language and Charisma.

There is racial bias in facial recognition software.

1.) How common is this
problem?

1) Are there problems with racial stereotyping in facial recognition software.

Researcher Patrick Grother, said race-based biases were evident in "the majority of the face recognition algorithms we studied." Compared to their performance against whites, some algorithms were up to 100 times more likely to confuse two different non-white people.

”https://edition.cnn.com/2019/12/19/tech/facial-recognition-study-racial-bias/index.html#:~:text=In%20a%20release%2C%20Patrick%20Grother%2C%20one%20of%20the,more%20likely%20to%20confuse%20two%20different%20non-white%20people. 

Accurate first impressions are formed in the limbic system and based on reading up to 10,000 nonverbal cues in less than one minute. We can form that impression quickly and accurately based on an enormous amount of nonverbal data.

2.) Should facial recognition be used in schools? I don’t think we can stop the use of facial recognition software. We have too many guns and too much violence so people want to protect their children and the companies that make them can get huge government contracts and make millions of dollars putting in and maintaining them so they will lobby for them. It will happen so we need to make it as accurate as possible and take out the racial bias.

Stereotypes that are formed in the neocortex and are based on things like parenting, experiences, social media, film tv and social media and most research shows that impressions based on stereotypes in 30 percent accurate or lower.

What can be done to ensure that facial recognition doesn't show
bias?

Research show we form Stereotypes based on skin tone and even more so for facial structure (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3399873/) Skin and Bones: The Contribution of Skin Tone and Facial Structure to Racial Prototypicality Ratings)

I feel that we need to improve the software to take into considered the implicit bias that skin tone and facial shape make and to increase the accuracy of the software.

 




Patti Wood, MA - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com.
     

Body Language Expert Patti Wood Analyzes the Classic Film Dial M For Murder by Alfred Hitchcock


As a body language expert, I notice scenes in movies that really get it right. The blackmail scene, in one of my favorite classic Hitchcock films, Dial M for Murder gets in the right.
 
In this tense 22-minute scene the two characters don't scream or yell, there is no dramatic music, but their interplay grows in suspense. The characters move around the room as they talk, they sit they stand they get close as in the scene pictured, they walk away from each other. The camera angles are so dynamic their views down on them from the ceiling, at ankle level looking up and from behind furniture. It makes the viewer feel like they are in the room hiding and observing what's going on. So the viewer feels like they are in on the secret. They feel the odd tension and glee of the murders, and they are in on the secret. They know he plans on killing his wife. (played by Grace Kelly.)
 
I love how the fact that it was shot in 3D made certain body language and props come into the foreground view. Grace Kelly reaches out towards us to find the scissors, she reaches out to us to save her from her attacker, the drinks seem within our reach, the telltale key seems like it's in our hand and we are looking down at it.
 
This movie was unusual for its time because it not only revealed the murderer you watch him plan, attempt to execute it. There is very little violence, but Ray Millian's portrayal of the husband gives you a creepy feeling. Hitchcock shows you the husband’s thinking, and thus you are inside the Malignant Narcissist mind. You are in on his scheme. of knowing a narcissist and being in on his scheme. This is the perfect time to enjoy classic films. Check out the body language in Dial M For Murder and tell me what you noticed.
I am working on a book on Body Language in Movies/films. What movies do you think I should analyze?

 

 







Patti Wood, MA - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com.
     

Bachelorette body language - Clare-Crawley and Dale-Moss-bachelorette-interview-body-language


Speaking to Harrison, Clare and Dale denied the allegations wholeheartedly. According to body language expert Patti Wood, MA, author of Snap: Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language, and Charismathe couple is telling the truth.

Click the link below to find Patti's insights:




Patti Wood, MA - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com.
     

Kamala Harris's Body Language, Smile During the Vice Presidential Debates, Body Language Expert Patti Wood

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/10/10078620/kamala-harris-body-language-facial-expressions-vice-presidential-debatehttps://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/10/10078620/kamala-harris-body-language-facial-expressions-vice-presidential-debate


Patti Wood, MA - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com.