Malaysia Flight 370 Pilot Mass Murder

/in , , , , , /by

60 Minutes Australia aired a show this past week where they interviewed international experts on the missing Malaysia flight 370. The experts concluded that the pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah took down the plane on purpose killing himself and all 239 passengers and crew on board. They believe his actions were intentional and deliberate.

If you recall, when the plane first disappeared, I came out on March 19, 2014, eleven days after the plane went missing, and shared my thoughts on the pilots from looking at their photos.  I wrote that from facial profiling of the Captain. I had concerns about him and a possible “deviant side” to his personality. I did not worry about the co-pilot.  Check it out here.

From 2014:

…I see a slight deviant side to his personality–a side that makes me pause slightly. I have hesitation to trust him completely. And ironically, I don’t see this side of him in all of his photos, but is clearly there, which means he could have fooled people.

Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, in the photos found online of him, showed many expressions of contempt. Contempt is an expression of superiority, an arrogance and better-than-you attitude that can’t be dismissed–then add in his deviant side and I had elevated concerns.

Look at his photo in my post from 2014.  Can you see those features?

His photos also revealed he had a dual personality, too, that was clearly evident.

While personality profiling isn’t 100% predictive, it does give you awareness that there is INCREASED RISK which is very important for safety.  Scientists have been studying “personality identification at zero acquaintance” and they are finding it has significant accuracy and value.  I have a natural talent for this and believe it could be of great use to keep people safe.

How could this information help an investigation?  I talk about it in this post here.

How empathetic are you?

/in , /by

jclk8888 / Pixabay

Empathy

We all want to believe we have it. We want to believe we are compassionate, kind and considerate. But are you, truly?  Few people question themselves about it.

Have you ever said to yourself….wait! Am I lacking an empathetic response here? Am I being inconsiderate?  Am I being unkind?  Did I truly put myself into that person’s shoes before judging them?

It’s a very natural response for us to reflexively respond in judgement and defense then it is for us to be empathetic. Think about it.

If you say yes, that you have reflected on this exact topic, then that’s a great indicator that you have a good degree of empathy.  And let me stop you, it shouldn’t come when someone is questioning you–saying perhaps you haven’t been empathetic. I’m talking have you ever just stopped yourself in a situation and wondered if you were truly being empathetic, without prompting?

If you haven’t, maybe it’s time for a an engine check and a tune-up?

This is a great empathy test by the Greater Good Magazine–Science-based Insights for a Meaningful Life from Berkeley.

Empathy involves putting yourself into the shoes of another in an attempt to feel what they may be feeling, to understand their situation from their point of view, not yours.

We all walk around with different levels and abilities to empathize with people. There are also different forms of empathy. There is emotional, cognitive and compassionate empathy. You can read an interesting article about it here.

Empathy is something that children need to be taught as early teenage development brings about strikingly self-centered behavior. It’s a natural part of our emotional development. Children and young adults are notorious for being self-centered. It’s their “toy”, their “game”, and if someone did something wrong, it wasn’t them even when the frosting is all over their cheeks and the cupcake is gone. She ate it, not me, right?

Being empathetic is essential for happiness in life. Without it people suffer.  A lack of empathy can cause devastating effects not only to the people around a person lacking empathy, but also for the person who lacks empathy themselves. They will struggle to form emotional bonds, build deep and lasting relationships and may never experience true love.

Empathy is not only good for others, but good for you, too!

Take the Empathy Test.   How empathetic are you?

Feel free to share your results below in the comment section.  I found my results fascinating.

Are you really empathetic? Or are you sympathetic?

/in , , /by

Many people believe they are empathetic, but the reality is they are not. Can you differentiate between empathy and sympathy?

Sympathy is feeling sorry for a person’s situation.  You see they are sad and you acknowledge it, but you really don’t connect to that feeling in yourself.

As an example, your friend gets a diagnosis. You’ve never had a serious diagnosis, so you will feel bad for them, and you wish them well, but you really don’t get what it feels like to be in your friend’s situation–so you can’t connect to those feelings.  You just know its a bummer, negative, sad and not good.

And then again, maybe you can.  Seeing your friend’s emotions stirs up a time in your past: You remember when you were sick and in the hospital once and felt helpless and hopeless, and lost and alone. The latter of these two examples is empathy.

Empathy is the ability to truly find that place in yourself that connects to how that person is feeling and to feel it yourself.  So when I see a friend truly sad and hurting, I connect to that part of myself and I can understand their pain. I can intuitively feel it. I know it. I connect to it, and hence connect to you.

The video above is a really good description–I highly recommend watching it (if you haven’t–I’m talking to you!).

Some people have highly active mirror neurons that fire when they see an emotion on another person’s face. Just by seeing it, their brain lights up the same emotional part in their brain and they begin to feel that emotion. Often times this occurs without awareness!

I’ve witnessed this many times in when I teach my classes. These people are highly empathetic people–extremely tuned in to other people’s emotions.  Not everyone has a natural mirror response.

In my training, I play videos with high emotional content.  When I am playing my videos, I often am reading email or thinking about something else.  I’ve seen them 100s of times.  And every now and then, when I am paused and thinking — looking around as I think, I feel a wave of emotion come over me, or I’ll feel my face literally go sad. And I’ll stop myself.   I’ve questioned, why do I suddenly feel sad?

What is going on is my mirror neuron’s have kicked in and I didn’t even realize it!!  As I become aware of what is going on,  I will inevitability find myself staring a person who is highly engaged in the video making a very strong emotional expression. And without even realizing it, my dang mirror neuron’s trip off in my head, induced the emotional response in me and I’m making the freak’n expression on my face.  I’m also feeling the emotion too!  It’s usually sadness that I key into.  Isn’t that wild?

I’m reacting to a person–who is reacting to a video I am not watching! I’m pretty numb to the videos too because I’ve played them so many times. It’s very powerful and profound.

So are you empathetic?  Or sympathetic?  Or both?

And do your mirror neurons fire and activate when you see other people’s emotions on their face?

If you aren’t  sure, next time you see someone displaying a very strong emotion on their face, pause yourself.  Is your face making the same expression?  If so, you’ve caught your mirror neurons at work!  You’re highly sensitive to other people’s emotions and probably extremely empathetic.

If you don’t respond, don’t beat yourself up. You are a not as emotional as some people, and that’s good too. We need people who aren’t as emotional in life to help society do the jobs those with emotions can’t do! And we thank you for that, too!  You are equally important!

If the world depended on me to do the work of a doctor, firefighter or policeman, we’d be in serious trouble!

Trump’s Eye Roll? No, it’s something else…

/15 Comments/in , /by

News outlets are reporting on the fact that Trump rolled his eyes when asked if Jeff Sessions resigned. He definitely rolled his eyes–you can’t miss it. I can’t tell if he is eye-rolling to the reporter, the question asked, a comment from one of the interns around him or someone else in the room, or at the thought of Sessions! Any are possible!

Besides Trump eye roll and laugh, Trump is doing something no news outlet is reporting and its significant. It’s a contempt expression.

Trump makes a very clear and delineated expression of contempt.

Did you see it?

So we know Trump is feeling contempt (the eye roll is further support of this), but it could be for several reasons. To find out why, we’d have to ask more questions. We just know he feels contempt.

I am surprised at how often people miss significant elements in communication and I am thinking of changing the focus of my blog from deception only to understanding human behavior and showing people the real messages behind people’s communication.  What do you think?

Study of Honesty

/9 Comments/in , , , , /by

If you want to be good at deception, you have to be good at spotting the truth as well. Both are equally important.

In the news this week, a woman survives a brutal shark attack, losing her arm to the shark.

Watch her tell her story. Her response is unusual, but we know the story is absolutely true due to her injuries.

Ask yourself, if you didn’t know she was telling the truth and you couldn’t see the injury, would you believe her?

If not, why? What behaviors does she have that might set you off?

And what behaviors does she have that supports her story?