When you meet someone you shake their hand
and judge them every SECOND YOUR HANDS ARE
TOUCHING.
Deny it if you want, we all know it's true.
Good morrow, friends!
Trace here for DNews with a breakdown of an
often studied physical greeting, the handshake.
Handshaking is not at ALL universal, and though
it's spread across the planet thanks to globalization,
there are places where it's not common and
some where it's not cool.
Regardless, studies have analyzed handshakes
up and down and found we can determine life
expectancy, and health!
Handshakes are really important, socially
speaking.
No one is exactly sure where they came from,
you might have heard it came from Rome and
had to do with not holding a weapon, but that's
a hypothesis, honestly, no one knows.
Even still, people tend to create an immediate
judgement of character when they shake your
hand.
It's widely known in the business and professional
world, but back in 2012 a scientific study
in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience revealed
the true power of a handshake in the brain.
Always shake hands.
Always.
Neurologically, it's an extremely positive
non-verbal behavior.
Researchers at MIT found shaking hands is
like a social lubricant, it starts people
off in a positive light.
In fMRI's on participants' brains, the amygdala
lit up with positive feelings when participants
observed interactions with handshakes as opposed
to those without them.
Plus, a brand new study in Plos One found
your hand-grip reveals the true age of your
body.
Because the number of years old you are isn't
an accurate measure.
Everyone knows a 22 year old whose body is
already worn out, right?
The researchers took 50 worldwide handshake
studies and found a strong correlation with
age and education level.
Using hand-grip strength to determine the
true age of the body, they found, "a 65-year-old
white woman who had not completed secondary
education has the same grip as a 69-year-old
who HAD."
Basically, white women with higher levels
of education aged slower.
Which brings us to women and handshakes.
In the year 2000, The Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology found women with a firm
handshake were less neurotic, more extroverted,
liberal and intellectual!
I read a few articles discussing women's handshakes
and hand-grip strength, but with practice
a good handshake is good regardless of sex.
Bottom line, handshakes are not JUST grabbing
and shaking.
There IS such thing as a good and bad handshake.
A study in the Journal of Applied Psychology
found handshakes indicate overall personality
differences.
For example, people with strong handshakes
scored better in job interviews, and were
better liked.
The University of Manchester broke down the
shake and found the biggest complaints were
"sweaty palms, limp wrists, gripping too hard
and lack of eye contact."
The perfect handshake, according to science
applies to both men and women, and according
to the studies should be with the RIGHT hand;
have a complete grip and a firm squeeze (but
not too strong).
The palm should be cool and dry and you should
shake three-ish times with a medium level
of vigor.
Overall 2-3 seconds and boom.
Done.
What do you think?
Are handshakes ancient overanalyzed wastes
of time?
Or super important non-verbal queues to someone's
inner self?
Tell us in the comments and be sure to subscribe
for more DNews.
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Thanks for watching, y'all are the bestest.
