One Big Interviewing Mistake You Should Try to Avoid

Say you're in the running for your dream job, but it's on the other side of the country. The higher-ups call you for a final interview, and give you a choice: You can video conference in, or fly out to meet with them face-to-face.

You might be tempted to choose the easier option that doesn't involve travel or additional expenses. But it may be wise to make the trip: A new study suggests that in-person interviews tend to leave better impressions on both the hiring company and the candidate.

“We live in a world where we increasingly rely on technology, but this study reminds us that personal interactions should never be underestimated,” study co-author Nikki Blacksmith, a doctoral candidate at the George Washington University's Department of Organizational Sciences and Communication, said in a press release. Blacksmith and her colleagues wanted to see how tools like telephone and video interviewing might affect overall decision making, so they analyzed the findings of 12 studies published between 2000 and 2007.

Their results, published Monday in the journal Personnel Assessment and Decisions, found that overall, technology-mediated interviews resulted in lower ratings-for both parties involved-than face-to-face interviews. Video interviews received the most negative rankings, followed by telephone and computer interviews.

Initially, the researchers assumed that these differences would have lessened over the years, as people became more accustomed to technology in the workplace. But they were surprised to find the opposite: The ratings were actually more negative in the later research. (They do point out, however, that even the most recent study took place seven years ago.)

“Considering the rate at which technology has changed, it is clear that we lack understanding of the modern interview,” the authors wrote.

Senior author Tara Behrend, PhD, director of the Workplaces and Virtual Environments Lab at George Washington University, says the study was not able to determine what, exactly, was wrong with technology-mediated interviews-but does offer a guess.

“On the phone I can't shrug my shoulders, roll my eyes, wink, or nod my head to show that I understand,” she told RealSimple.com. “That means that the interviewer can easily misinterpret something I say.”

On top of that, she says, taking turns is harder in a video or phone setting. “The chance of accidentally interrupting the interviewer would be much higher,” says Behrend. “If you're afraid of interrupting, then you might have a long awkward pause instead. Neither option is going to give the perception that you are a strong communicator.”

It's also difficult to engage in what Behrend calls “impression management”-doing things to make the interviewer like you-when you're not face-to-face with them. You might not be able to make friendly small talk or show that you're attentive by smiling and sitting up straight if you're on the phone or staring into a webcam, she says.

The problem is, many interviewees aren't given a choice as to what kind of meeting they'll have. If a company holds all of its interviews for a certain position the same way, the study authors say, then no one has an unfair advantage. But if some candidates are given in-person interviews and others aren't, results are likely to be skewed. In fact, the study concludes, these findings could potentially open up companies with such hiring practices to lawsuits.

Behrend says that an important next step is finding a way to improve perceptions in video interactions. “There is plenty of popular advice out there about how to do well in a Skype interview,” she says. “For example, making eye contact is very tough online. But, you can configure your computer so that 'eye contact' with the camera happens more naturally.” (You can find our expert tips for acing a video interview-and other smart interview tips-here).

She hopes that by studying tips and techniques like these, researchers can help level the playing field-and give remote interviewers gain back a bit of their lost advantage.

 

This article originally appeared on RealSimple.com.

Can Virtual Reality Meditation Get You Closer to Mindfulness? I Tried It to Find Out

I've been meditating, off and on, for the past 14 years. The technique I learned in meditation class many years ago is old-school and austere: Find a place to sit, close your eyes, feel your feet on the floor, and focus on the in-and-out breath at the tip of your nose. No music, no mantras, just the moment-by-moment struggle of bringing your attention back to breathing every time your mind wanders away (which is just about every time you breathe). The point, and the challenge, is to train your mind to let go of distraction, to detach from thoughts, to simply “be here now.” 

Mindfulness meditation is a welcome (some say necessary) respite from the hustle and stress of modern life, and from the incessant pings, buzzes, and chimes of personal technology.

So I was intrigued when I received an invitation from the folks at Oculus, the virtual reality shop at Facebook, to test out the latest application for this booming technology: guided meditation. I wondered: If being mindful requires disengaging from the diversions of modern life, can we truly meditate while mind-melding with state-of-the-art computer processing power? Is it possible to “be here now” if that “here” is a digitally-synthesized someplace else?

At Oculus' pop-up showroom in New York City, I was first given a quick tour of the capabilities of their high-end Rift system.  I was menaced by a life-size Tyrannosaurus Rex (cowering in virtual terror as the beast stomped past/through me) and dropped onto the ledge of an 80-story Times Square skyscraper (dropping reflexively to hands and knees and crawling backwards to safety). 

RELATED: A Meditation to Start Your Day

After the stress test warm up, I strapped on the Samsung Gear VR, for a downshift into Oculus' meditation offerings.

The Guided Meditation VR app, developed by Cubicle Ninjas, gives you a choice of environment, voiceover, and chill-out music. I picked a fall foliage setting called "Autumnshade" to start, and the "Relaxation" audio track. 

The 360-degree view was splendid: Crisp brown leaves floated from trees between shafts of golden sunlight. In the narration, an English woman likened our thoughts to hummingbirds, and indeed, my mind was flitting from voice to scene (with multiple perspectives available at the push of a button) and back again, with nary a thought of my breath.

I switched to a tropical seaside setting ("Costa del Sol"), with waves sloshing on the shore, then toggled again to an icy mountain ("Snow Peak"): Blood red sky reflected in an iridescent blue lake. Somewhere behind me I heard a crunching sound, like the calving of icebergs (or the footfall of a hungry snow leopard). Each time I picked a new setting, the device asked me to press my finger to a sensor to measure my heart rate, part of the app's biofeedback feature. I started out around 76 beats per minute, and hovered in that range throughout the experience.

RELATED: Wait, Congress Has a Meditation Guru?

I shifted one last time to a sunny bamboo grove ("Hanna Valley"), leaves swaying in a gentle breeze, a pagoda in the near distance. There was even a pudgy panda dozing on the rocks behind me to add to the snoozy vibe.

Now that I'd found a calm setting, I turned on the lulling “Loving Compassion” voiceover, which was much more conducive to  relaxation than the hummingbird talk, and more in keeping with my own experience practicing loving-kindness meditation. A voice urged me to think about a loved one with the following recitation:

May you be safe / May you be peaceful / May you be healthy / May you live with ease and wellbeing.

Good food for thought, yet I still found myself dazzled by the scenery, looking out and around rather than inward.

My Oculus friends urged me to try another app, so I dove into Perfect Beach, developed by nDreams, which offers a choice of four seaside views with an audio track. The most interesting feature here is that the app lets you select a lower torso (customizable by sex and skin tone) as part of your view, presumably to help you locate your floating head in the VR space. That idea makes sense, given that groundedness is one of the starting points of most any meditation practice, though I found it gave me yet one more thing to look at: undulating waves throwing flecks of golden sun, plus a pair of nicely tanned legs and muscular pecs, just below my line of sight. 

RELATED: Meditation Might Work Better than Painkillers for Chronic Low Back Pain

After an admittedly brief tour, I yanked off the headset and defogged my glasses. The verdict: Is virtual reality immersive?  Of course. Diverting? For sure. Is it relaxing? It would be, if you had enough time to steep in the experience.

Is it meditative? That's a tough one, and it depends on one's definition of meditation. If by “meditation” you mean getting outside of yourself for a few minutes to zone out, decompress, and escape, then virtual reality would do the trick. If you're new to meditation, and don't have access to a class or a teacher, and you're looking to learn some of the basics of a guided practice like loving-kindess, an app like Guided Meditation VR (as a kind of jacked-up audio program) would help.

But if you're trying to meditate in the more orthodox, hard-way-in style-to tune in rather than out; to be here, right now; to wake up into reality-you run into something of a conundrum. It seems that a technology that pries your eyes and ears wide open to absorb as much sensory input as possible is working at cross-purposes with a discipline that asks you to forgo distraction, to close your eyes and direct your attention inward.

RELATED: Memory Failing You? Study Suggests Meditation May Help

Oculus' VR meditation is a fun trip, no doubt, but if I could design a setting, it might look and sound like the classroom where I first learned how to sit: careworn wood floors, mismatched chairs, a rattling air conditioner, with a teacher at the front of the room offering terse instruction and then… silence.  Maybe this dazzling technology, confident enough in its verisimilitude, could also be humble enough to slip into the background, so you'd have no qualms about missing out if you just closed your eyes, and tuned in to the real.

What Being Expected to Check Email After Work Does to Your Health

Employees who feel obligated to check work email during non-work hours are at risk of emotional exhaustion, according to a study being presented next week at the Academy of Management annual meeting.

What's more, companies don't have to formally require workers to check in to create this effect; the expectation can simply be implied by workplace culture. (Tell that to your boss next time she says no one's “forcing you” to log on from vacation!)

Common causes of job stress, such as high workload and interpersonal conflicts, have been well documented in previous research. But the authors of this new study-from Lehigh, Virginia Tech, and Colorado State universities-say theirs is the first to identify email-related expectations as a job stressor.

Other studies have shown, however, that employees must be able to detach from work-both mentally and physically-in order to restore their resources and avoid burnout. And, of course, it's no secret that continuous connectivity prevents that kind of detachment from happening.

“Email is notoriously known to be the impediment of the recovery process,” the authors write. “Its accessibility contributes to experience of work overload since it allows employees to engage in work as if they never left the workspace.”

To test this hypothesis, they surveyed nearly 400 working adults in several different industries, including finance and banking, technology, and health care. Participants were asked about how much time they spent on email outside of the office, the expectations of their employers, and other factors.

Surprisingly, the actual amount of time people spent on email didn't affect their emotional exhaustion levels or work-family balance as much as their beliefs about what was expected of them did. For many people, these beliefs created a constant state of anxiety and uncertainty-referred to as “anticipatory stress”-regardless of how often they actually checked in.

Employers should take note of the new research. “If an organization perpetuates the 'always on' culture it may prevent employees from fully disengaging from work eventually leading to chronic stress,” Liuba Belkin, associate professor of management at Lehigh's College of Business and Economics and coauthor of the study, said in a press release.

Plenty of previous research shows that displeasure with work-life balance can also lead to anxiety, depression, absenteeism, and decreased job productivity. “Even though in the short run being 'always on' may seem like a good idea because it increases productivity, it can be dangerous in the long-run,” Belkin said.

If banning email after work isn't a practical option for companies, Belkin suggests that managers implement weekly “email-free days” or institute a rotating schedule for employees to be on-call (or on-email) after hours.

But that's not all. To really benefit employees, the authors suggest, companies have to truly follow through with these policies-not just say that they exist. In other words, we need to feel secure that our bosses truly value work-family balance, and that it's okay to unplug for the evening or the weekend.

 

This article originally appeared on RealSimple.com.

This Is What Happens in Your Brain When Youâre Hypnotized

THURSDAY, July 28, 2016 (HealthDay News) - Skeptics view hypnosis as a little-understood parlor trick, but a new study reveals real changes occur in the brain when a person enters an hypnotic state.

Some parts of the brain relax during the trance while others become more active, said study senior author Dr. David Spiegel, associate chair of psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

"I hope this study will demonstrate that hypnosis is a real neurobiological phenomenon that deserves attention," Spiegel said. "We haven't been using our brains as well as we can. It's like an app on your iPhone you haven't used before, and it gets your iPhone to do all these cool things you didn't know it could do."

Hypnosis was the first Western form of psychotherapy, but little is known about how it actually works, the authors say.

Hoping to learn more, Spiegel and his colleagues selected 57 people for this study out of a pool of 545 potential participants. Thirty-six of the 57 displayed a high level of hypnotic susceptibility, while the other 21 did not appear to be very hypnotizable.

Using MRI, researchers measured the subjects' brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow. Each was scanned while resting, when recalling a memory, and when exposed to a message intended to induce a hypnotic trance.

People highly susceptible to hypnosis experienced three distinct brain changes while hypnotized that weren't present when they were out of the trance, the study reports. These changes weren't detected in the brains of those with low hypnotic capability.

People in a trance experienced a decrease in activity in an area called the dorsal anterior cingulate, part of what's called the brain's salience network. "It helps us compare context and decide what is worth worrying about and what isn't," Spiegel said.

Hypnotized people also experienced an increase in connections between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the insula. The prefrontal cortex helps us plan and carry out tasks, while the insula helps the mind connect with the body.

"In hypnosis, we know you can alter things like gastric acid secretion, heart rate, blood pressure and skin conductance," Spiegel said. "Your brain is very good at controlling what's going on in your body, and the insula is one of the pathways that does that."

Finally, people in hypnosis also have reduced connections between the task-oriented dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the brain's default mode network, a region most active when a person is daydreaming rather than focusing on the outside world.

This decrease in connectivity likely represents a disconnect between someone's actions and their awareness of their actions, Spiegel said. Such a disassociation allows the hypnotic subject to engage in activities suggested by a hypnotist without becoming self-conscious of the activity.

Taken together, these brain changes match well-known outward effects caused by hypnosis, Spiegel said.

A hypnotized person is intensely focused but not worried about what they're doing. They are not worried about evaluating instructions, but are simply following those instructions, and they have a more direct connection between their minds and the physical function of their bodies, he noted.

"This is the first time that we've shown what's going on in the brain when a person is hypnotized," Spiegel said. "This is a natural and normal brain function. It's a technique that has evolved to enable us to do the routine things routinely, and deeply engage in the things that matter to us."

Based on this knowledge, doctors might be able to enhance hypnotic response in ways that better help treat medical conditions, he said. Already, hypnosis has been proven to help people quit smoking or cope with pain and stress, the authors noted.

This study provides "important evidence" that could help convince skeptical patients of hypnosis' potential benefits, said Guy Montgomery, who specializes in integrative behavioral medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.

Dr. Alan Manevitz, a clinical psychiatrist with Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, agreed.

"Hypnosis has been around for a long time, but people have looked upon it as quackery," Manevitz said. "This demonstrates it's a legitimate neurobiological phenomenon, by revealing the brain activity that underlies the hypnotic state."

However, Montgomery added that it will take further research to make this specific knowledge directly useful in daily medicine.

"How would I use this information to enhance procedures for patients?" he said. "I don't really know."

The study appears July 28 in the journal Cerebral Cortex.

More information

For more on hypnosis, visit the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.

The Weird Way Harry Potter Could Affect Your Political Views

Come November, your fiction preferences might have a real-life impact on your choices at the polls. People who have read Harry Potter novels tend to have a lower opinion of Donald Trump, according to a new study-and the more books they've read in the series, the less favorably they view the Republican presidential nominee.

These findings held true regardless of a person's political party, gender, age, level of education, or religious beliefs, says study author Diana Mutz, professor of political science and communication at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication.

The massive popularity of the series, by British author J.K. Rowling, made such research possible; more than 450 million copies of the books have been sold worldwide, and Mutz found that both Republicans and Democrats were equally likely to have read them.

To gauge people's opinions of the controversial businessman-turned-politician, Mutz surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,142 Americans. (In addition to Trump and Harry Potter, she also asked them about hot-button election issues such as waterboarding, the death penalty, and the treatment of Muslims and gay people.)

She found that each book people had read in the fantasy series lowered their evaluations of Trump by about two to three points on a 100-point sale. “This may seem small,” Mutz acknowledged in a press release, “but for someone who has read all seven books, the total impact could lower their estimation of Trump by 18 points out of 100.”

To a lesser extent, Harry Potter readership was also associated with a more positive attitude toward Muslim and gay people, and a more negative one toward questions about the use of torture and killing terrorists.

Mutz believes that the books' message of tolerance and respect for each others' differences may play a key role in influencing readers' political views.

For example, she writes, Harry Potter advocates for oppressed house-elves and opposes the evil Lord Voldemort's quest for “blood purity” among wizards. Trump, on the other hand, has called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States, and made comments about minorities, including women, Mexicans, and disabled people.

The protagonists in Rowling's books are also reluctant to use violence to settle disputes, she writes, while Trump has supported waterboarding and bombing terrorists' families.

Finally, Mutz writes, “it may simply be too difficult for Harry Potter readers to ignore the similarities between Trump and the power-hungry Voldemort.”

The study will appear in a special election edition of the journal PS: Political Science and Politics. Mutz concludes-with obvious bias of her own-that she's not sure if Harry Potter can “defeat Donald Trump” in this year's election, but that her research raises hope that the values the book preaches could prevail.

“If half-bloods, werewolves and others should be treated with respect and fairness as the Potter stories teach,” she writes, “so too should all human beings.”

 

This article originally appeared on RealSimple.com.

7 Things to Know Before You Donate Blood

The summer's no vacation for blood banks, and this one has been especially hard: Just after the fourth of July, the American Red Cross issued an emergency call for blood and platelet donations. This time of year, “blood donors are typically out of town and unable to give," explains Justin Kreuter, MD, medical director of the Mayo Clinic Blood Donor Center in Rochester, Minnesota; or they may not be eligible to donate after traveling to certain areas outside the United States. “It really hits us in the summer months,” Dr. Kreuter says. Your community needs your help now; here's what you should know about pitching in.

Eligibility is always changing, and Zika's a concern this year

The Red Cross maintains an alphabetical list of eligibility criteria for potential donors-from acupuncture (thumbs up) to Zika (thumbs down)-and can give you the latest information on whether or not you're good to give. There have been no reported cases of Zika transmission via blood transfusion so far, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but there's a strong possibility that the virus can be transmitted that way. “What we're doing now, per the FDA, is deferring [donors who may have been exposed to Zika] for 28 days, which is twice the known period of infectivity,” Dr. Kreuter says. Because Zika can be transmitted by sexual contact (via semen) as well, women with male partners who have visited Zika-affected areas are deferred for three additional months.

RELATED: 4 Unexpected Benefits of Donating Blood

The FDA regulates donor blood just as aggressively as it regulates drugs

“It takes a lot of money to do the infectious-disease testing that we do [on donor blood], and when we create blood products out of the donation, that's done to the same standards as any drug manufactured in this country. The FDA holds us to those same standards, so it's a very high level of quality and also resources that are invested,” Dr. Kreuter explains. “These tests and high standards are what's keeping the blood supply safe, so that if my wife or one of my daughters needs a blood transfusion, I can feel assured that I can just sit at their bedside and hold their hand rather than worry about what that might result [in] for them later down the road.”  

You'll get a mini-physical before you donate

The flip side of donor blood screening (which ensures that it's safe for the eventual recipient) is confirming the donor's health (which ensures that the blood draw won't have a negative effect on them). “We check blood pressure and pulse, we do a pinprick to check red blood cells to make sure they're safe-we don't want to make our donors iron deficient,” Dr. Kreuter says. He makes no specific suggestions about what you eat and drink prior to donation; just be sure you have breakfast and lunch under your belt, and take it easy on caffeine. “We all live on our daily espressos and whatnot, but we see donors who show up and haven't eaten [meals] and they've only been drinking coffee, and they're quite dehydrated. When you donate you're losing circulating fluid, so the water that you drink before and after your donation is important.”

RELATED: 15 Signs You May Have an Iron Deficiency

You'll hardly feel a thing-seriously

The needles used to collect blood are a bit larger than those you'd encounter when, say, receiving a flu shot, but the so-called 'small pinch' you feel at insertion is, truly, no big deal. “What we feel [at the start of a blood draw] is just on the surface of our skin. These needles have silicone on them, they're made to glide and be quite comfortable. After that initial stick, you're not going to feel anything,” Dr. Kreuter says. If needles give you the shivers, look away for the quarter-second in which yours is placed; then ask a staffer to cover up the insertion site for you. Since the "tough" part is already over, you can lie back and spend the next eight to 10 minutes zoning out.

It's okay to have a cookie after you donate

“What's healthy is to keep a balanced diet as you go forward in the day [after your donation],” Dr. Kreuter says. “We tend to stock our canteen area with things like water and juice and then salty snacks, because salt helps you retain a little more of the [water] volume that you've lost through donation. The cookies are there because [they're] something the donor culture has grown up in-maybe not the healthiest option, but certainly an expectation. Believe it or not, I have meetings about cookies. I've seen shirts before that say 'I donate for the cookies.'” Bottom line: Rewarding yourself with a treat isn't going to do any harm, provided that you indulge in moderation.

Your blood could save patients who haven't even entered the world yet

Though many of us are reminded of the importance of blood donation when tragedies happen, much of what we give does the quiet work of saving people who'll never show up on the news. Since the need for blood doesn't go away, the best way to save lives is to contribute regularly. “At Mayo, about 15% to 20% of our blood is going to trauma patients and being used in our ER; a lot of our blood gets used supporting patients through life-saving cardiac or cancer surgeries. Cancer patients [also need blood]-chemotherapy knocks down their ability to make their own red blood cells and platelets-and folks who have medical conditions like autoimmune diseases also need transfusions.”

Donations flow to delivery rooms, too: “If anemia is significant enough in utero we transfuse during pregnancy and sometimes immediately after delivery,” Dr. Kreuter explains. “A lot of kids need blood in the first couple of minutes of life. Sometimes with newborn babies an emergency platelet transfusion in the first few moments of life is absolutely necessary; in their situation the newborn brain is so delicate and fragile that having these platelets immediately available is the name of the game in order to prevent bleeding into their brains, which results in long-term disabilities.”

Note that platelets have a shelf life of just five days, while whole blood can be stored for up to six weeks. The immediate need for platelets-and platelet donors-is constant.

RELATED: 6 Iron-Rich Food Combos-No Meat Required

Donating your voice is vital, too

Those "Be nice to me, I gave blood today!" stickers aren't merely a cute (and justified) humblebrag: They're also a benevolent form of peer pressure, not unlike the "I voted" stickers we earn and wear on election days. “Hearing about blood donation from a friend or colleague is very motivating in getting [potential first-timers] to think about taking that next step,” Dr. Kreuter says. “Our donor population [in Rochester] has an older average age, and we're trying to reach out to the younger generation to start having the same blood donation habits.”

Think about it this way: Taking your kids to see you strengthen your community's heartbeat at a blood center is just as important as bringing them with you to the voting booth. Donate visibly, donate vocally, and donate as often as you can.

5 Ways to Make Yourself a Morning Person

Do you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning? While it might be tough to leave the comforts of sleep, you're not alone-60% of Americans say that they wake up feeling groggy at least a few times per week, according to a Sleep in America poll conducted by the National Sleep Foundation. If you're one of those people, watch this video for some ways that you can trick yourself into being a morning person, so you'll wake up with more energy every day.