Introducing Our New Communication Jobs Board

January 30, 2012 coms 0

The job market sucks. But it’s looking up here at CommunicationStudies.com. In an effort to continue being the best online resource for those in the field of communication studies — or just those interested in learning about communication — we have just launched a job listings board to keep our fellow communication scholars, new graduates and professionals employed and living large.

Male Sex Drive: The Root of World Conflicts [Study]

January 28, 2012 coms 0

It may be that evolution has molded men to respond with aggression towards anyone they perceive to be an outsider, according to a new study published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Lead researcher Mark van Vugt conducted a review of prior studies in an attempt to support or discredit what has been called the “male warrior hypothesis.”

Powerful People Are Shorter Than They Think [Study]

January 27, 2012 coms 0

You often hear about “the little people,” even when actual height is not discussed. Often times, it is people who converse with upcoming celebrities, telling them not to forget “the little people.” A research study from the authors of a new paper published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, found that there is some psychological truth to these kinds of statements.

Child Raised ‘Gender Neutral’ to Avoid Stereotyping

January 27, 2012 coms 0

A British couple who kept their child’s gender a secret for five years have revealed that the child is male. Beck Laxton and Kieran Cooper say that they kept their son’s sex under wraps because they wanted him to grow up free from society’s preconceived ideas about what constitutes gender-appropriate behavior.

Job Dissatisfaction Stems From Unmet Employee Needs [Study]

January 26, 2012 coms 0

A new study has linked employee satisfaction to both management style and corporate attitudes towards employees. In an article published in Springer’s Journal of Business and Psychology, researchers from the Universite Francois Rabelais in Tours, France, revealed new evidence that meeting employees’ basic needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness leads to improved job satisfaction.

Women and math stereotypes

Stereotype Busted! Women Are Not Worse At Math Than Men [Study]

January 25, 2012 coms 0

“Math is hard!” cries Teen Talk Barbie. Those words made Matel revamp the doll so that she did not say she found math hard after protesters insisted that it was degrading to women. It turns out that they were right according to a study researched at the University of Missouri.

The Technology of Storytelling [Video]

January 23, 2012 coms 0

“The art of storytelling has remained unchanged and for the most part stories are recycled, but the way that humans tell the stories has always evolved with pure consistent novelty,” says iPad storyteller Joe Sabia. From cave walls to books, opera to vaudeville, radio to radio theater, silent films and now 3D movies, we are constantly embracing new technologies that help enhance our stories.

The Wingman Theory: Most Lie to Help Friends Save Face [Study]

January 23, 2012 coms 0

A new study conducted by researchers from the Alberta School of Business in cooperation with the University of Calgary suggests that, in many cases, people are willing to lie in order to help a close friend avoid embarrassment in a social situation. According to Jennifer Argo, most people will step in to help preserve or even enhance a friend’s social image or to save a friend from social embarrassment.

Social Media After Death [Video]

January 22, 2012 coms 0

With over 48 hours of video being uploaded to YouTube every minute, 200 million Tweets posted daily, and an average of 90 pieces of content per user posted to Facebook every day, we are uploading our personalities, our thoughts, and our ideas onto the web, but what happens to these online personas after we die?

Ambiguity Makes Language More Efficient, Say Scientists

January 20, 2012 coms 0

A new study by MIT cognitive scientists argues that ambiguity may be the most efficient way to communicate after all. Instead of speakers having to invent new sounds for single-use words or memorize a large vocabulary, they can simply reuse small words that listeners can easily disambiguate through social or verbal cues.