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In this column last issue, I made reference to the ‘barking dog' scenario, when an individual really doesn't want to fight but has a need to bolster their ego through barking challenges and insults at any potential threat, just like a dog. In terms of threat-response options, this is classic ‘posturing' - a performance to deter a threat.
The challenge with the posturing option (as opposed to the other four: escape, comply, defuse or fight) is that it is difficult to pull off convincingly. That's usually because to convince your perceived antagonist that you're a real threat, you must be ready and able to fight if posturing fails.
People who are skilled at reading others will sense the difference between the posturing of someone who really doesn't want to fight and someone who does. It tends to be that the former doesn't want to fight because they are scared, lacking confidence and probably also lacking ability, as opposed to someone who can fight but doesn't want to because they find it an inconvenience.
The signs as to which type of aggressor you're dealing with lie in their body language, the tempo of their movements, the words spoken in threat, as well as the pitch and tempo of their voice. Interestingly, there is now increasing scientific evidence that we humans can also ‘smell' fear. Research has already established that when threatened, many animals release chemicals as a warning signal to members of their own species, who in turn react to the signals and take action. Research by Rice University psychologist Denise Chen now suggests a similar phenomenon occurs in humans (check out their report in Science Daily - March 2009, called ‘Humans Can Sense Smell Of Fear In Sweat'; available online at www.sciencedaily.com).
Chen's experiment involved collecting sweat from individuals who had been placed in a controlled but stressful situation. Other volunteers were then shown images of faces in various emotional states, with some also inhaling the sweat previously collected in gauze pads. Chen discovered that when the emotional state of the person in the image was ambiguous, those who inhaled the scent of the fear-induced sweat had a greater tendency to interpret that emotional state as being one of fear, whereas those who saw the same images unaccompanied by the scent did not.
Chen's conclusion is consistent with what's been found by processing emotions in both the face and the voice. There, an emotion from one sense affects how the same emotion is perceived by another sense, especially when the signal to that second sense is unclear.
"Our findings provide direct behavioural evidence that human sweat contains emotional meanings," Chen said. "They also demonstrate that social smells modulate vision in an emotion-specific way."
Smell is a prevalent form of social communication in many animals, but its function in humans is not widely understood. Humans have highly developed sight and hearing, but we still need our sense of smell because, as Chen found, "The sense of smell guides our social perception when the more-dominant senses are weak."
Similar research was done by neuroscientists at Stony Brook University in New York, who collected sweat from the armpits of first-time tandem skydivers as they hurtled towards the earth. The smell of their sweat was wafted under the noses of volunteers as they lay in a functional-MRI scanner. Even though they had no idea what they were inhaling, two separate sets of volunteers showed activation of the amygdala - the area of the brain responsible for processing emotions - plus brain regions involved in vision, motor control and goal-directed behaviour. Sweat produced under relaxed conditions didn't produce this reaction.
So it can be any of the visual, auditory, kinaesthetic and now olfactory (smell) clues that give away that your posturing is driven by fear (that's why it's easier these days to issue challenges over the internet, behind the safety and anonymity of a keyboard). In a real confrontation, it's more than just your actions - or rather, your ability to act - that will determine your opponent's reaction to your posturing. So be sure you're ready and able to deal with the possible physical consequences before you take the option of dancing like an angry alpha monkey in the face of an aggressor.
Graham Kuerschner is a 45-year veteran of the martial arts and can be contacted through his website at www.sdtactics.com.au
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