Reducing Uncertainty

But creditors seek female customers for a more pragmatic reason: they are more likely than men to repay their loans. Micro-credit groups are not alone in marketing their services to women. Rotating Savings and Credit Associations, or ROSCAs, are groups in which members make regular contributions to a fund that is then distributed among the participants, overwhelmingly consisting of women. In Kenya, for example, public goods such as schools are often provided by women through harambee, the Swahili expression for let's pull together. When thinking about diversity, we must understand why, sometimes, people are drawn to homogeneity. Why do women-only groups appear to be particularly adept at loan repayment, cooperation, and contributions to public goods? Seeking answers, Fiona Greig traveled to a slum in Nairobi, Kenya, and ran a number of experiments. The female slum dwellers were indeed more likely to cooperate with other women than with men because they expected women to be more cooperative. It turned out that they were too pessimistic about their male counterparts, who the experiment showed would have been more cooperative if given the chance. But expectations became self-fulfilling prophecies: women were more likely to trust other women, and were rewarded in return for such cooperation. It's not just about the words, but the way the words flow from you. You can read people's voices and get more meaning from them than what they're saying. The timing of their speech, pacing, volume, inflection, and tone can say a lot about what the other person is feeling. Reading Body Language When you're chatting with someone or addressing a group, here are things to look out for to let you know that the other party is at ease and interested in the conversation: Eye contact is key. Too much can be bad as too little. You want just enough eye contact. If they engage with you visually for many seconds each time, then you have an interested audience. When someone is lying to you, they will often avoid holding your gaze.

I have no trouble saying to the patient, Wouldn't that be great? This is a way of expressing my understanding of his wishes and simultaneously saying that it is perhaps a dream that cannot be fulfilled. We always share the hopes of our dying patients if we genuinely feel this way. If a young mother who is dying says, I hope this research laboratory works hard so I get one of their miracle drugs and I will get cured, I know that the chances for this to become a reality are extremely slim, but I have no trouble sharing her hopes with her because I, too, would like her to respond to a new drug and be able to get home to her children. Would you comment on the dimensions of hope from a patient's point of view which may be different from the hope as perceived by the health team. There are two basic types of hope and they should be differentiated. At the beginning of a terminal illness, hope is almost exclusively associated with cure, treatment, and prolongation of life. This is true for the patient, the family, and the staff. When these three are no longer probable--and I'm not saying possible because there are always exceptions--then the hope of the terminally ill patient changes to something that is no longer associated with cure, treatment, or prolongation of life. His hopes then are more short term or have something to do with life after death or the people he is leaving behind. What works in a Nairobi slum also works on an American game show. Friend or Foe, a variant of the classic prisoner's dilemma studied extensively by game theorists and behavioral scientists, started airing in the United States in 2002. Two players have to simultaneously decide whether to play Friend or whether to play Foe. If both of them play Friend, they share a pot of money. If both play Foe, they both get nothing. And if one plays Friend and the other plays Foe, the Foe player gets the whole pot of money and the Friend player gets nothing. Thus, people are motivated to play Foe to maximize their earnings, but must fear that the other person will do the same, leaving both empty handed. But cooperation is risky, of course. If you choose Friend and your counterpart chooses Foe, you will have been played for a sucker. The stakes varied between $200 and $16,400, and across 315 games, 630 contestants made over $700,000.

However, if someone makes a habit of lying, they will deliberately hold your gaze for longer to fix that problem. So, if you notice that someone is holding your gaze too long and too intensely, then they're probably not being honest. Another thing about prolonged eye contact is that it could be threatening, so remember that. Body posture will let you know if they're interested or not. When they stand or sit in an erect position, and they take up a lot of physical space with their body, it means authority and power. It means they're very vested in the conversation. When speaking with someone, if you notice they've crossed their legs or their arms, they might not actually be interested in what you have to say. Be mindful of context, though. Maybe it's cold, so they've crossed their arms. Maybe they always look like they stepped out of a GQ magazine and naturally cross their legs like they're posing for a photo. For example, a young mother who was dying changed her hope shortly before her death with the statement, I hope my children can make it. Another woman, who was religious, said to me, I hope God will accept me in His garden. It is imperative that we listen to the patient and strengthen his hopes and do not project our own, otherwise we cannot really help our patients. What happens when a patient never apparently experiences any stage of anger, never asks why? Would faith be a reason for this? Yes, a patient with great faith may not question why this is happening to him. If the patient has reached a genuine stage of acceptance before he is terminally ill, he never goes through the stage of anger. What do you think of saying to a dying patient, Maybe this is the Lord's will? I don't like this answer. It is often used as an easy way out and not very helpful, often only resulting in more anger directed at clergy and God.

About half of the participants typically played Friend. Specifically, they cooperated if they had reason to believe that their counterpart would cooperate as well. But how could they know? What clues did they look for? Contestants met briefly, and they had to answer trivia questions together, but otherwise they knew very little about each other. They could, however, watch earlier episodes and learn what typical cooperators looked like. What they would have learned is that they were more likely to be female. Accordingly, pairs of women were most likely to expect each other to cooperate, and many fulfilled these expectations. What works like a charm in this version of a prisoner's dilemma is not necessarily helpful in other contexts. In their review of the experimental evidence on the role of gender and cooperativeness, Rachel Croson and Uri Gneezy stress that the results seem to depend on social cues about appropriate behavior that women in particular take from their environments. Genuine smiles are a plus. It's easy to fake a smile, so it seems like all is well, but you can tell when they're forcing it. With a real smile, the eyes crinkle at the corner, showing a pattern that looks like a crow's feet (it's literally called crow's feet). This is how you know they do love talking with you. The firmness of a handshake lets you know if this person wants to engage. If it's a firm grip, they're confident and poised. If it's weak, they may be nervous, or they may be secretly contemptuous, or uninterested. Remember that a very firm handshake could be a subtle sign of aggression. Physical closeness will let you know how comfortable the other person is with you around. If they stand or sit close, then you know they're okay with being there.

Do people who do not have a concept of immortality have a harder time working through the different stages? Not necessarily. It does not matter whether your religious belief includes a specific belief in immortality. It is more relevant that whatever you are, whatever religious beliefs you have, you are genuine and authentic. We have seen very few people who do not believe in some form of immortality. For some, it is the work they have left behind. Others continue to live through their children, while still others believe in a resurrection or in an actual life after death. Have you dealt with an atheist and how did he or she accept death? We have worked with only four genuine, true atheists and they have died with amazing peace and acceptance, no different from a religious person. How does one deal with the dying patient who has no religious faith or denies having any? Such cues help them form expectations. But, of course, sometimes expectations clash. Consider the following. Imagine that you and I are negotiating over who gets what amount of a fixed sum of money. Because I am a woman, you might expect more from me--and because you are a woman, I might expect more from you. If those expectations go unmet, we could be at an impasse. This is the exact pattern found in an experiment where one of two players, the proposer, was given a pot of money and had to decide how much of it to offer to a second person, the responder. In the traditional version of this game, the ultimatum game, the responder then decides whether or not to accept the offer. If he or she accepts, the deal stays as proposed. If he or she rejects, neither of the two players gets anything.