How to be a good flirt, according to science

By William Park, BBC 

Some people seem to be naturally gifted flirters, while many say it's a skill that holds them back. What sets the good and bad flirters apart and can you learn to be better at it?

In a crowded bar on a busy Friday night, one customer sits alone, waiting for their friend. The bartender, noticing the lonely patron, starts making small talk, asking about their day and making them feel welcome. Soon, the pair are hitting it off, the minutes fly by and the friend's tardy timekeeping is forgotten.

The bartender is charming, and the flirtatious conversation from this chance encounter puts the customer at ease. The customer is enjoying the attention – and why not?

"When someone flirts with you, you feel valued, and your perception of your desirability increases," says Gurit Birnbaum, a professor of psychology at Reichman University in Israel. In other words, being flirted with feels good. But can it also be good for you?

In the bar scenario, our bartender is unaware that the customer is in a relationship already. (Birnbaum points out that even if someone is in a relationship, flirting with others is to be expected. "With time, people tend to fantasise about other people. That's normal – it means nothing bad about the relationship.")

Yet there is something stranger about this blossoming interaction at a bar. While it might be the sort of interaction that could be taking place right now somewhere in the world, on this occasion, the bartender is computer generated and the whole interaction is taking place in virtual reality. It is occurring in a world dreamed up by Birnbaum.

Reflecting on the idea that people start to fantasise about others when in long term relationships, Birnbaum wondered whether fantasies could be used to help us regulate our more destructive desires. Would flirting with a virtual bartender make someone in a committed relationship more or less likely to flirt with someone in real life, she wondered? 

"I thought that this secure space [virtual reality] may help people control their desires, and help them maintain their current relationships," she says. "I can think about whatever I want, and then I'm done with it. And I don't have to act on those fantasies."

The virtual bartender looks a little uncanny – their movements are stiff and face a bit spooky. ("Virtual reality is much more immersive than what you can see in the video – so don't be disappointed," warns Birnbaum when sending me a screen recording.) They certainly couldn't be mistaken for a real person. But the speech is realistic, and in a five-minute interaction the conversation flows quite authentically.

After removing their headsets, people taking part in Birnbaum's experiment were then presented either with a conventionally attractive interviewer or an attractive stranger, who was actually a researcher posing as someone in need of help. The subjects who had flirted with the virtual bartender said they found the interviewer less attractive and spent less time helping the stranger than those who had a non-flirtatious conversation. It's as though, says Birnbaum, flirting at the virtual bar had inoculated them against a real-life temptation. Subjects also said they desired their real partner more after the flirtatious interaction at the bar.

Flirting with strangers while in a relationship could strengthen the bond between partners, suggests Birnbaum, but warns that this could be a slippery slope. Having a strong understanding of your own and your partner's flirting boundaries is essential, she says. The factors that might tip someone from harmless flirting into cheating can be subtle. "When people are exposed to norms of infidelity, for example if you know that your peers cheat on their partners, you are more likely to do so yourself," she says. This is called "contagious infidelity".

Birnbaum adds that there is a "constellation of personality traits" that make some people more resilient or more prone to infidelity. For example, more narcissistic people or people with attachment insecurities, are more likely to cheat than others. "We have to take into account so many factors in order to predict which seductive experiences would lead to infidelity," says Birnbaum.

While careful flirting might be good, many people consider themselves bad at it. In a poll of almost 7,000 male Reddit users, having poor flirting skills was the fifth most common reason (out of 43) men gave for being single.

Fortunately for those people, it might be possible to learn to be a better flirt. After three hours of flirt training, which involved learning techniques to appear more confident when speaking, a group of adult participants scored higher in flirting ability as well as in extraversion. 

Other flirting skills can be learnt, too. Expansive body posture – such as taking a wider stance, facing your interlocutor directly, and raising your head – increases romantic desirability for both men and women, perhaps because we associate taking up space with dominance and being expansive with openness. The effect is true in both a real-life speed dating scenario and online dating profiles. Considering that a brief encounter or a swipe of a photograph can make or break someone's chance of flirting successfully, maximising space might increase the chances of romantic success. 

Space maximisation is not something we are necessarily always conscious of doing, says T Joel Wade, a professor of psychology at Bucknell University in the US. "It's not like, oh, there's someone beautiful, let me spread out. It's just a natural behaviour." This nonverbal display of dominance can take the form of spreading out one's body or spreading one's possessions around to show comfort and belonging in a space, he explains.

In a poll of almost 7,000 male Reddit users, having poor flirting skills was the fifth most common reason (out of 43) men gave for being single.

While flirting can generally be an overt act, it can also be covert – actions that you might not necessarily think are flirting at all, explains Maryanne Fisher, a professor of psychology at St Mary's University in Canada. People mostly flirt with nonverbal signals, such as stroking their hair. Such behaviour is called "self-grooming", she says. "It's the idea of making myself more appealing for you." 

Differences in flirting techniques are true irrespective of sexual orientation. For example, men, people who described their identity as "masculine", and people who adhere to "masculine" gender roles are more likely to flirt overtly through the things they say and do regardless of who they are attracted to. Whereas, women, "feminine" identifying people and people who describe their gender role ideology as "feminine" are more likely to flirt covertly and nonverbally. 

If sexual orientation does not predict flirting styles, existing research, which has largely focused on normative sex roles and gender, may be "adequate to capture experiences of flirtatious behaviour among sexual minority individuals", write Jenn Clark, from the University of British Columbia in Canada, Flora Oswald from Pennsylvania State University in the US and Cory L Pedersen from Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Canada.

Other covert examples of flirting are "tie signs", which can be anything from initiating eye contact, hugging, giggling at jokes, to something that's more germ-related, like sharing food – which we don't typically do with a stranger.

In a non-flirting context, taking a partner's last name in marriage or wearing a wedding ring would be symbols of being tied to someone else. "Tie signs are often performed in a partner's absence to signal that you're taken," says Fisher. They can also be used to signal that someone else is not available. "If you want to signal that your partner is taken, the easiest way to do that is to perform an action. It is easier to put an arm around them than to tell someone else to back off," says Fisher.

But if flirtatious tie-signs are rebuffed, or if they're not very warmly received, these are signals that will tell potential mate poachers about the level of commitment in their romantic interest's existing relationship, and whether they have a chance. And of course, not demonstrating exclusive interest is among the most off-putting flirting behaviours, perhaps because we like to have the undivided attention of our dates. 

Subtle examples of flirting can be useful, adds Wade, because the flirter can also quickly shut down an interaction if they need to while having plausible deniability that there ever was romantic interest in the first place.

Generally, men overestimate romantic interest, perhaps mis-perceiving friendliness for attraction, and women underestimate it, which might be where the idea of the "friend zone" comes from. "The so-called false positive rate is so much different for heterosexual men than for heterosexual women," says Fisher. "Smiling, at least in Canadian culture, is a default, right? It's a way to deescalate situations, increase your perception of friendliness. But straight men see women smiling and they think, 'Oh, she's interested in me'."

Some businesses have taken advantage of the over-perception of flirting, says Fisher, by using women in frontof-house roles such as greeters at restaurants. "There have been court cases in the United States where women are saying they're being hit on because they're being told to smile and engage in this forced interaction that is being perceived in a sexual way," she says. And it is disproportionately women who are affected. 

So, it's worth asking: Was the virtual bartender really interested in the solo customer, or were they just being a good bartender?

(Adapted from https://www.bbc.com/news)

In our modern world, there are many factors that place the wellbeing of the planet in jeopardy. While some people have the opinion that environmental problems are just a natural occurrence, others believe that human beings have a huge impaction the environment. Regardless of your viewpoint, take into consideration the following factors that place our environment as well as the planet Earth in danger.

Global warming or climate change is a major contributing factor to environmental damage. Because of global warming, we have seen an increase in melting ice caps, a rise in sea levels, and the formation of new weather patterns. These weather patterns have caused stronger storms, droughts, and flooding in places that they formerly did not occur.

Air pollution is primarily caused as a result of excessive and unregulated emissions of carbon dioxide into the air. Pollutants mostly emerge ____________the burning_________fossil fuels______  addition __________ chemicals, toxic substances, and improper waste disposal. Air pollutants are absorbed into the atmosphere, and they can cause smog, a combination of smoke and fog, in valleys as well as produce acidic precipitation in areas far away from the pollution source.

In many areas, people and local governments do not sustainably use their natural resources. Mining for natural gases, deforestation, and even improper use of water resources can have tremendous effects on the environment. While these strategies often attempt to boost local economies, their effects can lead to oil spills, interrupted animal habitats, and droughts.

Ultimately, the effects of the modern world on the environment can lead to many problems. Human beings need to consider the repercussions of their actions, trying to reduce, reuse, and recycle materials while establishing environmentally sustainable habits. If measures are not taken to protect the environment, we can potentially witness the extinction of more endangered species, worldwide pollution, and a completely uninhabitable planet.

source: lingua.com

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Text I

More More More: What Is Money Dysmorphia?  

     Do you ever worry that you don't have enough money, even though your bank account suggests you're doing fine? You might be experiencing "money dysmorphia.” This is a term for when a person has a distorted view of their financial situation — particularly when a wealthy person believes they don't have enough money to be secure. The idea is similar to body dysmorphia, where a person agonizes about flaws they perceive in their body, even if they are not noticeable to others.

    American lawyer and financial expert Ali Katz may have been the first to use the term, having written about money dysmorphia extensively in 2016. But it wasn't until late 2023 that it started trending. Because, as it turns out, the feeling can be pretty common — especially among young people.

     In August 2023, Bloomberg published the results of a survey of over 1,000 Americans making over $175,000 a year. And while earning this much would put these people among the 10% richest in the country, a quarter of them said they felt "very poor," "poor,” or that they were just managing to get by.

   In addition, a December 2023 survey for Intuit Credit Karma found that, out of 1,006 Americans, 29% experienced money dysmorphia — which the survey defined as "having a distorted view of one's finances that could lead them to make poor decisions.” That figure rose to 41% among millennials, who are usually defined as those born between 1981 and 1996. And it was 43% among Generation Z, typically considered to have been born between 1997 and 2012.

  Some believe social media is to blame. With Instagram and TikTok full of influencers flaunting lavish lifestyles, it's understandable that young people might feel insecure about their own financial situations. And as well as causing stress, money dysmorphia might make people stay in jobs they don't like, or choose work over spending time with their families.

  Speaking to Business Insider, Katz said it's important to actually calculate how much is enough for you — and "know the difference between what you need and what you want."

Adapted from: https://engoo.com.br/app/dailynews/article/more-more-more-what-is-moneydysmorphia/eMBHgsr7Ee6RxDeDj30Epw  

Attention: the question is related to Text 01 below.

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TEXT 1

English Language Teaching in Brazil:

A Gap in Policy, Problems in Practice

    Only three percent of Brazilians are estimated to speak English despite the status of this language as a mandatory subject in grades 10 to 12 of basic education and preferred foreign language in grades 5 to 9. The widespread concept in the Brazilian society that speaking English is beneficial to individuals because it provides access to the globalised world does not seem to be enough to promote the actual learning of the language by the majority of the population, and it is argued here that this fact has to do with a gap in the foreign language teaching policy documents: the 2015 National Education Guidelines and Framework Law (LDB 2015), the Brazilian National Curriculum Parameters for Primary Education (PCN-EF), and the Brazilian National Curriculum Parameters for Secondary Education (PCN-EM). These documents do not prescribe the necessary conditions for English Language Teaching (ELT) to take place effectively, but, instead, provide suggestions for teachers on how to adapt to the status quo, which means focusing on reading to the detriment of the other aspects of the English language due to a number of factors ranging from a lack of resources to a large number of students per class.

    Both PCN-EF (Brazil, 1998) and PCN-EM (Brazil, 2000) present progressive ideas about how a foreign language should be taught in the basic education classroom. Such ideas include a social interactionist view of language, which aligns with contemporary research in second language teaching and means a shift from the traditional grammar-translation method largely employed in Brazilian schools in previous decades. The Parameters also recommend interdisciplinary work, the implementation of cross-curricular themes, formative assessment in addition to summative, a value of students’ prior knowledge and position as critical subjects, and, thus, an approach to teaching as negotiation that aims to educate students for the full exercise of citizenship, which includes the notions of respect for difference and diversity  that can be promoted by the teaching and learning of foreign languages.

    However, the Parameters fail in pointing out the necessary conditions for this teaching and learning process to occur. For example, they acknowledge that reading and writing should be focused on to the detriment of listening and speaking due to the difficulties faced by the teacher in basic education (Brazil, 1998): large classrooms, lack of appropriate resources including class and preparation time for the teacher and opportunities for the students to be exposed to the language outside the classroom, and, in many situations, teachers’ lack of knowledge of the subject matter. Instead, what they should do is to actively propose that a smaller number of students sit in English classes – as it was allowed by LDB 1996 and continues to be so by LDB 2015, that more class and preparation time be granted the teacher, that schools have English resources that students can access to familiarise themselves with the language, and that better teacher education be implemented.

BATISTA, Fernanda. English Language Teaching in Brazil: A Gap in Policy, Problems in Practice. 2020. Disponível em: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1262339.pdf. Acesso em 30/12/2023 Adaptado.