Whether it's being dumped by your boyfriend or girlfriend or getting passed over for a job, everyone knows what it feels like to be rejected by someone or something. It's a basic fact of life we experience in our careers, our relationships, and our social circles.

Humans evolved to experience rejection in our hunter-gatherer days, when being cast out from your social group could be fatal, scientists say.

But why does rejection hurt so much?

It comes down to the way our brains are wired, writes psychologist Guy Winch.

Rejection hurts

Rejection activates the same parts of the brain as physical pain, research suggests.

In one recent study, researchers recruited 40 people who had recently gone through an unwanted breakup and put them in an MRI brain scanner. When they showed people photos of their exes and told them to think about being rejected, the participants' brains lit up in the secondary somatosensory cortex and dorsal posterior insula — the same regions that are activated by sensory pain.

"These results give new meaning to the idea that rejection 'hurts,'" the researchers wrote in the study, which was published in 2011 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

One explanation for the findings is that the rejection of a lost love was a more intense type of rejection than has been measured in other studies. According to the researchers, the intensity of rejection might have caused it to spill over from emotional pain to physical pain.

Some research suggests that rejection can be treated the same way as physical pain. One 2010 study found that the painkiller Tylenol (acetaminophen) reduced painful feelings.

Study participants took either Tylenol or a placebo every day for three weeks. When the researchers scanned their brains, they found that the people who took the painkiller showed decreased brain activity in areas linked to both social and physical pain.

But self-medicating probably isn't the best way to go.

Dealing with rejection

There are whole books written about how to deal with rejection, but there are a few strategies that experts recommend:

First of all, know your chances of being successful. If you apply to a very competitive job and don't get it, you shouldn't be discouraged.

Secondly, pursue several opportunities at once to decrease your chances of rejection. In the job example, apply to many jobs at once, or ask out many dates, and odds are, one of them will pan out.

Finally, don't take it personally — rejection is not always a reflection of you, but of the circumstances and many other factors.

But rejection isn't always a bad thing. A study by a business professor at Johns Hopkins University found that social rejection can inspire creative thinking, by making us feel we stand out from others.

That probably doesn't make it any easier, though!

NEXT UP: Surprising science-backed ways to boost your mood

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For anyone hoping to find a serious relationship using Tinder, there's a robot that can "read your feelings" and match you with the best possible Tinder mates. Created by an NYU student, the "True Love Tinder Robot" swipes right or left for you depending on how sweaty your palms get upon seeing a potential match. The future of Tinder dating is here.

Produced by Will Wei. Video courtesy of Nicole He.

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Dating expert Andrea Syrtash, author of "He's Just Not Your Type (And That's a Good Thing): How to Find Love Where You Least Expect It," explains how to recover from your breakup. It might be a good thing.

Produced by Kevin Reilly

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Most of the time, you get a gut feeling right before the demise of a relationship.

But sometimes, breakups come out of the blue, or at least faster than expected.

There's no sure way to ever know if your relationship will last, but researchers at USC have created a computer algorithm that can analyze certain aspects of what a couple says and does and determine the healthiness of a relationship. Shrikanth Narayanan, one of the lead researchers on the project, has also determined other factors he's found that can hint whether or not a relationship is doomed to fail.

Here's what he found:

Couples whose movements aren't in synch may be falling out of synch.

If you and your significant other have similar movements when you're together, that's a sign of a healthy relationship.

"A more positive interaction will show increased coordination (also often called behavior synchrony or entrainment) and vice versa," Narayanan, a USC professor of computer science, linguistics, and psychology, told Tech Insider.

"So a friendly interaction would show more coordination than one with conflict." 

How you and your partner move your heads while talking can speak to your relationship's healthiness.

Narayanan and his research team took their research into relationships and coordinated movements a step further when looking at head movement.

"How people move their heads together tells us something about the richness of their interactions," Narayanan explained in an interview with Tech Insider.

A study Narayanan was a co-author of found that"the more animated the couple, the more likely they are to exhibit similar motion events."

The study looked at how wives and husbands moved their heads when one was discussing an issue in therapy. 

The researchers assigned four codes that measured the emotional component of the relationship — acceptance, blame, positive, and negative. It found that similar head movements between couples were correlated with healthier relationship codes, like positive and acceptance.

Couples in positive relationships tend to speak similarly.

Turns out there's some merit to the idea that people who jive well together tend to speak similarly.

Couples exhibiting positive interactions tend to speak with the same intonation and rhythm, according to another USC study.

"When applied to married couple interactions, it was shown that interactions rated by experts to be more positive had greater similarity than ones rated to be negative," Narayanan, an author on the study, said.

One thing remarkably successful people (here's what they look like) have in common is the ability to persuade and convince other people.

I know, I know. The word persuasion conjures up images of manipulating, pressuring, cajoling, all the used-car salesman stereotypes.

But if you think of persuasion as effectively describing the benefits and logic of an idea to gain agreement, then everyone needs to be able to persuade — to convince others a proposal makes sense, to show stakeholders how a project or business will generate a return, to help employees understand the benefits of a new process, etc.

That's why the ability to persuade is critical in any business or career — and why successful people are extremely good at persuading others.

Here are some of the traits of exceptionally persuasive people:

1. They don't hesitate to take a bold stand.

You would assume data and reasoning always win the day, right?

Nope. Research shows humans prefer cockiness to expertise. We naturally assume confidence equates with skill. Even the most skeptical will at least be partly convinced by a confident speaker.

In fact, we prefer advice from a confident source even to the point that we will forgive a poor track record.

So be bold. Stop saying "I think" or "I believe." Stop adding qualifiers to your speech. If you think something will work, say it will work. If you believe something will work, say it will work.

Stand behind your opinions — even if they are just opinions — and let your enthusiasm show. You'll naturally win people over.

2. They modify how quickly they speak.

There's reason behind the fast-talking salesman stereotype: In certain situations, talking fast works.

Other times, not so much.

Here's what one study indicates:

• If your audience is likely to disagree, speak faster.
• If your audience is likely to agree, speak slower.

Why?

• When your audience is inclined to disagree with you, speaking faster gives them less time to form their own counterarguments and you have a better chance of convincing them.
• When your audience is inclined to agree with you, speaking slowly gives them time to evaluate your arguments and factor in a few of their own thoughts. The combination of your reasoning plus their initial bias means they are more likely to, at least in part, convince themselves.

In short: If you're preaching to the choir, speak slowly; if not, speak quickly.

And if your audience is neutral or apathetic, speak quickly so you'll be less likely to lose their attention.

3. They start by looking for small wins.

Research shows— yep, more research — that gaining agreement has an enduring effect, even if only over the short term. So instead of jumping right to the end of your argument, start with statements or premises you know your audience will agree with. Build a foundation for further agreement.

Remember, a body in motion tends to remain in motion, and that also applies to a head nodding in agreement.

4. They aren't afraid to (occasionally) swear.

Of course, swearing for no reason is just swearing. But say your team needs to pull together ... right freaking now. Tossing in an occasional — and heartfelt — curse word can actually help instill a sense of urgency, because it shows you care. (And, of course, it never hurts when a leader lets a little frustration or anger show, too.)

In short, be yourself. Authenticity is always more persuasive. And if you feel strongly enough to slip in a mild curse word, feel free. Research shows you're likely to be a little more persuasive.

5. They adapt to how their audience likes to process information.

A fellow supervisor used to frustrate the crap out of me. (See? That swearing thing works.) I was young and enthusiastic and would burst into his office with an awesome idea, lay out all my facts and figures, wait breathlessly for him to agree with me ... and he would disagree.

Every. Freaking. Time.

After a number of failed attempts, I finally realized he wasn't the problem. My approach was the problem. He needed time to think. He needed time to process. By demanding an immediate answer, I put him on the defensive. In the absence of time to reflect, he would fall back on the safe choice: sticking to the status quo.

So I tried a different approach. "Don," I said, "I have an idea that I think makes sense, but I feel sure there are things I'm missing. If I run it by you, could you think about it for a day or two and then tell me what you think?"

He loved that approach. One, it showed I valued his wisdom and experience. Two, it showed I didn't just want him to agree — I genuinely wanted his opinion. And most important, it gave him time to process my idea the way he felt most comfortable.

Always know your audience. Don't push for instant agreement if someone's personality style makes that unlikely. But don't ask for thought and reflection if your audience loves to make quick decisions and move on.

6. They don't just share positives; they share negatives, too.

According to University of Illinois professor Daniel O'Keefe, sharing an opposing viewpoint or two is more persuasive than sticking solely to your argument.

Why? Very few ideas or proposals are perfect. Your audience members know that; they know there are other perspectives and potential outcomes. So meet them head-on. Talk about the things they're already considering. Discuss potential negatives and show how you will mitigate or overcome those problems.

The people in your audience are more likely to be persuaded when they know you understand they could have misgivings. So talk about the other side of the argument — and then do your best to show why you're still right.

7. They consistently draw positive conclusions.

Which of the following statements is more persuasive?

• "Stop making so many mistakes." 
• "Be much more accurate."

Or of these two?

• "Stop feeling so lethargic." 
• "Feel a lot more energetic."

While it's tempting to use scare tactics, positive outcome statements tend to be more persuasive. (The researchers hypothesized that most people respond negatively to feeling bullied or guilted into changing a behavior.)

So if you're trying to produce change, focus on the positives of that change. Take your audience to a better place instead of telling your audience what to avoid.

8. They choose the right way to communicate.

Say you're a man hoping to persuade a man you don't know well, or even at all. What should you do?

If you have a choice, don't speak in person. Write an email first.

As a general rule, men tend to feel competitive in person and turn what should be a conversation into a contest we think we need to win. (Be honest; you know you do it sometimes.)

The opposite is true if you're a woman hoping to persuade other women. According to the researchers, women are "more focused on relationships," so in-person communication tends to be more effective.

But if you're a guy trying to persuade another guy you know well, definitely communicate in person. The closer your relationship, the more effective face-to-face communication tends to be.

9. And, most important, they make sure they're right.

Remarkably persuasive people understand how to frame and deliver their messages, but most important, they embrace the fact that the message is what matters.

Be clear, be concise, be to the point, and win the day because your data, reasoning, and conclusions are beyond reproach.

And always use your persuasion skills for good, not evil. Your ability to convince should just be the icing on an undeniably logical cake.

SEE ALSO: 11 things successful people tell themselves every day

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Everyone wants to be liked.

On Quora, there's a lengthy thread dedicated to sharing tips and tricks to win people over.

While reviewing the answers, we noticed a common theme: Focus less on yourself and more on your conversation partner.

Users recommend that you "create the space for others to feel heard and seen"; that you listen actively without trying to come up with the perfect response; and that you look to be impressed by others rather than trying to be impressive to them.

This advice, while not necessarily widely followed, is hardly new. In fact, Dale Carnegie wrote about similar strategies in his 1936 bestseller "How to Win Friends and Influence People."

One of Carnegie's secrets to making people like you is simply to listen and encourage other people to talk about themselves. Carnegie recalls speaking to a botanist at a party and being so curious about the man's profession that he had him talking about his work all night.

Before he left, the botanist told Carnegie that he was "most stimulating" and a "most interesting conversationalist"— even though Carnegie hadn't said more than a few words. Simply being allowed to talk about himself made the botanist feel fondly toward Carnegie.

Other tips in the book include talking in terms of the other person's interests and making the other person feel important.

Carnegie gives another example, of a bread salesman who was frustrated because he couldn't win the business of one particular hotel manager. Finally, the salesman found out about a society of hotel executives that the manager belonged to and started talking to him about that experience. Soon after, the manager reached out and made the salesman a deal.

More recently, scientists discovered that talking about yourself is inherently pleasurable; it stimulates the same reward centers in the brain that are lit up by sex, cocaine, and good food. So it makes sense that people would feel fondly toward someone who let them engage in such an enjoyable experience.

Writing on Psychology Today, psychologist Hendrie Weisinger suggests that we feel deeply connected to someone who "respects us enough to listen to our ideas."

Weisinger recommends responding to what people say instead of initiating a new topic, and showing that you understand by "paraphrasing or summarizing what you think the person is communicating."

Ultimately, these strategies should help remove some of the pressure during interactions with new people. Instead of thinking about what you should say and do to make a positive impression, you can focus instead on how the other person is feeling at the moment.

If they're in the spotlight and you're a receptive audience, chances are good they'll be happy with how the interaction is going.

SEE ALSO: Here's a simple trick to make people like you in 2 seconds

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When people compare themselves to their partners, they may think most highly of themselves.

Psychologists tested this assumption, and published the results earlier this year in the journal Personal Relationships.

In the first experiment, researchers asked participants to list 10 traits their partner exhibited more than them, and then rate how desirable they thought those traits were. The participants found their own traits more desirable than their partners'.

In the second and third experiments, participants rated how much they and their partner exhibited certain positive and negative traits. The results showed that people were more likely to associate positive traits with themselves than with their partners.

"Our studies found that, overall, people indeed rate their personality as better than that of their partner when forced to compare," the researchers concluded in the study. 

This could have profound effects on relationships, the researchers continued. "Even if self-enhancement only slightly dominates partner enhancement, this could result in feelings of entitlement that cause people to make selfish decisions within their relationship, particularly in situations in which choices for oneself versus one’s partner are at odds."

The researchers gave the example that one person could decide their partner should stay home with the kids while they go to a party — because they feel they deserve it more.

There were some variations among answers, though. People who said they were more satisfied with their relationship and people who had lower self-esteem tended to rate their partners higher. But even they still favored themselves overall. 

While the study provides some interesting potential insights into relationships, it had some limitations. It was small, with only 104 participants in the first experiment, 62 college students in the second, and 251 people in the third. That's too few people to generalize into the whole population. Participants in the first and third experiments were in longer term relationships, with the mean time together at almost nine years.

And since the results were self-reported, it's tough to really know if people are being honest with themselves and with the researchers when they talk about how they feel or how happy they are in a relationship.

But the findings remind us to try to be less selfish, and appreciate our partners a little more. 

SEE ALSO: 5 simple habits that have strengthened all of my relationships

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Esther Perel is a renowned relationship expert.

For the past 10 years she has traveled the world working with couples who, as she says, "have been shattered by infidelity."

The word "infidelity," Perel says in the TED talk "Why Happy Couples Cheat," can mean many different things.

"The definition of infidelity keeps expanding," Perel says. "Sexting, watching porn, staying secretly active on dating apps. So because there is no universally agreed-upon definition of what even constitutes an infidelity, estimates vary widely, from 26% to 75%."

Here's how Perel defines an affair: "A secretive relationship — which is the core structure of an affair — an emotional connection to one degree or another, and a sexual alchemy."

But Perel says cheating is not just about sex.

"Contrary to what you may think, affairs are way less about sex and a lot more about desire," Perel continues. "Desire for attention. Desire to feel special. Desire to feel important. The very structure of an affair — the fact that you can never have your lover — keeps you wanting. That in itself is a desire machine."

Perel says the reasons people cheat today are different from those of the past.

"We have never been more inclined to stray, and not because we have new desires today, but because we live in an era where we feel we are entitled to pursue our desires," Perel says. "Because this is the culture where I deserve to be happy."

The relationship expert adds that when a spouse cheats on his or her significant other, it's more about the person who cheats than the other person.

"When we seek the gaze of another, it isn't always our partner that we are turning away from — but the person that we ourselves have become," Perel says. "And it isn't so much that we're looking for another person, as much as we are looking for another self."

Watch Perel's full TED Talk below:

SEE ALSO: Katie Couric learned to be a leader by following this humble advice from her mom

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There are plenty of ways to turn people off.

In fact, most of them don't require much effort. All it takes is one look at your social media activity or a casual in-person introduction to make someone realize they just don't want to spend time with you.

We've rounded up some of the most common social turn-offs online and in person, as well as how to avoid them. Read on and see which ones you've been guilty of.

SEE ALSO: 14 habits of the most likable people

1. Sharing too many photos on Facebook

You might be eager to share snapshots of your honeymoon, cousin's graduation, and dog dressed in a Halloween costume, all within a 24-hour period.

But research has found that posting too many photos on Facebook can hurt your real-life relationships.

"This is because people, other than very close friends and relatives, don't seem to relate well to those who constantly share photos of themselves," lead study author David Houghton, PhD, said in a release.

Specifically, friends don't like it when you've got too many photos of family, and relatives don't like it when you've got too many photos of friends.

As Ben Marder, PhD, another author on the study, put it: "Be cautious when sharing and think how it will be perceived by all the others who may see it. Although sharing is a great way to better relationships, it can also damage them."

2. Having too many or too few Facebook friends

In one study, researchers asked college students to look at fictional Facebook profiles and decide how much they liked the profiles' owners. The study took place in 2008, and the students had about 300 friends each.

Results showed that the "sweet spot" for likability was about 300 friends. Likability ratings were lowest when a profile owner had only about 100 friends, and almost as low when they had more than 300 friends.

As for why 300-plus friends could be a turn-off, the study authors write, "Individuals with too many friends may appear to be focusing too much on Facebook, friending out of desperation rather than popularity."

On the other hand, the researchers acknowledge that if you look at a population where the most common number of Facebook friends is 1,000, the sweet spot for likability could be 1,000.

Keep in mind, though, that one survey found that the average number of Facebook friends among adult users was 338 in 2014.

Interestingly, the study also found that participants weren't consciously aware that they liked people less when they had too many or too few Facebook friends.

3. Disclosing something extremely personal early on in a relationship

In general, people like each other more after they've traded confidences. In fact, self-disclosure is one of the best ways to make friends as an adult.

But psychologists say that disclosing something too intimate— say, the fact that your sister is having an extramarital affair — while you're still getting to know someone can make you seem insecure and decrease your likability.

The key is to get personal without getting overly personal. As one study led by Susan Sprecher at Illinois State University suggests, simply sharing details about your hobbies and your favorite childhood memories can make you seem warmer and more likable.

This post from LinkedIn Influencer Travis Bradberry appeared originally on LinkedIn.

When it comes to communication, we all tend to think we're pretty good at it.

Truth is, even those of us who are good communicators aren't nearly as good as we think we are.

This overestimation of our ability to communicate is magnified when interacting with people we know well.

Researchers at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business put this theory to the test and what they discovered is startling.

In the study, the researchers paired subjects with people they knew well and then again with people they'd never met.

The researchers discovered that people who knew each other well understood each other no better than people who'd just met! Even worse, participants frequently overestimated their ability to communicate, and this was more pronounced with people they knew well.

"Our problem in communicating with friends is that we have an illusion of insight," said study co-author Nicholas Epley. "Getting close to someone appears to create the illusion of understanding more than actual understanding."

When communicating with people we know well, we make presumptions about what they understand—presumptions that we don't dare make with strangers. This tendency to overestimate how well we communicate (and how well we're understood) is so prevalent that psychologists even have a name for it: closeness-communication bias.

"The understanding, 'What I know is different from what you know' is essential for effective communication," said study lead Kenneth Savitsky, "but that insight can be elusive. Some [people] may indeed be on the same wavelength, but maybe not as much as they think. You get rushed and preoccupied, and you stop taking the perspective of the other person."

Taking action

Communication is the real work of leadership; you simply can't become a great leader until you are a great communicator. Great communicators inspire people. They create a connection that is real, emotional, and personal. And great communicators forge this connection through an understanding of people and an ability to speak directly to their needs in a manner that they are ready to hear.

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."— George Bernard Shaw

The eight strategies that follow will help you to overcome the communication bias that tends to hold us back with everyone we encounter, especially those we know well. Apply these strategies and watch your communication skills reach new heights.

Speak to groups as individuals. As a leader, you often have to speak to groups of people. Whether a small team meeting or a company-wide gathering, you need to develop a level of intimacy in your approach that makes each individual in the room feel as if you're speaking directly to him or her.

The trick is to eliminate the distraction of the crowd so that you can deliver your message just as you would if you were talking to a single person. You want to be emotionally genuine and exude the same feelings, energy, and attention you would one-on-one (as opposed to the anxiety that comes with being in front of people). The ability to pull this off is the hallmark of great leadership communication.

Talk so people will listen. Great communicators read their audience (groups and individuals) carefully to ensure they aren't wasting their breath on a message that people aren't ready to hear. Talking so people will listen means you adjust your message on the fly to stay with your audience (what they're ready to hear and how they're ready to hear it).

Droning on to ensure you've said what you wanted to say does not have the same effect on people as engaging them in a meaningful dialogue in which there is an exchange of ideas. Resist the urge to drive your point home at all costs. When your talking leads to people asking good questions, you know you're on the right track.

Listen so people will talk. One of the most disastrous temptations for a leader is to treat communication as a one-way street. When you communicate, you must give people ample opportunity to speak their minds. If you find that you're often having the last word in conversations, then this is likely something you need to work on.

Listening isn't just about hearing words; it's also about listening to the tone, speed, and volume of the voice. What is being said? Anything not being said? What hidden messages below the surface exist? When someone is talking to you, stop everything else and listen fully until the other person has finished speaking. When you are on a phone call, don't type an email. When you're meeting with someone, close the door and sit near the person so you can focus and listen.

Simple behaviors like these will help you stay in the present moment, pick up on the cues the other person sends, and make it clear that you will really hear what he or she is saying.

Connect emotionally. Maya Angelou said it best: "People will forget what you said and did, but they will never forget how you made them feel." As a leader, your communication is impotent if people don't connect with it on an emotional level. This is hard for many leaders to pull off because they feel they need to project a certain persona. Let that go.

To connect with your people emotionally, you need to be transparent. Be human. Show them what drives you, what you care about, what makes you get out of bed in the morning. Express these feelings openly, and you'll forge an emotional connection with your people.

Read body language. Your authority makes it hard for people to say what's really on their minds. No matter how good a relationship you have with your subordinates, you are kidding yourself if you think they are as open with you as they are with their peers. So, you must become adept at understanding unspoken messages. The greatest wealth of information lies in people's body language. The body communicates nonstop and is an abundant source of information, so purposefully watch body language during meetings and casual conversation.

Once you tune into body language, the messages will become loud and clear. Pay as much attention to what isn't said as what is said, and you'll uncover facts and opinions that people are unwilling to express directly.

Prepare your intent. A little preparation goes a long way toward saying what you wanted to say and having a conversation achieve its intended impact. Don't prepare a speech; develop an understanding of what the focus of a conversation needs to be (in order for people to hear the message) and how you will accomplish this. Your communication will be more persuasive and on point when you prepare your intent ahead of time.

Skip the jargon. The business world is filled with jargon and metaphors that are harmless when people can relate to them. Problem is, most leaders overuse jargon and alienate their subordinates and customers with their "business speak." Use it sparingly if you want to connect with your people. Otherwise, you'll come across as insincere.

Practice active listening. Active listening is a simple technique that ensures people feel heard, an essential component of good communication. To practice active listening:

• Spend more time listening than you do talking.
• Do not answer questions with questions.
• Avoid finishing other people's sentences.
• Focus more on the other person than you do on yourself.
• Focus on what people are saying right now, not on what their interests are.
• Reframe what the other person has said to make sure you understand him or her correctly ("So you're telling me that this budget needs further consideration, right?")
• Think about what you're going to say after someone has finished speaking, not while he or she is speaking.
• Ask plenty of questions.
• Never interrupt.
• Don't take notes.

Bringing It All Together

As you work to employ these strategies, try to avoid biting off more than you can chew. Working on one to three strategies at a time is sufficient. If you try to take on more than you can handle, you're not going to see as much progress as you would if you narrowed your focus. Once you become effective in one particular strategy, you can take on another one in its place.

Communication is a dynamic element of leadership that is intertwined in most of what you do each day. You'll have ample opportunity to improve your abilities in this critical skill.

Dr. Travis Bradberry is the award-winning co-author of the #1 bestselling book, "Emotional Intelligence 2.0," and the cofounder of TalentSmart, the world's leading provider of emotional intelligence tests and training, serving more than 75% of Fortune 500 companies. His bestselling books have been translated into 25 languages and are available in more than 150 countries. Dr. Bradberry has written for, or been covered by, Newsweek, TIME, BusinessWeek, Fortune, Forbes, Fast Company, Inc., USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The Harvard Business Review. 

More from Travis Bradberry:

• Stress Literally Shrinks Your Brain (How To Reverse The Damage)
• The Perfect Amount of Time to Work Each Day
• Why the Best Leaders Have Conviction

SEE ALSO: 5 daily exercises that will make you a better communicator

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Esther Perel, relationship therapist and author of Mating in Captivity, offers her thoughts on when sharing something with your partner can do more harm than good. 

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This post from LinkedIn Influencer Travis Bradberry appeared originally on LinkedIn.

Trying to compare intelligence and gender doesn't typically yield much in the way of productive discussion, but sometimes research comes along that's worth opening this particular can of worms.

Decades of research show unequivocally that men and women are equal in general intelligence (IQ), but that isn't the case when it comes to emotional intelligence (EQ).

There are subtle, and not so subtle, differences in men's and women's expression and understanding of emotions that must be explored and understood.

Gender is a common place for people to assign labels around emotion. Such generalizations have pegged women as everything from the "fairer sex" to overly emotional, and men from emotionally aloof to explosive. You'll find that none of these platitudes are true.

There’s an enormous amount of research suggesting that emotional intelligence (EQ) is critical to men's and women's performance at work. Emotional intelligence is responsible for 58% of performance in all types of jobs, and 90% of top performers are high in EQ.

"Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition."— Timothy Leary

TalentSmart has tested the emotional intelligence of more than a million people and it's clear that women have the upper hand. While women's overall EQ score is just a couple of points higher than men's, this is a statistically significant difference that shows that women have greater skill in using emotions to their benefit.

It just doesn't answer the pressing question: why?

To understand why women outscore men, we have to look at scores for each of the four emotional intelligence skills by gender. There's a reliable pattern in the data that points to some interesting explanations for the gap.

Self-awareness

Self-awareness is how well you understand your own emotions in the moment, as well as how well you understand your tendencies — the people and situations you handle well and those that push your buttons. This is the one place where men and women have perfectly equal scores. It's also a place where men have been given a bad rap.

People often assume that men aren't tuned in to their emotions or don't understand them. Clearly, that isn't the case. Of course, men also have a tendency to hop on this bandwagon — by feigning to have no awareness or understanding of their emotions — in the hope of avoiding any accountability for their actions. Now we know better.

Self-management

Self-management is what you do with your emotions once you're aware of them. Since you can't make emotions disappear, effective self-management requires channeling your emotions into producing the behavior that you want.

This is the one area where men outscored women. I believe that the best explanation for gender differences in emotional intelligence is how we are socialized growing up (reinforced by societal gender pressures we experience as adults). In the case of self-management, men are often expected to be emotionally "strong" and in control of their emotions, which may explain why they outscore women slightly.

Social awareness

Social awareness is how well you understand the emotions and experience of other people. This requires the ability to tune in to body language and other unspoken signals, since people don't usually come out and say what's going on with them. This is an area where women outscore men by a fairly large margin (statistically speaking). This is also a skill that women are socialized to practice and possess from childhood in ways that men aren't.

Right or wrong, women are expected to take care of other people (and are rewarded for doing so). This gives them an upper hand when it comes to social awareness. Men, to their detriment, aren't rewarded for social awareness in the same way that women are, and this carries over into adulthood.

Relationship management

Relationship management is the pinnacle of emotional intelligence. It requires that you use self-awareness, self-management, and social awareness in concert to better your relationships as you interact with other people.

You cannot hope to get the most out of your interactions with other people until you understand your emotions, cue in to their emotions, and use this knowledge to adjust your approach on the fly. Women have a slight edge in relationship management for reasons described in the social awareness section above.

The advantage

Emotional intelligence presents a significant advantage for women in the workplace. Whether you're a man or a woman, don't just sit back hoping that you're one of the high-EQ types. EQ is a flexible skill that you can improve with effort. To that end, here are a few things that you can do to improve your EQ today:

Limit your caffeine intake

Drinking excessive amounts of caffeine triggers the release of adrenaline, and adrenaline is the source of the fight-or-flight response. The fight-or-flight mechanism sidesteps rational thinking in favor of a faster response to ensure survival. This is great when a bear is chasing you, but not so great when you’re responding to a curt email.

When caffeine puts your brain and body into this hyper-aroused state of stress, your emotions overrun your behavior. Caffeine’s long half-life ensures you stay this way as it takes its sweet time working its way out of your body. High-EQ individuals know that caffeine is trouble, and they don’t let it get the better of them.

Get enough sleep

It’s difficult to overstate the importance of sleep to increasing your emotional intelligence. When you sleep your brain removes toxic proteins from its neurons that are by-products of neural activity when you're awake. Unfortunately, your brain can remove them adequately only while you're asleep. So when you don't get enough sleep, the toxic proteins remain in your brain cells, wreaking havoc by impairing your ability to think.

Skipping sleep impairs your brain function across the board. It slows your ability to process information and problem solve, kills your creativity, and catapults your stress levels and emotional reactivity. High-EQ individuals know that their self-control, attention, and memory are all reduced when they don’t get enough sleep. So, they make sleep a top priority.

Stop negative self-talk in its tracks

The more you ruminate on negative thoughts, the more power you give them. Most of our negative thoughts are just that—thoughts, not facts. When it feels like something always or never happens, this is just your brain’s natural tendency to perceive threats (inflating the frequency or severity of an event). Emotionally intelligent people separate their thoughts from the facts in order to escape the cycle of negativity and move toward a positive, new outlook.

Appreciate what you have

Taking time to contemplate what you’re grateful for isn’t merely the right thing to do; it also improves your mood because it reduces the stress hormone cortisol by 23%. Research conducted at the University of California, Davis, found that people who worked daily to cultivate an attitude of gratitude experienced improved mood, energy, and physical well-being. It’s likely that lower levels of cortisol played a major role in this.

Dr. Travis Bradberry is the award-winning co-author of the #1 bestselling book, "Emotional Intelligence 2.0," and the cofounder of TalentSmart, the world's leading provider of emotional intelligence tests and training, serving more than 75% of Fortune 500 companies. His bestselling books have been translated into 25 languages and are available in more than 150 countries. Dr. Bradberry has written for, or been covered by, Newsweek, TIME, BusinessWeek, Fortune, Forbes, Fast Company, Inc., USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The Harvard Business Review.

More from Travis Bradberry:

• Stress Literally Shrinks Your Brain (How To Reverse The Damage)
• The Perfect Amount of Time to Work Each Day
• Why the Best Leaders Have Conviction

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Ty Tashiro, psychologist and author of "The Science of Happily Ever After," explains why you should narrow down your search for an ideal partner to three preferences (and no more).

Produced by Alana Kakoyiannis

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Consuming alcohol can both benefit and harm romantic relationships. For example, drinking can be a way for couple members to connect—perhaps over a bottle of wine—and share their week.

However, if someone believes their partner drinks too much, it can strain the relationship. Some recent research¹ explored how perceiving one's partner as having a drinking problem might be associated with relationship quality among college students.

In addition, the researchers examined the use of drinking regulation strategies, or the behaviors that people use to try to change their partner's drinking (such as yelling or withdrawing). After completing measures of their own drinking (e.g., number of drinks per week consumed, number of drinks consumed during recent drinking occasions) and how much they thought their partners drank, individuals reported on whether they felt:

• (a) their partner's drinking was a problem
• (b) their own drinking was a problem
• (c) how much they tried to modify their partner's drinking.

All participants also provided information on the quality of their relationship (i.e., satisfaction, trust, commitment, and the partner's ability to fulfill their needs).

Believing their partner drank too much was consistently associated with poorer relationship outcomes. This association was stronger when the participant did not feel he or she had a drinking problem.

In other words, believing one's partner has a drinking problem was not as problematic for the relationship if individuals believed they also had a drinking problem themselves. This finding is consistent with other research showing that relationships fare better when couple members drink similar amounts of alcohol.^2,3

People in this study reported engaging in two different types of strategies to change their partner's drinking. Some individuals primarily punished their partners for drinking (e.g., yelling, nagging, withholding sex) whereas others primarily rewarded their partners for not drinking (e.g., suggesting fun non-drinking events, praising for not drinking).

The association between believing one's partner had a drinking problem and poorer relationship quality occurred partly because of the use of punishing strategies, but not because of reward strategies. In other words, part of the reason why thinking one's partner drinks too much is a problem for the relationship is because one engages in punishment behavior, but not because of reward behavior.

Also, although punishing strategies were associated with worse relationship outcomes, rewarding strategies were not.

So if you believe your partner is drinking too much, using strategies aimed at punishing your partner will likely only create more frustration on your part, which may worsen the relationship dynamic and potentially result in even higher partner drinking (though this has not been formally tested).

Also, this research shows that regardless of how much your partner drinks (or you drink), if the drinking is perceived to be a problem, then the drinking is a problem; it would benefit both you and your partner to have a healthy discussion about how much alcohol is appropriate and acceptable.

If you'd like to learn more about our book, please click here (or download it here). Interested in learning more about relationships? Click here for other topics on Science of Relationships. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get our articles delivered directly to your NewsFeed.

¹Rodriguez, L. M., DiBello, A. M., & Neighbors, C. (2013). Perceptions of partner drinking problems, regulation strategies, and relationship outcomes. Addictive Behaviors, 38, 2949-2957. doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2013.08.028.

²Homish, G. G., & Leonard, K. E. (2007). The drinking partnership and marital satisfaction: The longitudinal influence of discrepant drinking. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 75, 43–51.

³Mudar, P., Leonard, K. E., & Soltysinski, K. (2001). Discrepant substance use and marital functioning in newlywed couples. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 69, 130–134.

⁴Rodriguez, L. M., Øverup, C. S., & Neighbors, C. (2013). Perceptions of partners' drinking problem affect relationship outcomes beyond partner self-reported drinking: Alcohol use in committed relationships. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 27, 627-638.

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Happiness is one of the most important things in life, yet it's also one of the hardest to study.

Psychiatrist Robert Waldinger is the director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the longest and most complete studies of adult life ever conducted. Waldinger described some of the secrets to happiness revealed by the study in a recent TED talk.

The study followed two cohorts of white men for 75 years, starting in 1938:

• 268 Harvard sophomores as part of the "Grant Study" led by Harvard psychiatrist George Vaillant
• 456 12- to 16-year-old boys who grew up in inner-city Boston as part of the "Glueck Study" led by Harvard Law School professor Sheldon Glueck

The researchers surveyed the men about their lives (including the quality of their marriages, job satisfaction, and social activities) every two years and monitored their physical health (including chest X-rays, blood tests, urine tests, and echocardiograms) every five years.

They came away with one major finding: Good relationships keep us happier and healthier.

In his TED Talk, Waldinger pointed out three key lessons about happiness:

1. Close relationships

The men in both groups of the Harvard study who reported being closer to their family, friends, or community tended to be happier and healthier than their less social counterparts. They also tended to live longer. By comparison, people who said they were lonelier reported feeling less happy. They also had worse physical and mental health, as defined above.

A 2014 review of dozens of studies published in the journal Social and Personality Psychology Compass suggests that loneliness can get in the way of mental functioning, sleep, and well-being, which in turn increases the risk of illness and death.

2. Quality (not quanity) of relationships

It's not just being in a relationship that matters. Married couples who said they argued constantly and had low affection for one another (which study authors defined as "high-conflict marriages") were actually less happy than people who weren't married at all, the Harvard study found.

However, the effect of relationship quality seems to depend somewhat on age. A 2015 study published in the journal Psychology and Aging that followed people for 30 years found that the number of relationships people had was, in fact, more important for people in their 20s, but the quality of relationships had a bigger effect on social and psychological well being when people were in their 30s.

3. Stable, supportive marriages

Being socially connected to others isn't just good for our physical health. It also helps stave off mental decline. People who were married without having divorced, separating, or having "serious problems" until age 50 performed better on memory tests later in life than those who weren't, the Harvard study found.

And other research backs this up. A 2013 study in the journal PLOS ONE found that marriage, among other factors, was linked to a lower risk of mild cognitive impairment and dementia.

All of this suggests that strong relationships are critical to our health.

Society places a lot of emphasis on wealth and "leaning in" to our work, Waldinger said. "But over and over, over these 75 years, our study has shown that the people who fared the best were the people who leaned in to relationships, with family, with friends, with community."

You can watch the full TED talk here.

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Esther Perel is a couples therapist based in New York and the author of the international best seller "Mating in Captivity."

By Alana Kakoyiannis.

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If you've ever had a friend or significant other get angry at you for completely missing something they said, it might not be your fault.

Concentrating on a visual task — like staring at a phone screen — can make us temporarily deaf to any normal volume noise around us, according to a new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Our brains can only process so much information at once, so when we're absorbed in a visual task like using a computer, searching for directions, or reading, we sometimes fail to register sounds around us. That's why we might not hear someone who's trying to get our attention or tell us something.

We're not just ignoring the sound or filtering it out — we aren't hearing it at all. Some psychologists call this "inattentional deafness."

"Inattentional deafness is a common experience in everyday life, and now we know why," UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience professor Nilli Lavie, who worked on the new research, said in a press release. 

"For example, if you try to talk to someone who is focusing on a book, game or television program and don't receive a response, they aren't necessarily ignoring you, they might simply not hear you! This could also explain why you might not hear your train or bus stop being announced if you're concentrating on your phone, book, or newspaper," she added.

Lavie and a team of researchers got 13 volunteers to wear headphones that played random sounds at random times while they tried to complete a visual task: pressing a computer key when a certain letter appeared. Each volunteer was hooked up to a brain scanner during the experiment.

When the letter game was easy, the volunteers were still able to detect all the sounds. As the letter game got harder, the brain scans suggested that the volunteers were concentrating more on the visual task and that there was very little brain response to the sounds coming through the headphones. It's not that they were just ignoring the sound or filtering it out, an analysis of the scans seemed to indicate — they weren't hearing it at all.

The study was small, and doesn't precisely replicate real-life circumstances. But the evidence here builds on earlier researchby Lavieand others. Inattentional blindness, where we look at things but do not actually see them if we're not paying attention, is a perceptual shortcoming that's long been established by psychologists. ("We can fail to perceive very major things going on right in front of our eyes," Brian Scholl, a Yale psychologist, explained to the journalist Siri Carpenter in 2001.)

Inattentional deafness sounds like a pretty harmless phenomenon, beyond possibly frustrating friends and significant others who are trying to talk to you.

However, Lavie pointed out in the release that there are situations in which inattentional deafness can actually be a big problem: A surgeon concentrating on an operation might not hear medical alarms going off, for example, and a pedestrian staring at a phone might not hear a bicycle bell. Previous research has found that many pilots don't notice audio alarms when they are dealing with difficult situation in the air.

Unfortunately there's not much we can do to correct this — humans are just bad at multitasking.

"Our study shows that is a limitation of our brain," Lavie told Tech Insider in an email.

The best strategy to avoid frustration, Lavie said, is to make sure you have someone's attention before speaking to them.

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Crafting the perfect profile is one of the hardest parts of online dating. Maybe you want to come across as sincere, but also a little mysterious; upbeat and fun, but also a deep thinker.

The description of your personality, hobbies, likes, and dislikes can have a big impact on how someone perceives an online profile. But the actual language you use — the way you write the profile, not just what it says — may have a bigger influence on your potential matches than you realize.

New research published in the journal Personal Relationships suggests that things like the length of your profile, the number of positive and negative words you use, and whether or not you use swear words, are all sending subtle signals and influencing how other online daters assess your personality.

If you're trying to drum up a lot of interest in your profile, the researchers conclude, there are some simple tweaks you can make. "Online daters who wish to be perceived as more consistent with the ideal romantic partner personality profile should write fairly lengthy ads that use an abundance of positive emotion words, and refrain from any negative emotionality or cursing," the researchers write.

When you're on the receiving end, however, reviewing the profiles of others, there's another important — if already widely believed — takeaway from this research: Most of what you pick up on about people from their online profiles does not match up to them in real life.

For the study, the researchers recruited volunteers, half of whom were genuinely interested in finding a romantic partner and half of whom were neutral judges, to assess the personalities of 100 people based only on the dating ads they posted on Craigslist in Vancouver.

"Judges’ impressions of extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability — 3 traits that are strongly desired in a romantic partner — were influenced by particular lexical cues, such as word count, emotionality, and profanity," the researchers write in the paper.

Judges rated the people who wrote long ads as more extraverted and agreeable, likely because the long profile made these people seem more outgoing and talkative — as if they had more exciting social lives and more hobbies and interests than those who wrote shorter profiles. Judges rated people as "more neurotic if they used more negative emotion words, fewer positive emotion words, and more swear words" in their profiles, according to the study.

So it's clear word choice influences how we perceive personality, but the researchers also wanted to test the accuracy of those perceptions.

Those who wrote the dating ads used for the study also agreed to fill out a personality test. The researchers compared the judges' personality assessment to the results from each individual's personality test.

It turns out the judges were good at predicting whether or not someone was truly extraverted based on their profile, but they were off on everything else.

This wasn't surprising to the researchers.

"Like most individuals seeking romantic relationships, online daters may be motivated to present their ideal, as opposed to actual, self," they write in the paper.

While presenting yourself in the most flattering way possible may attract a lot of matches, it's a problematic strategy for people looking for a long-term relationship. Having the right impression of a partner is critical in the early stages of relationship development, the researchers write.

If a first impression doesn't hold up, people are less likely to pursue that person as a partner.

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In a post last year, we laid out the human lifespan visually. By years:

By months:

And by weeks:

While working on that post, I also made a days chart, but it seemed a bit much, so I left it out. Not this time.

The days chart blows my mind as much as the weeks chart. Each of those dots is only a single Tuesday or Friday or Sunday, but even a lucky person who lives to 90 will have no problem fitting every day in their life on one page.

But since doing the Life in Weeks post, I've been thinking about something else.

Instead of measuring your life in units of time, you can measure it in activities or events. To use myself as an example:

I'm 34, so let's be super optimistic and say I'll be hanging around drawing stick figures till I'm 90. If so, I have a little under 60 winters left:

And maybe around 60 Superbowls left:

The ocean is freezing and putting my body into it is a bad life experience, so I tend to limit myself to around one ocean swim a year. So as weird as it seems, I might only go in the ocean 60 more times:

Not counting Wait But Why research, I read about five books a year, so even though it feels like I'll read an endless number of books in the future, I actually have to choose only 300 of all the books out there to read and accept that I'll sign off for eternity without knowing what goes on in all the rest.

Growing up in Boston, I went to Red Sox games all the time, but if I never move back there, I'll probably continue at my current rate of going to a Sox game about once every three years — meaning this little row of 20 represents my remaining Fenway visits:

There have been eight US presidential elections during my lifetime and about 15 to go. I've seen five presidents in office and if that rate continues, I'll see about nine more.

I probably eat pizza about once a month, so I've got about 700 more chances to eat pizza. I have an even brighter future with dumplings. I have Chinese food about twice a month and I tend to make sure six dumplings occur each time, so I have a ton of dumplings to look forward to:

But these things aren't what I've been thinking about. Most of the things I just mentioned happen with a similar frequency during each year of my life, which spreads them out somewhat evenly through time. If I'm around a third of my way through life, I'm also about a third of my way through experiencing the activity or event.

What I've been thinking about is a really important part of life that, unlike all of these examples, isn't spread out evenly through time — something whose [already done / still to come] ratio doesn't at all align with how far I am through life:

Relationships.

I've been thinking about my parents, who are in their mid-60s. During my first 18 years, I spent some time with my parents during at least 90% of my days. But since heading off to college and then later moving out of Boston, I've probably seen them an average of only five times a year each, for an average of maybe two days each time. 10 days a year. About 3% of the days I spent with them each year of my childhood.

Being in their mid-60s, let's continue to be super optimistic and say I'm one of the incredibly lucky people to have both parents alive into my 60s. That would give us about 30 more years of coexistence. If the ten days a year thing holds, that's 300 days left to hang with mom and dad. Less time than I spent with them in any one of my 18 childhood years.

When you look at that reality, you realize that despite not being at the end of your life, you may very well be nearing the end of your time with some of the most important people in your life. If I lay out the total days I'll ever spend with each of my parents — assuming I'm as lucky as can be — this becomes starkly clear:

It turns out that when I graduated from high school, I had already used up 93% of my in-person parent time. I'm now enjoying the last 5% of that time. We're in the tail end.

It's a similar story with my two sisters. After living in a house with them for 10 and 13 years respectively, I now live across the country from both of them and spend maybe 15 days with each of them a year. Hopefully, that leaves us with about 15% of our total hangout time left.

The same often goes for old friends. In high school, I sat around playing hearts with the same four guys about five days a week. In four years, we probably racked up 700 group hangouts. Now, scattered around the country with totally different lives and schedules, the five of us are in the same room at the same time probably 10 days each decade. The group is in its final 7%.

So what do we do with this information?

Setting aside my secret hope that technological advances will let me live to 700, I see three takeaways here:

1) Living in the same place as the people you love matters. I probably have 10X the time left with the people who live in my city as I do with the people who live somewhere else.

2) Priorities matter. Your remaining face time with any person depends largely on where that person falls on your list of life priorities. Make sure this list is set by you — not by unconscious inertia.

3) Quality time matters. If you're in your last 10% of time with someone you love, keep that fact in the front of your mind when you're with them and treat that time as what it actually is: precious.

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