Tag Archives: nationality

What Your Nationality Reveals About Your Sleep Requirements

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It doesn’t matter if you average 8 hours of sleep or if you’re just six and a half years old. That largely depends on new research conducted by scientists from the University of Victoria and the University of British Columbia in Canada.

This study suggests that cultural norms significantly influence sleep needs, indicating that instead of adhering to the universal eight-hour guideline, recommendations should be customized to fit specific countries.

“Sleep is influenced by more than biology alone. It is shaped by cultural expectations, work schedules, climate, light exposure, social standards, and various other aspects,” noted Dr. Christine Ou, an assistant professor at the Victoria School of Nursing, in an interview with BBC Science Focus. “What is deemed ‘good’ sleep in one culture may feel excessive or insufficient in another.”

The OU team studied sleep patterns and health data from nearly 5,000 individuals who participated in an online survey across 20 countries, including regions from North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Combining this data with findings from 14 prior studies, researchers investigated the connections between life expectancy, heart disease rates, obesity, diabetes, and the hours individuals slept.

Survey participants in Japan reported an average sleep duration of 6 hours and 18 minutes the night before – Credits: UBC Media Relations, PNAS

The findings revealed that sleep durations varied significantly across the 20 countries studied. French respondents had the longest sleep, averaging 7 hours and 52 minutes per night, while Japanese participants reported the least, with an average of 6 hours and 18 minutes.

The global average for sleep was found to be 7 hours and 15 minutes. Participants from the UK reported an average of 7 hours and 33 minutes, whereas those from the US averaged 7 hours and 2 minutes.

Interestingly, the OU team made some notable discoveries. They found no universal “ideal” amount of sleep that correlated positively with health across all countries. In fact, there was no evidence to suggest that individuals in countries with shorter sleep durations experienced worse health than those in nations where longer sleep is standard.

However, a consistent trend emerged. When asked for their ideal sleep duration for optimal health, participants from Costa Rica suggested an average of 8 hours and 3 minutes while those from Korea indicated 7 hours and 16 minutes. In every country, most respondents felt their desired target was about 1 hour to 1 hour and 40 minutes longer than what they typically achieved.

I may not know much about sleep, but some individuals indeed require more than others – Image credit: Getty

Those who maintained sleep patterns that aligned closely with their country’s cultural norms were generally healthier. For instance, in the US, sleeping around 7 hours and 2 minutes nightly correlated with better health outcomes.

“Our research revealed that when sleep aligns with cultural norms, individuals tend to be healthier,” said OU. “Understanding the cultural context allows for a focus on what genuinely supports health rather than fixating on a specific number.”

Throughout every country examined, significant deviations from culturally accepted sleep norms were linked to worsening health outcomes, whether those deviations meant sleeping too little or too much.

The threshold for excessive sleep where health outcomes began to decline varied, highest in the UK at over 10 hours and lowest in the US at 8 hours and 13 minutes.

Sleep psychologist Dr. Daljinder Chalmers from Kiel University remarked in BBC Science Focus, “Sleep is complex, and there is no evidence to suggest that everyone needs to sleep eight hours a day.”

Dr. Chalmers, who was not involved in the study, noted that in countries where sleep durations are shorter, people might take more naps during the day or have different sleeping habits altogether.

She continued, “When analyzing sleep and health, you must consider cultural factors.”

The researchers controlled for variables such as nutrition, wealth, inequality, and geography, but it’s essential to note this was an observational study and could not establish direct cause-and-effect relationships between sleep and health outcomes.

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About our experts

Dr. Christine Ou is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Victoria in Canada. Having begun her career as a registered pediatric nurse, she focuses on sleep and psychosocial health in families with young children through her research programs. Dr. Ou is also a member of Canada’s Active Perinatal Mental Health Joint Committee and recognized as a public scholar and rising star in applied science at the University of British Columbia.

Dr. Daljinder Chalmers is a lecturer in health psychology at Kiel University specializing in sleep. She boasts extensive experience in academia, public service, and the NHS. Dr. Chalmers holds a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Bedfordshire University, a Master of Science in Health Psychology from Derby University, and a PhD from the University of Portsmouth.

Source: www.sciencefocus.com

The impact of nationality on hand gestures in communication

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Police officer in Rome, Italy gestures to tourists

Jochen Tack/imageBROKER/Alamy

Research shows that different nationalities seem to use hand gestures differently, supporting the idea that Italians in particular “talk with their hands.”

Maria Graziano and her colleagues Marianne Gullberg from Lund University in Sweden asked 12 people from Sweden and 12 from Italy to describe clips from children’s TV shows, such as Pingu, and examine their gestures.

“Italians gesture more,” Graziano said on a video call, using gestures to emphasize herself, which she attributed to her upbringing in Naples, Italy. In this study, Italians made an average of 22 gestures per 100 words, compared to 11 for Swedes.

But what’s more interesting, says Graziano, is the difference in the functionality of the gestures. Swedes primarily used “representational gestures” to describe events and actions in stories, while Italians also made more “practical gestures” that commented on the story or introduced new information, such as hand movements indicating new characters.

This suggests that the two cultures think differently about how stories are produced, Graziano says. Gestures can reflect what a culture values about the content and purpose of a story.

Barbara Tversky, a researcher at Stanford University in California, mentioned that the exact reason for these results is unclear, but the findings suggest that “cultural practices of understanding and explaining short episodes are driving this behavior.” Tversky suggests further research involving larger populations with a more diverse mix of nationalities.

Graziano is currently researching the gestures used in different types of discourse and the different relationships between speakers to further understand how different cultures use gestures to communicate and tell stories.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

The impact of age, gender, and nationality on the interpretation of emojis

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Emojis are often used in digital communications such as text messages and social media.

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Think twice before replying to a message with just emojis. Emojis may be interpreted differently by different people.

Previous research suggests that Men and women perceive facial expressions differently. ruth fillick Researchers from the University of Nottingham in the UK thought that a person's gender and other factors might also influence how they interpret emojis.

To find out more, they asked 253 Chinese and 270 British people (about an equal number of men and women) aged 18 to 84 to take part in an online survey.

Researchers selected 24 emojis to represent one of six emotions: happiness, disgust, fear, sadness, surprise, and anger based on the suggestions that appeared when you typed the word. There are four emojis for each emotion, representing different designs used by Apple, Windows, Android, and WeChat.

Each participant then assigned an emoji to the emotion they thought best matched.

Women were more likely than men to match emojis to the same emotions selected by researchers. The researchers say women may be better at recognizing facial expressions, perhaps because they make more eye contact.

Younger participants also matched emojis better than older participants, probably because they used them more frequently.

On the other hand, British participants agreed better with emojis than Chinese participants, although this may be because the latter group uses emojis differently. “For example, it has been suggested that: [people in China] According to the researchers, people rarely use the happy emoji to express happiness, but instead use it in negative connotations, such as sarcasm.

“When you send someone a message that includes emojis, you can't just assume that they see the emojis the same way you see them,” says Fillick.

Isabel Butet Researchers at the University of Ottawa in Canada say matching 24 emojis to six emotions is extremely restrictive. Nevertheless, “assigning emojis specific emotional labels is problematic when you don't know how they will be interpreted in various online communities,” she says. “For example, it would never have been considered to use eggplant as an allusion if that meaning had not developed in a particular community.”

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Source: www.newscientist.com