Body Language of The Head Lowered In Judgment
Cue: Head Lowered In Judgment.
Synonym(s): Head Down, Lowered Head.
Description: Lowering the head, grimacing, and looking up with an icy glare.
In One Sentence: Lowering the head is a way people show judgment.
How To Use it: Lowering the head makes it appear wider through an optical illusion. A wide head is one that is high in dominance. Therefore, one can use a lowered head to create dominance and also show judgment of others in order to intimidate.
Fathers can use this cue effectively on misbehaving children as can wives on their husbands. When done properly, the cue appears highly aggressive and intimidating especially when coupled with direct eye contact.
Context: General.
Verbal Translation: “I don’t like what I’m seeing so I’m lowering my head in judgment and peering down on you.”
Variant: Lowering the head with up-cast eyes or Forehead Bow (The), can easily be confused with a lowered head in judgment yet means something totally different. A bent head with relaxed up-cast eyes means agreement, confirmation, or even shame, but most importantly, signals submission. Angry eyes, coupled with head lowered, implies judgment. See Head Tilted Back, Peering Over The Glasses, and Bow and Body Bend, Forehead Bow (The).
Cue In Action: The librarian lowered her head, crossed her arms, and cast an icy stare at the boys who were fooling around.
Meaning and/or Motivation: The head down shows judgment or negative internal emotion and disapproval. The head down shows that a person is prepared for a battle. They are daring others to take a punch – instigating.
As with any head motion it is important to examine the adjoining clusters of body language to determine its true origins. For example, head down with eyes up can signal confrontation. The sender of the message wishes to make clear that they are in disagreement, feel anger and contempt. Adding arm crossed to head down would signify more prominently that there was negativity present, especially with arms crossed and an icy stare.
Don’t confuse the Forehead Bow with Lowered Head In Judgment. The two are different in terms of the eye contact and context.
Cue Cluster: My son who is just nine months old, as of this writing, will pull his chin in and put his head down so that I can’t see his eyes when I instruct him not to touch the buttons on my desktop computer tower. He also smirks when he doesn’t want to internalize and obey me. Next, he raises his left arm (usually) to the back of his neck and either (short) grabs his ear or the hair at the side of his head, or reaches all the way and scratches the back of his neck showing restraint. I say short-grab because the real cue is the grab the back of the neck, but his arms, being a baby are short and inflexible. Scratching the back of the neck is like “holding yourself back” by the scruff of the neck. This cue cluster has been important for my wife and I, as we ascertain what level of obedience we should expect based on whether or not he has actually internalized our instructions.
Body Language Category: Amplifier, Aggressive body language, Authoritative body language, Dislike (nonverbal), Evaluative, Power play, Suspicious body language or suspicion, Threat displays.
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