Category: Defensive body language

Body Language of The Ear Grab

Body Language of The Ear Grab

BodyLanguageProjectCom - Ear Grab 2Cue: Ear Grab

Synonym(s): Ear Rub, Ear Rubbing, Grabbing The Ear, Touching The Ear, Pulling At The Ear, Ear Pull, Ear Touch, Hand To Ear.

Description: The hand reaches up and grabs, scratches, tugs, or lightly touches or partially covers the ear. If an earring is being worn, a person might roll or tug it instead. In more overt ear language, a person might cover their ears completely, which is usual in children who haven’t yet learned to how to minimize the gesture.

In One Sentence: Grabbing the ear is attributed to those experiencing visceral stress but usually simply serves to alleviate an itch.

How To Use it: Touching parts of the face is not advisable as it generally comes across as negative. Do avoid touching the face as much as possible including the ears when trying to appear open and honest.

Context: a), b), c) General.

Verbal Translation: a) “I’m touching my ear because what I’m hearing is causing me stress and touching my ear helps to relieve it.” b) “I can’t believe what I’m hearing.” c) “This is causing me emotional discomfort and which is making my ears flush. To fix the discomfort, I feel like tugging at my ear.”

Variant: See Hand To Nose, Neck Rubbing (back of neck) or Holding The Back Of The Neck.

Cue In Action: a) During court proceedings, a witness began to delve deeper into the case. The defendant didn’t like what she was hearing and she began to flush in the ears causing her to tug at her ears. A used car salesman might talk about the quality of a certain car, then pull on his ear lobe, or more subtly, he might be found rubbing the edge of the ear, indicating that what he has just said is untrue.

Meaning and/or Motivation: The ear grab refers to a subconscious desire to “hear no evil” and is done by reaching up and pulling the ear in response to hearing or saying discomforting things. It also sometimes represents anxiety and nervousness.

Think of the ear grab like rubbing sore muscles or massaging a stiff back, except in this case the damage done is internal and it’s due to something that has been heard, which “hurts” the ears. Anytime someone shows the desire to touch their ear means that they are thinking about hearing, and it will be up to you to tie them to context and decide what it is they are really saying. Other times, the ear is scratched because it really is itchy and has no meaning at all (an adaptor).

The ear grab can be use not only at the conclusion of the lies of others, but also at the conclusion of our own lies as well. The gesture used at the conclusion of our own lies serves to reduce what is called “cognitive dissonance” which is the uncomfortable feeling that comes from holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously.

Cue Cluster: In order for the ear tug to have any true meaning of discomfort other cues must be present such as blushing, touching the face or neck, submissive cues, eye aversion or eyes shifting, head lowered, feet turning away, hands and feet freezing, rubbing the hands on the thighs, rubbing the back of the head or neck, massaging the throat or covering the neck dimple and so forth.

Body Language Category: Adaptors, Auto contact or self touching, Defensive, Displacement behaviour, Doubt or disbelief body language, Embarrassment (nonverbal), Pacifying, Lying or deceptive body language, Negative body language, Shy nonverbal.

Resources:

Akehurst, L., G. Kohnken, A. Vrij, and R. Bull. 1996. Lay persons’ and police officers’
beliefs regarding deceptive behaviour. Applied Cognitive Psychology 10: 461-471.

Appelbaum, P.S. The new lie detectors: Neuroscience, deception, and the courts. Psychiatric Services. 2007. 58: 460-462.

Barroso, Felix ; Feld, Jason. Self-touching and attentional processes: The role of task difficulty, selection stage, and sex differences. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 1986. 10(1): 51-64.

Butzen, Nathan David ; Bissonnette, Victor ; Mcbrayer, Dan. Effects of modeling and topic stimulus on self-referent touching. Perceptual and motor skills. 2005. 101(2): 413-20.

Broome, Marion E.. Helping Parents Support Their Child In Pain. Pediatric Nursing. 2000. 26(3): 315.

Bornstein, Marc H. ; Tamis-Lemonda, Catherine S. Maternal responsiveness and infant mental abilities: Specific predictive relations. Infant Behavior and Development. 1997. 20(3): 283-296.

Buckley, V., & Semple, S. (2012). Evidence that displacement activities facilitate behavioural transitions in ring-tailed lemurs. Behavioural Processes, 90, 433–435.

Bernal, Gilda Rios ; Wortham, Suec. How to Calm Children through Massage. Childhood Education. 1997. 74(1): 9-14.

Bouhuys, A.L. ; Jansen, C.J. ; van den Hoofdakker, R.H. Analysis of observed behaviors displayed by depressed patients during a clinical interview: relationships between behavioral factors and clinical concepts of activation. Journal of Affective Disorders. 1991. 21(2): 79-88.

Bouhuys, A.L. ; Beersma, Domien G.M. ; van den Hoofdakker, Rutger H. Observed behavior as a predictor of the response to sleep deprivation in depressed patients. Psychiatry Research. 1989. 28(1): 47-61.

Berridge CW,Mitton E, ClarkW, Roth RH. 1999. Engagement in a non-escape (displacement) behavior elicits a selective and lateralized suppression of frontal cortical dopaminergic utilization in stress. Synapse 32:187–197.

Bond, Michael H., and Hiroshi Komai (1976). “Targets of Gazing and Eye Contact During Interviews: Effects on Japanese Nonverbal Behavior.” In Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Vol. 34), pp. 1276-84.

Blakeslee, Sandra (1995). “In Brain’s Early Growth, Timetable Maybe Crucial.” In New York Times (“Science Times,” August 29), pp. C1, C3.

Caso, L., A. Gnisci, A. Vrij, and S. Mann. 2005. Processes underlying deception: an empirical analysis of truth and lies when manipulating the stakes. Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling 2 (3): 195-202.

Caplovitz Barrett, Karen. The origins of social emotions and self-regulation in toddlerhood: New evidence. Cognition & Emotion. 2005. 19(7): 953-979.

Castles, Duncan L. ; Whiten, Andrew ; Aureli, Filippo. Social anxiety, relationships and self-directed behaviour among wild female olive baboons. Animal Behaviour. 1999. 58(6): 1207-1215.

Charles v. Ford, Lies! Lies! Lies!: The Psychology of Deceit (Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press, Inc., 1996), 200.

Dimond, Stuart ; Harries, Rashida. Face touching in monkeys, apes and man: Evolutionary origins and cerebral asymmetry. Neuropsychologia. 1984. 22(2): 227-233.

D’alessio, M. ; Zazzetta, A. Development of Self-Touching Behavior in Childhood. Perceptual and Motor Skills. 1986. 63(1): 243-253.

DeSteno, D.; Breazeal, C.; Frank, R. H.; Pizarro, D.; Baumann, J.; Dickens, L, and Lee, J. Detecting the Trustworthiness of Novel Partners in Economic Exchange. Psychological Science. 2012. 23, 1549-1556.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/use-body-language-cues-create-trust

Elaad, E. 2003. Effects of feedback on the overestimated capacity to detect lies and the underestimated ability to tell lies. Applied Cognitive Psychology 17(3): 349-363.

Edelstein, R. S., T. L. Luten, P. Ekman, and G. S. Goodman. 2006. Detecting lies in children and adults. Law and Human Behavior 30(1): 1-10.

Ekman, Paul, and Wallace V. Friesen (1969). “Nonverbal Leakage and Clues to Deception.” In Psychiatry (Vol. 32), pp. 88-106.

Frank M.G. and Ekman P. 1997. The ability to detect deceit generalizes across different types of high-stake lies. Source: Journal of personality and social psychology. 72: 1429 -39

Gordon, A. K. and A. G. Miller. 2000. Perspective differences in the construal of lies: is deception in the eye of the beholder? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 26 (1): 46-55.

Goldberg, Shelly ; Rosenthal, Robert. Self-touching behavior in the job interview: Antecedents and consequences. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 1986. 10(1): 65-80.

Goodall, Jane (1986). The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University).

Givens, David B. (1976). An Ethological Approach to the Study of Human Nonverbal Communication (University of Washington Ph.D. dissertation in Anthropology, Ann Arbor: University Microfilms).

Grand, Stanley (1977). “On Hand Movements During Speech: Studies of the Role of Self-Stimulation in Communication Under Conditions of Psychopathology, Sensory Deficit, and Bilingualism.” In Norbert Freedman and Stanley Grand, eds., Communicative Structures and Psychic Structures: A Psycholanalytic Interpretation of Communication (New York: Plenum Press), pp. 199-221.

Hernandez-Reif, Maria ; Diego, Miguel ; Field, Tiffany. Preterm infants show reduced stress behaviors and activity after 5 days of massage therapy. Infant Behavior and Development. 2007. 30(4): 557-561.

Harrison, Lynda Law. The use of comforting touch and massage to reduce stress for preterm infants in the neonatal intensive care unit. Newborn and Infant Nursing Reviews. 2001. 1(4): 235-241.

Hennessy, Michael B ; T. Williams, Michael ; Miller, Deborah D ; Douglas, Chet W ; Voith, Victoria L. Influence of male and female petters on plasma cortisol and behaviour: can human interaction reduce the stress of dogs in a public animal shelter?
Applied Animal Behaviour Science. 1998. 61(1): 63-77.

Harrigan, Jinni A. Self-touching as an indicator of underlying affect and language processes. Social Science & Medicine. 1985. 20(11): 1161-1168.

Harrigan, Jinni A.; Karen S. Lucic; Denise Kay; Anne McLaney and Robert Rosenthal. Effect of Expresser Role and Type of Self-Touching on Observers’ Perceptions. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 1991. 21(7): 585-609.

Heaven, Laura ; Mcbrayer, Dan ; Prince, Bob. Role of sex in externally motivated self-touching gestures. Perceptual and motor skills. 2002. 95(1): 289-94.

Heaven, L ; Mcbrayer, D. External motivators of self-touching behavior. Perceptual and motor skills. 2000. 90(1): 338-42.

Kammers, Marjolein P.M. ; de Vignemont, Frédérique ; Haggard, Patrick. Cooling the Thermal Grill Illusion through Self-Touch. Current Biology. 2010. 20(20): 1819-182.

Katza, Carmit; Irit Hershkowitz; Lindsay C. Malloya; Michael E. Lamba; Armita Atabakia and Sabine Spindlera. Non-Verbal Behavior of Children Who Disclose or do not Disclose Child Abuse in Investigative Interviews. Child Abuse & Neglect. 2012. 36: 12-20.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/reading-nonverbal-behaviour-child-abuse-cases-encourage-children-divulge-information-truth-telling

Karagozoglu, Serife ; Kahve, Emine. Effects of back massage on chemotherapy-related fatigue and anxiety: Supportive care and therapeutic touch in cancer nursing. Applied Nursing Research. 2013. 26(4): 210-217.

Kossowsky, Joe ; Wilhelm, Frank H. ; Schneider, Silvia. Responses to voluntary hyperventilation in children with separation anxiety disorder: Implications for the link to panic disorder. Journal of Anxiety Disorders. 2013. 27(7): 627-634.

Kochanska, G., Coy, K. C., & Murray, K. T. (2001). The development of self-regulation in the first four years of life. Child Development, 72, 1091–1111.

Kochanska, G., Murray, K. T., & Harlan, E. T. (2000). Effortful control in early childhood: Continuity and change, antecedents, and implications for social development. Developmental Psychology, 36, 220–232.

Kenner, Andrew N. (1993). “A Cross-Cultural Study of Body-Focused Hand Movement.” In Journal of Nonverbal Behavior (Vol. 17, No. 4, Winter), pp. 263-79.

Lee Ann Renninger, T. Joel Wade, Karl Grammer. Getting that female glance: Patterns and consequences of male nonverbal behavior in courtship contexts. Evolution and Human Behavior. 2004; 25: 416–431.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/part-i-how-to-read-male-sexual-body-language-a-study-for-women-and-the-men-who-wish-to-cheat-the-system/

Mann, S., A. Vrij, and R. Bull. 2002. Suspects, lies, and videotape: an analysis of authentic high-stake liars. Law and Human Behavior 26 (3): 365-376.

Mann, S., A. Vrij, and R. Bull. 2004. Detecting true lies: police officers’ ability to detect suspects’ lies. Journal of Applied Psychology 89(1): 137-149.

Moszkowski, Robin J. ; Stack, Dale M. ; Chiarella, Sabrina S. Infant touch with gaze and affective behaviors during mother–infant still-face interactions: Co-occurrence and functions of touch. Infant Behavior and Development. 2009. 32(4): 392-403.

Maestripieri D, Schino G, Aureli F, Troisi A. 1992. A modest proposal: displacement activities as an indicator of emotions in primates. Anim Behav 44:967–979.

Mohiyeddini, C., Bauer, S., & Semple, S. (2013a). Displacement behaviour is associated with reduced stress levels among men but not women. PLoS One, 8, e56355.

Mohiyeddini, C., Bauer, S., & Semple, S. (2013b). Public self-consciousness moderates the link between displacement behaviour and experience of stress in women. Stress, 16, 384–392.

Mohiyeddini, C., & Semple, S. (2013). Displacement behaviour regulates the experience of stress in men. Stress, 16, 163–171.

Marcus-Newhall A, Pedersen WC, Carlson M, Miller N. 2000. Displaced aggression is alive and well: a meta-analytic review. J Pers Soc Psychol 78:670–689. Ingram GIC. 1960. Displacement activity in human behavior. Am Anthropol. 62:994–1003.

Morris, Desmond (1994). Bodytalk: The Meaning of Human Gestures (New York: Crown Publishers).

McGrew, W. C. (1972). “Aspects of Social Development in Nursery School Children with Emphasis on Introduction to the Group.” In N. G. Blurton Jones, ed., Ethological Studies of Child Behaviour (Cambridge: University Press), pp. 129-56.

Navarro, Joe. 2008. What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People. William Morrow Paperbacks.

Pease, Barbara and Allan Pease. 2006. The Definitive Book of Body Language Hardcover. Bantam.

Park, H. S., T. R. Levine, S. A. McCornack, K. Morrison, and M. Ferrara. How people really detect lies. Communication Monographs. 2002. 69: 144-157.

Pecora, Giulia ; Addessi, Elsa ; Schino, Gabriele ; Bellagamba, Francesca. Do displacement activities help preschool children to inhibit a forbidden action? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 2014. 126: 80-90.

Pugh, George E. (1977). The Biological Origin of Human Values (New York: Basic Books).

Rosenfeld, Howard (1973). “Nonverbal Reciprocation of Approval: An Experimental Analysis.” In Argyle *, pp. 163-72.

Sommer, Robert (1969). Personal Space: The Behavioral Basis of Design (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall).

Stromwell, L. A., P. A. Granhag, and S. Landstrom. 2007. Children’s prepared and unprepared lies: can adults see through their strategies? Applied Cognitive Psychology 21 (4): 457-471.

Schaafsma, Juliette ; Krahmer, Emiel ; Postma, Marie ; Swerts, Marc ; Balsters, Martijn ; Vingerhoets, Ad. Comfortably Numb? Nonverbal Reactions to Social Exclusion. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 2015. 39(1): 25-39.

Schino G, Perretta G, Taglioni AM, Monaco V, Troisi A. 1996. Primate displacement activities as an ethopharmacological model of anxiety. Anxiety 2:186–191.

Supplee, Lauren H ; Skuban, Emily Moye ; Shaw, Daniel S ; Prout, Joanna. Emotion regulation strategies and later externalizing behavior among European American and African American children. Development and Psychopathology. 2009. 21(2): 393-415.

Troisi A (2002) Displacement activities as a behavioural measure of stress in nonhuman primates and human subjects. Stress 5: 47–54.

Troisi A (1999) Ethological research in clinical psychiatry: the study of nonverbal
behaviour during interviews. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 23: 905–913.

Troisi A, Moles A (1999) Gender differences in depression: an ethological study
of nonverbal behaviour during interviews. J Psychiatr Res 33: 243–250.

Vrij, A. and G. R. Semin. 1996. Lie experts’ beliefs about nonverbal indicators of
deception. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 20: 65-80.

Vrij, A. 1997. Individual differences in hand movements during deception. Source: Journal of nonverbal behavior. 21: 87-102.

Vrij, A.. 2004. Why professionals fail to catch liars and how they can improve Source: Legal and Criminological Psychology. 9:159-181.

Vrij, A., S. Mann, and S. Kristen. 2007. Cues to deception and ability to detect lies as a function of police interview styles. Law and Human Behavior 31 (5): 499-518.

von Hippel W, von Hippel C, Conway L, Preacher KJ, Schooler JW, et al. (2005) Coping with stereotype threat: denial as an impression management strategy. J Personal Soc Psychol 89: 22–35.

Body Language of Crouching

Body Language of Crouching

BodyLanguageProjectCom - Crouching 2Cue: Crouching

Synonym(s): Cowering

Description: The body takes on a smaller form by bending at the knees or ducking the head.

In One Sentence: Cowering by lowering and taking on a smaller body profile indicates that one desires to submit.

How To Use it: Cower when you want to feel more protected or to ‘hide in plain sight.’ Bringing the chin down, arms in and slumping the shoulders will show others that you are not prepared to battle. More than likely, people will come to your assistance and offer you sympathy and care rather than present further attack. Cowering is best done when you feel that you can not win against another person and instead wish to manipulate their gentle side.

By reducing your profile, you are not only producing a smaller target for attack, but you are also flexing muscles which will help brace against impact. When viewed by an aggressor, cowering is a cue telling him or her than you are not a threat to their dominance and do not wish to challenge them. If read properly by an aggressor, it will lessen their verbal or physical violence.

Context: General.

Verbal Translation: “I’m scared. I’m going to shrink the outline of my body in effort to escape injury or emotional threat.”

Variant: Bow and Body Bend, Body Lowering or Body Shrinking.

Cue In Action: a) A foul ball was coming straight for her so she duck her head down and bent her knees. b) The boss came in looking for trouble so the employees ducked down in their cubicles so they wouldn’t attract attention.

Meaning and/or Motivation: Crouching or cowering is a submissive body posture done to reduce confrontation. Crouching out of fear is a universal posture. When scared either due to emotional discomfort of physical fear, our bodies will shrink down to become a smaller target. Instinctively, people will pull their arms in, tuck their chins down, lower their eyes and otherwise seem to succumb to the effects of gravity.

Making the body smaller is the opposite of defying gravity through expansive movements. It is an indication of confidence and desire in the ability to challenge others.

Cue Cluster: Our heads tuck into our shoulders, our eyes wince and our face scrunches up. Heads can also drop forward to protect the neck from attack and the arms brought up over the chest to protect the heart and lungs. All sorts of crouching takes place over the body and takes on the form of contracted muscles pulling on various parts of the body and shrinking up. When bodies are un-crouched, they are relaxed and loose.

Body Language Category: Body size reduction, Closed body language, Defensive, Distancing or moving away, Escape movements, Fearful body language, Orienting reflex or orienting response, Protective reflexes, Submissive body language.

Resources:

Aviezer H, Trope Y, Todorov A. Body cues, not facial expressions, discriminate between intense positive and negative emotions. Science 2012;338:1225–9.

Allen, Jill; Sarah J. Gervais and Jessi L. Smith. Sit Big to Eat Big: The Interaction of Body Posture and Body Concern on Restrained Eating. Psychology of Women Quarterly 2013. 37(3): 325-336. DOI: 10.1177/0361684313476477pwq.sagepub.com
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/sit-big-to-eat-big-how-constrictive-postures-reduce-food-consumption/

Blidstein, Gerald J. The Nonverbal Language of Prayer (review).Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies. 2007 25(2): 195-196.

Brin, Pablo and Oli Richard. Body Posture Effects On Self-Evaluation: A self-Validation Approach. European Journal of Social Psychology. 2009; 39: 1053–1064.

Boyson, A. R., Pryor, B., & Butler, J. (1999). Height as power in women. North American Journal of Psychology, 1, 109–114.

Burgoon, J. K., & Hoobler, G. (2002). Nonverbal signals. In M. L. Knapp & J. A. Daly (Eds.), Handbook of interpersonal communication (3rd ed., pp. 240–299). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Burgoon, J. K., Johnson, M. L., & Koch, P. T. (1998). The nature and measurement of interpersonal dominance. Communication Monographs, 65, 308–335.

Cunha, U. ; Leduc, M. ; Nayak, U.S.L. ; Isaacs, B.. Why do old people stoop? Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics. 1987 6(4): 363-369.

Cashdan, Elizabeth. Smiles, Speech, and Body Posture: How Women and Men Display Sociometric Status and Power. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 1998. 22(4): 209-228.

Carney, D. R., Hall, J. A., & LeBeau, L. S. (2005). Beliefs about the nonverbal expression of social power. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 29, 105–123.

Darwin, Charles (1872). The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, third edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).

Dunn, Cynthia Dickel. Speaking politely, kindly, and beautifully: ideologies of politeness in Japanese business etiquette training. Multilingua: Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication. 2013. 32(2): 225(21).

Ellis, L. (1994). The high and the mighty among man and beast: How universal is the relationship between height (or body size) and social status? In L. Ellis (Ed.). Social stratification and socioeconomic inequality (Vol. 2, pp. 93–111). Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.

Ginsburg, Harvey J. ; Pollman, Vicki A. ; Wauson, Mitzi S. Odom, Richard D. (editor). An ethological analysis of nonverbal inhibitors of aggressive behavior in male elementary school children. Developmental Psychology. 1977 13(4): 417-418.

Geisser M, Robinson M, Keefe F, Weiner M. Catastrophizing, depression and the sensory, affective and evaluative aspects of chronic pain. PAIN. 1994;59:79–83.

Katza, Carmit; Irit Hershkowitz; Lindsay C. Malloya; Michael E. Lamba; Armita Atabakia and Sabine Spindlera. Non-Verbal Behavior of Children Who Disclose or do not Disclose Child Abuse in Investigative Interviews. Child Abuse & Neglect. 2012. 36: 12-20.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/reading-nonverbal-behaviour-child-abuse-cases-encourage-children-divulge-information-truth-telling

Krumhuber, Eva ; Manstead, Antony ; Kappas, Arvid. Temporal Aspects of Facial Displays in Person and Expression Perception: The Effects of Smile Dynamics, Head-tilt, and Gender. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 2007. (1): 39-56

Kimbrell, G. Relationship of the upright agonistic posture in the foot shock situation to dominance-submission in male C57BL/6 mice. Psychonomic Science. 1969. 16(3): 167-168.

Martens, Jason P.; Jessica L. Tracy and Azim F. Shariff. Status signals: Adaptive
benefits of displaying and observing the nonverbal expressions of pride and shame, Cognition & Emotion. 2012. 26(3): 390-406. DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2011.645281
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/significant-nonverbal-expression-pride-shame-body-language-detailed-examination-origin-function/

Marsh, Abigail A; Henry H. Yu; Julia C. Schechter and R. J. R. Blair. Larger than Life: Humans’ Nonverbal Status Cues Alter Perceived Size. PLoS ONE. 2009. 4(5): e5707. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0005707.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/large-life-nonverbal-dominance-affects-perception-size/

Marsh, Abigail A; Karina S. Blair; Matthew M. Jones; Niveen Soliman, and R. J. R. Blair. Dominance and Submission: The Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex and Responses to Status Cues Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 2009. 21:4, pp. 713–724.

Mignault, Alain and Chaudhuri, Avi. The Many Faces of a Neutral Face: Head Tilt and Perception of Dominance and Emotion. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 2003 27(2): 111-132.

Meier, B. P., Hauser, D. J., Robinson, M. D., Friesen, C. K., & Schjeldahl, K. (2007b). What’s ‘up’ with God?: Vertical space as a representation of the divine. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 699–710.

Meier, B. P., & Robinson, M. D. (2004). Why the sunny side is up: Associations between affect and vertical position. Psychological Science, 15, 243–247.

Meier, B. P., & Robinson, M. D. (2005). The metaphorical representation of affect. Metaphor and Symbol, 21, 239–257.

Meier, B.P., Robinson, M.D., & Caven, A.J. (in press). Why a big mac is a good mac: Associations between affect and size. Basic and Applied Social Psychology.

Melamed, T. (1992). Personality correlates of physical height. Personality and Individual Differences, 13, 1349–1350.

Middleton, W. C., &Moffett, D. C. (1940). The relation of height and weight measurements to intelligence and to dominance-submission among a group of college freshmen. Research Quarterly of the American Association for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation, 11, 53–59.

Montepare, J. M. (1995). The impact of variations in height on young children’s impressions of men and women. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 19, 31–47.

Matsumura, Shuichi ; Hayden, Thomas J. When should signals of submission be given?–A game theory model. Journal of Theoretical Biology. 2006. 240(3): 425-433.

Mehrabian, Albert Deese, James (editor). Significance of posture and position in the communication of attitude and status relationships. Psychological Bulletin. 1969. 71(5): 359-372.

Matsumoto, D., & Willingham, B. (2006). The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat: Spontaneous expressions of medal winners of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91(3), 568–581.

Mouterde, S. C., Duganzich, D. M., Molles, L. E., Helps, S., Helps, R., & Waas, J. R. (2012). Triumph displays inform eavesdropping little blue penguins of new dominance asymmetries. Animal Behaviour, 83, 605–611.

Oosterwijk, Suzanne; Mark Rotteveel; Agneta H. Fischer and Ursula Hess. Embodied Emotion Concepts: How Generating Words About Pride and Disappointment Influences Posture. European Journal of Social Psychology. 2009. 39: 457–466. DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.584
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/embodiment-nonverbal-posture-thinking-pride-shame-literally-changes-body-language/

Navarro, Joe. 2008. What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People. William Morrow Paperbacks.

Pitterman, Hallee ; Nowicki Jr, Stephen. A Test of the Ability to Identify Emotion in Human Standing and Sitting Postures: The Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy-2 Posture Test (DANVA2-POS). Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs. 2004. 130(2): 146-162.

Park, Lora E.; Lindsey Streamer; Li Huang and Adam D. Galinsky. Stand Tall, But Don’t Put Your Feet Up: Universal and Culturally-Specific Effects of Expansive Postures On Power. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 2013; 49: 965–971.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/are-expansive-postures-of-power-universal-or-cultural/

Pablo Briñol; Richard E. Petty and Benjamin Wagner. Body Posture Effects on Self-Evaluation: A Self-Validation Approach. European Journal of Social Psychology. 2009. 39(6): 1099-0992. DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.607. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.607
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/fix-posture-fix-confidence/

Prieto, A. G., & Robbins, M. C. (1975). Perceptions of height and self-esteem. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 40, 395–398.

Pugh, George E. (1977). The Biological Origin of Human Values (New York: Basic Books).

Robinson, Michael D. ; Zabelina, Darya L. ; Ode, Scott ; Moeller, Sara K. The vertical nature of dominance-submission: Individual differences in vertical attention. Journal of Research in Personality. 2008. 42(4): 933-948.

Rahaman, H., and M. Parthasarathy (1968). “The Expressive Movements of the Bonnet Macaque.” In Primates (Vol. 9), pp. 259-72.

Riskind, John H. Manis, Melvin (editor). They stoop to conquer: Guiding and self-regulatory functions of physical posture after success and failure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1984 47(3): 479-493.

Rule, Nicholas, O.; Reginald B. Adams Jr.; Nalini Ambady and Jonathan B. Freeman. Perceptions Of Dominance Following Glimpses Of Faces And Bodies. Perception. 2012; 41: 687-706 doi:10.1068/p7023
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/people-can-read-dominance-split-second

Scarpa, Stephano; Alessandra Nart; Erica Gobbi and Atillo Carraro. Does Women’s Attitudinal State Body Image Improve After One Session Of Posture Correction Exercises? Social Behavior and Personality. 2011; 39(8): 1045-1052.

Schubert, T. W. (2005). Your highness: Vertical positions as perceptual symbols of power. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 89, 1–21.

Schubert, T. W. (2005). Your highness: Vertical positions as perceptual symbols of power. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 1–21.

Schwartz, B., Tesser, A., & Powell, E. (1982). Dominance cues in nonverbal behavior. Social Psychology Quarterly, 45, 114–120.

Stepper, S., & Strack, F. (1993). Proprioceptive determinants of emotional and nonemotional feelings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 211–220.

Schenkel, Rudolf. Submission: Its Features and Function in the Wolf and Dog. American Zoologist. 1967. 7(2): 319-329.

Tracy, J. L., & Matsumoto, D. (2008). The spontaneous expression of pride and shame: Evidence for biologically innate nonverbal displays. Proceedings from the National Academy of Sciences, 105(33), 11655–11660.

Tracy, J. L., & Robins, R. W. (2007). The prototypical pride expression: Development of a nonverbal behavior coding system. Emotion, 7(4), 789–801.

Tiedens, Larissa Z ; Fragale, Alison R. Power moves: complementarity in dominant and submissive nonverbal behavior. Journal of personality and social psychology. 2003. 84(3): 558-68.

Tracy, J. L., & Robins, R. W. (2004). Show your pride: Evidence for a discrete emotion expression. Psychological Science, 15, 194–197.

Teixeira Fiquer, Juliana; Paulo Sérgio Boggio and Clarice Gorenstein. Talking Bodies: Nonverbal Behavior in the Assessment of Depression Severity. Journal of Affective Disorders. 2013. 150: 1114-1119.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/using-nonverbal-behaviour-to-assess-depression-severity/

Weisfeld, Glenn E. and Jody M. Beresford. Erectness of Posture as an Indicator of Dominance or Success in Humans. Motivation and Emotion. 1982. 6(2): 113-130.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/body-language-cues-dominance-submission-children/

Welker, Keith M. ; Oberleitner, David E. ; Cain, Samantha ; Carré, Justin M. Upright and left out: Posture moderates the effects of social exclusion on mood and threats to basic needs. European Journal of Social Psychology. 2013 43(5): 355-361.

Weisbuch, Max ; Slepian, Michael L ; Eccleston, Collette P ; Ambady, Nalini. Nonverbal Expressions of Status and System Legitimacy. Psychological Science. 2013. 24(11): 2315-2321.

Walsh, Joseph ; Eccleston, Christopher ; Keogh, Edmund. Pain communication through body posture: The development and validation of a stimulus set. Pain. 2014. 155(11): 2282-2290.

Body Language of Covering The Neck Dimple or Hand To Lower Neck

Body Language of Covering The Neck Dimple or Hand To Lower Neck

BodyLanguageProjectCom - Covering The Neck Dimple or Hand to Lower Neck 1Cue: Covering The Neck Dimple or Hand to Lower Neck

Synonym(s): Covering The Suprasternal Notch, Hand To Lower Neck, Playing With A Necklace, Neck Dimple Cover, Adjusting The Tie, Tie Adjustment.

Description: A primarily female body language cue where the hand will come up to the upper chest or lower neck and cover the suprasternal notch or neck dimple. Men will substitute this gesture for adjusting the tie or massaging the throat.

In One Sentence: Covering the neck dimple or suprasternal notch is a sign that a person is feeling nervous, distressed, threatened, insecure, fearful, or uncomfortable.

How To Use it: Use this cue to show other people that you are not comfortable with the situation. You might assume the posture when receiving worrisome news. Appearing uncomfortable when the situation warrants it will have others offer sympathetic words, gestures or even offer to rectify the situation on your behalf. The posture also creates a soothing affect which can help mitigate nervousness or anxiety. Stroking the upper chest can release positive stress reducing hormones.

Context: General.

Verbal Translation: “I’m performing a partial arm cross by bringing my hand up to the “suprasternal notch” which is the dimple just below the neck between the Adam’s apple and the breast bone because I’m nervous, distressed, threatened, insecure, fearful or uncomfortable.”

Variant: See Partial Arm Cross or Incomplete Arm Cross, Blading Body Language, Body Angling or Ventral Displays, Arm Crossing, Neck Scratching or Neck Massaging.

Cue In Action: Imagine a tense negotiation between a couple who are making plans for their honeymoon vacation. The wife might be cupping her arm under her elbow while covering her suprasternal notch while the husband clasps the back of his neck in a restraint posture. As he concedes she might drop one or even both arms. With no concession from her, he might remain negatively locked or might place his arms crossed on his chest. Sensing his negative body language, she might agree to a compromise.

Meaning and/or Motivation: Women are particularly prone to bringing their hand up to the “suprasternal notch” which is the dimple just below the neck between the Adam’s apple and the breast bone when nervous, distressed, threatened, insecure, fearful or uncomfortable. Covering the suprasternal notch is one of the nonverbal signals that is unmistakable and also reliable in predicting emotional distress. It is significant and reliable enough that it shouldn’t be ignored.

While touching the neck and nose can be the result of fear or nervousness, they can also be meant as pacifying behaviours. Pacifying behaviours happen automatically. Our brains send a message to our bodies that we need to be pacified and out go our hands to serve the purpose.

Cue Cluster: Watch for the neck to be massaged, playing with a necklace, stroking the face, playing with the hair, stroking hands against the thighs, sucking on a pen, biting the fingernails, picking or pulling at the skin, etc.

Body Language Category: Auto contact or self touching, Barriers, Body cross, Closed body language, Defensive, Emotional body language, Lying or deceptive body language, Masked body language, Pacifying, Protective reflexes.

Resources:

Barroso, Felix ; Feld, Jason. Self-touching and attentional processes: The role of task difficulty, selection stage, and sex differences. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 1986. 10(1): 51-64.

Butzen, Nathan David ; Bissonnette, Victor ; Mcbrayer, Dan. Effects of modeling and topic stimulus on self-referent touching. Perceptual and motor skills. 2005. 101(2): 413-20.

Broome, Marion E.. Helping Parents Support Their Child In Pain. Pediatric Nursing. 2000. 26(3): 315.

Bornstein, Marc H. ; Tamis-Lemonda, Catherine S. Maternal responsiveness and infant mental abilities: Specific predictive relations. Infant Behavior and Development. 1997. 20(3): 283-296.

Buckley, V., & Semple, S. (2012). Evidence that displacement activities facilitate behavioural transitions in ring-tailed lemurs. Behavioural Processes, 90, 433–435.

Bernal, Gilda Rios ; Wortham, Suec. How to Calm Children through Massage. Childhood Education. 1997. 74(1): 9-14.

Bouhuys, A.L. ; Jansen, C.J. ; van den Hoofdakker, R.H. Analysis of observed behaviors displayed by depressed patients during a clinical interview: relationships between behavioral factors and clinical concepts of activation. Journal of Affective Disorders. 1991. 21(2): 79-88.

Bouhuys, A.L. ; Beersma, Domien G.M. ; van den Hoofdakker, Rutger H. Observed behavior as a predictor of the response to sleep deprivation in depressed patients. Psychiatry Research. 1989. 28(1): 47-61.

Berridge CW,Mitton E, ClarkW, Roth RH. 1999. Engagement in a non-escape (displacement) behavior elicits a selective and lateralized suppression of frontal cortical dopaminergic utilization in stress. Synapse 32:187–197.

Bond, Michael H., and Hiroshi Komai (1976). “Targets of Gazing and Eye Contact During Interviews: Effects on Japanese Nonverbal Behavior.” In Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Vol. 34), pp. 1276-84.

Blakeslee, Sandra (1995). “In Brain’s Early Growth, Timetable Maybe Crucial.” In New York Times (“Science Times,” August 29), pp. C1, C3.

Caplovitz Barrett, Karen. The origins of social emotions and self-regulation in toddlerhood: New evidence. Cognition & Emotion. 2005. 19(7): 953-979.

Cacioppo, J. T., Priester, J. R., & Berntson, G. G. (1993). Rudimentary determinants of attitudes: II. Arm flexion and extension have differential effects on attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 5–17.

Castles, Duncan L. ; Whiten, Andrew ; Aureli, Filippo. Social anxiety, relationships and self-directed behaviour among wild female olive baboons. Animal Behaviour. 1999. 58(6): 1207-1215.

D’alessio, M. ; Zazzetta, A. Development of Self-Touching Behavior in Childhood. Perceptual and Motor Skills. 1986. 63(1): 243-253.

Dimond, Stuart ; Harries, Rashida. Face touching in monkeys, apes and man: Evolutionary origins and cerebral asymmetry. Neuropsychologia. 1984. 22(2): 227-233.

Ekman, Paul, and Wallace V. Friesen (1969). “Nonverbal Leakage and Clues to Deception.” In Psychiatry (Vol. 32), pp. 88-106.

Fo¨rster, J. (2004). How body feedback influences consumer’s evaluation of products. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 14, 415–425.

Friedman, R. S., & Fo¨rster, J. (2000). The effects of approach and avoidance motor actions on the elements of creative insight. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 477–492.

Foster, Laura Gutermuth. Nervous Habits and Stereotyped Behaviors in Preschool Children. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 1998. 37(7): 711-717.

Friman, P C ; Mcpherson, K M ; Warzak, W J ; Evans, J. Influence of thumb sucking on peer social acceptance in first-grade children. Pediatrics. 1993. 91(4): 784-6.

Karagozoglu, Serife ; Kahve, Emine. Effects of back massage on chemotherapy-related fatigue and anxiety: Supportive care and therapeutic touch in cancer nursing. Applied Nursing Research. 2013. 26(4): 210-217.

Goodall, Jane (1986). The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University).

Givens, David B. (1976). An Ethological Approach to the Study of Human Nonverbal Communication (University of Washington Ph.D. dissertation in Anthropology, Ann Arbor: University Microfilms).

Grand, Stanley (1977). “On Hand Movements During Speech: Studies of the Role of Self-Stimulation in Communication Under Conditions of Psychopathology, Sensory Deficit, and Bilingualism.” In Norbert Freedman and Stanley Grand, eds., Communicative Structures and Psychic Structures: A Psycholanalytic Interpretation of Communication (New York: Plenum Press), pp. 199-221.

Goldberg, Shelly ; Rosenthal, Robert. Self-touching behavior in the job interview: Antecedents and consequences. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 1986. 10(1): 65-80.

Garnefski N 2004) Cognitive emotion regulation strategies and depressive symptoms: differences between males and female. Personal Indiv Diff 36: 267–76.

Hernandez-Reif, Maria ; Diego, Miguel ; Field, Tiffany. Preterm infants show reduced stress behaviors and activity after 5 days of massage therapy. Infant Behavior and Development. 2007. 30(4): 557-561.

Harrison, Lynda Law. The use of comforting touch and massage to reduce stress for preterm infants in the neonatal intensive care unit. Newborn and Infant Nursing Reviews. 2001. 1(4): 235-241.

Hennessy, Michael B ; T. Williams, Michael ; Miller, Deborah D ; Douglas, Chet W ; Voith, Victoria L. Influence of male and female petters on plasma cortisol and behaviour: can human interaction reduce the stress of dogs in a public animal shelter?
Applied Animal Behaviour Science. 1998. 61(1): 63-77.

Harrigan, Jinni A. Self-touching as an indicator of underlying affect and language processes. Social Science & Medicine. 1985. 20(11): 1161-1168.

Harrigan, Jinni A.; Karen S. Lucic; Denise Kay; Anne McLaney and Robert Rosenthal. Effect of Expresser Role and Type of Self-Touching on Observers’ Perceptions. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 1991. 21(7): 585-609.

Heaven, Laura ; Mcbrayer, Dan ; Prince, Bob. Role of sex in externally motivated self-touching gestures. Perceptual and motor skills. 2002. 95(1): 289-94.

Heaven, L ; Mcbrayer, D. External motivators of self-touching behavior. Perceptual and motor skills. 2000. 90(1): 338-42.

Kochanska, G., Coy, K. C., & Murray, K. T. (2001). The development of self-regulation in the first four years of life. Child Development, 72, 1091–1111.

Kochanska, G., Murray, K. T., & Harlan, E. T. (2000). Effortful control in early childhood: Continuity and change, antecedents, and implications for social development. Developmental Psychology, 36, 220–232.

Kenner, Andrew N. (1993). “A Cross-Cultural Study of Body-Focused Hand Movement.” In Journal of Nonverbal Behavior (Vol. 17, No. 4, Winter), pp. 263-79.

Kammers, Marjolein P.M. ; de Vignemont, Frédérique ; Haggard, Patrick. Cooling the Thermal Grill Illusion through Self-Touch. Current Biology. 2010. 20(20): 1819-182.

Kirschbaum C, Pirke K-M, Hellhammer DH. 1993. The ‘Trier Social Stress Test’: a tool for investigating psychobiological stress responses in a laboratory setting. Neuropsychobiology 28: 76–81.

Laird, J. D., Wagener, J. J., Halal, M., & Szegda, M. (1982). Remembering what you feel: Effects of emotion on memory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42, 646–657.

Marsh, Abigail A; Henry H. Yu; Julia C. Schechter and R. J. R. Blair. Larger than Life: Humans’ Nonverbal Status Cues Alter Perceived Size. PLoS ONE. 2009. 4(5): e5707. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0005707. http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/large-life-nonverbal-dominance-affects-perception-size/

Moszkowski, Robin J. ; Stack, Dale M. ; Chiarella, Sabrina S. Infant touch with gaze and affective behaviors during mother–infant still-face interactions: Co-occurrence and functions of touch. Infant Behavior and Development. 2009. 32(4): 392-403.

Maestripieri D, Schino G, Aureli F, Troisi A. 1992. A modest proposal: displacement activities as an indicator of emotions in primates. Anim Behav 44:967–979.

Mohiyeddini, C., Bauer, S., & Semple, S. (2013a). Displacement behaviour is associated with reduced stress levels among men but not women. PLoS One, 8, e56355.

Mohiyeddini, C., Bauer, S., & Semple, S. (2013b). Public self-consciousness moderates the link between displacement behaviour and experience of stress in women. Stress, 16, 384–392.

Mohiyeddini, C., & Semple, S. (2013). Displacement behaviour regulates the experience of stress in men. Stress, 16, 163–171.

Marcus-Newhall A, Pedersen WC, Carlson M, Miller N. 2000. Displaced aggression is alive and well: a meta-analytic review. J Pers Soc Psychol 78:670–689. Ingram GIC. 1960. Displacement activity in human behavior. Am Anthropol. 62:994–1003.

Morris, Desmond (1994). Bodytalk: The Meaning of Human Gestures (New York: Crown Publishers).

McGrew, W. C. (1972). “Aspects of Social Development in Nursery School Children with Emphasis on Introduction to the Group.” In N. G. Blurton Jones, ed., Ethological Studies of Child Behaviour (Cambridge: University Press), pp. 129-56.

Navarro, Joe. 2008. What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People. William Morrow Paperbacks.

Nolen-Hoeksema S, Aldao A (2011) Gender and age differences in emotion regulation strategies and their relationship to depressive symptoms. Personal Indiv Diff 51: 704–8.

Neumann, R., & Strack, F. (2000). Approach and avoidance: The influence of proprioceptive and exteroceptive cues on encoding of affective information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 39–48.

Pecora, Giulia ; Addessi, Elsa ; Schino, Gabriele ; Bellagamba, Francesca. Do displacement activities help preschool children to inhibit a forbidden action? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 2014. 126: 80-90.

Pugh, George E. (1977). The Biological Origin of Human Values (New York: Basic Books).

Rosenfeld, Howard (1973). “Nonverbal Reciprocation of Approval: An Experimental Analysis.” In Argyle *, pp. 163-72.

Riskind, J. H., & Gotay, C. C. (1982). Physical posture: Could it have regulatory or feedback effects upon motivation and emotion? Motivation and Emotion, 6, 273–296.

Schaafsma, Juliette ; Krahmer, Emiel ; Postma, Marie ; Swerts, Marc ; Balsters, Martijn ; Vingerhoets, Ad. Comfortably Numb? Nonverbal Reactions to Social Exclusion. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 2015. 39(1): 25-39.

Schino G, Perretta G, Taglioni AM, Monaco V, Troisi A. 1996. Primate displacement activities as an ethopharmacological model of anxiety. Anxiety 2:186–191.

Supplee, Lauren H ; Skuban, Emily Moye ; Shaw, Daniel S ; Prout, Joanna. Emotion regulation strategies and later externalizing behavior among European American and African American children. Development and Psychopathology. 2009. 21(2): 393-415.

Stepper, S., & Strack, F. (1993). Proprioceptive determinants of emotional and nonemotional feelings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 211–220.

Sommer, Robert (1969). Personal Space: The Behavioral Basis of Design (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall).

Tamir, M., Robinson, M. D., Clore, G. L., Martin, L. L., & Whitaker, D. J. (2004). Are we puppets on a string? The contextual meaning of unconscious expressive cues. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 237–249.

Troisi A. 1999. Ethological research in clinical psychiatry: the study of nonverbal behaviour during interviews. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 23:905–913.

Troisi A. 2002. Displacement activities as a behavioral measure of stress in nonhuman primates and human subjects. Stress 5: 47–54.

Tamres L, Janicki D, Helgeson VS (2002) Sex differences in coping behaviour: a
meta-analytic review. Personal Soc Psychol Rev 6: 2–30.

Troisi A (1999) Ethological research in clinical psychiatry: the study of nonverbal
behaviour during interviews. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 23: 905–913.

Troisi A, Moles A (1999) Gender differences in depression: an ethological study
of nonverbal behaviour during interviews. J Psychiatr Res 33: 243–250.

Vannorsdall, Tracy ; Dahlquist, Lynnda ; Shroff Pendley, Jennifer ; Power, Thomas. The Relation Between Nonessential Touch and Children’s Distress During Lumbar Punctures. Children’s Health Care. 2004. 33(4): 299-315.

von Hippel W, von Hippel C, Conway L, Preacher KJ, Schooler JW, et al. (2005) Coping with stereotype threat: denial as an impression management strategy. J Personal Soc Psychol 89: 22–35.

Body Language of Competitive Head-To-Head Seating Arrangement

Body Language of Competitive Head-To-Head Seating Arrangement

BodyLanguageProjectCom - Competitive Head-To-Head Seating Arrangement 1Cue: Competitive Head-To-Head Seating Arrangement

Synonym(s): Head-To-Head Sitting Position, Sitting Face-To-Face, Sitting Square, Head-On Sitting Position.

Description: A seating arrangement where people sit facing each other directly from across a table.

In One Sentence: The competitive head-to-head seating arrangement signals that one is prepared to square off in battle.

How To Use it: Use this seating arrangement when one wishes to set one apart from another. When you are sure your ideas will oppose another, then sitting on the other side of the table will help show others nonverbally that one is not in agreement. Lawyers are advised to square off in this fashion as it shows that they are against the opposite lawyer while being linked to their clients. In other words, their affiliation is nonverbally obvious.

Bosses, can set up employees in head-to-head arrangements in order to spark debate between them. This can help them come up with competing and often novel solutions to problems.

Head-to-head is common in dating, but it is a double edged sword. Since dates in the West are usually conducted as “job interviews” where one faces off against their opponent, this sitting arrangement works well. It permits the two individuals to share relevant information, answer questions, and each person is able to study the facial expressions of their counterpart. However, this produces a sterile, and, as mentioned, a combative environment. To fix this, simply move to the same side of the table.

Context: a) General b) Business.

Verbal Translation: “We generally disagree with one another and need to keep separate and face off in a competitive position, head-to-head.”

Variant: Chairs can face head-to-head across square, rectangular or circular tables, but the arrangement means the same. See other seating arrangements for variants such as Casual Corner Seating Arrangement and Cooperative Side-By-Side Seating Arrangement.

Cue In Action: a) During the preliminary divorce proceedings Jill and Dave sat across from one another coupled with their proper lawyers in the cooperative side-by-side arrangement. b) Mary always took up the opposite seat to Dave and had a habit of always undermining his opinion.

Meaning and/or Motivation: Competitive head-to-head position sets up combative situations. This closed seating positions convey formality, distance and authority, defensiveness and even divisiveness. Open orientations with chair on the same side of the table convey interest and comfort.

Even when competition isn’t directly encouraged, research finds that the closed position still becomes an issue because the table provides a clear boundary between each party.

Sitting at odds of one another might seem like a great idea during a date because it offers full view, but if true intimacy is desired, then sitting on the same side of the table is advised. When couples do this on a first date, they invite a question and answer, ‘interview style’ interaction where each party tends to face off and challenge one another instead of creating affiliation and cooperation.

Cue Cluster: Parties can either be leaning in to show aggression or leaning backward in a passive posture. Various degrees of aggressiveness might also be present such as finger pointing, loud voices, batoning or averted eyes, head lowered and quiet voice.

Body Language Category: Barriers, Seating arrangements, Closed body language, Defensive, Distancing or moving away.

Resources:

Argyle, M., & Dean, I. Eye contact, distance and affiliation. Sociometry, 1965, 28, 289-304.

Boucher, Michael L. Holzberg, Jules D. (editor). Effect of seating distance on interpersonal attraction in an interview situation. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 1972 38(1): 15-19.

Bania, Amanda E. ; Stromberg, Erin E. Call, Joseph (editor). The Effect of Body Orientation on Judgments of Human Visual Attention in Western Lowland Gorillas.
Journal of Comparative Psychology. 2013. 127(1): 82-90.

Belhiah, Hassan. Tutoring as an embodied activity: How speech, gaze and body orientation are coordinated to conduct ESL tutorial business. Journal of Pragmatics. 2009. 41(4): 829-841.

Cook, M. Experiments on orientation and proxemics. Human Relations, 1970, 23, 61-67.

Clack, B., Dixon, J., & Tredoux, C. (2005). Eating together apart: Patterns of segregation in a multi-ethnic cafeteria. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 15, 1-16. doi:10.1002/casp.787

Castelli, Luigi ; Carraro, Luciana ; Pavan, Giulia ; Murelli, Elisa ; Carraro, Alessia. The Power of the Unsaid: The Influence of Nonverbal Cues on Implicit Attitudes. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 2012 42(6): 1376-1393.

Coutts, Larrym. ; Ledden, Maribeth. Nonverbal Compensatory Reactions to Changes in Interpersonal Proximity. The Journal of Social Psychology. 1977 102(2): 283-290.

Danielle Jackson, Erika Engstrom and Tara Emmers-Sommer. 2007. Think Leader, Think Male and Female: Sex vs. Seating Arrangement as Leadership Cues. Sex Roles. 57 (9/10): 713-723.

Felipe, N. Interpersonal distance and small group interaction. Cornell Journal of Social Relations, 1966, 1, 59-64.

Felipe, N. Connotations of seating arrangements. Cornell Journal of Social Relations, 1967, 2, 37-44.

Gifford, Robert ; O’Connor, Brian. Nonverbal intimacy: Clarifying the role of seating distance and orientation. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 1986 10(4): 207-214.

Gardin, Hershel ; Kaplan, Kalman J. ; Firestone, Ira J. ; Cowan, Gloria A. Lanzetta, John T. (editor). Proxemic effects on cooperation, attitude, and approach-avoidance in a Prisoner’s Dilemma game. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1973. 27(1): 13-18.

Greenberg, J. 1976. The role of seating position in group interaction: a review, with applications for group trainers. Group & Organization Management 1 (3): 310-327.

Haase, Richard F. ; Dimattia, Dominic J. Berdie, Ralph F. (editor). Proxemic behavior: Counselor, administrator, and client preference for seating arrangement in dyadic interaction. Journal of Counseling Psychology. 1970 17(4): 319-325.

Kenner, Andrew N. ; Katsimaglis, George. Gender differences in proxemics: taxi-seat choice. Psychological Reports. 1993 72(2): 625(2).

Remland, Martins. ; Jones, Tricias. ; Brinkman, Heidi. Interpersonal Distance, Body Orientation, and Touch: Effects of Culture, Gender, and Age. The Journal of Social Psychology. 1995 135(3): 281-297.

Hietanen, Jari. Social attention orienting integrates visual information from head and body orientation. Psychological Research.2002 66(3): 174-179.

Howells, L. T. and S. W. Becker. 1962. Seating arrangement and leadership emergence.
The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 64(2): 148-150.

Kaminski, Juliane ; Call, Josep ; Tomasello, Michael. Body orientation and face orientation: two factors controlling apes’ begging behavior from humans
Animal Cognition. 2004. 7(4): 216-223.

Lawson, Rebecca P. ; Clifford, Colin W. G. ; Calder, Andrew J. About Turn: The Visual Representation of Human Body Orientation Revealed by Adaptation. Psychological Science. 2009. 20(3): 363(9).

Leventhal, G. 1978, Sex and setting effects on seating arrangement. Journal of Psychology. 100: 21-26.

Lott, D. F. and R. Sommer. 1967. Seating arrangements and status. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 7 (1): 90-95.

Montgomery, Derek ; Moran, Christy ; Bach, Leslie. The influence of nonverbal cues associated with looking behavior on young children’s mentalistic attributions.
Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 1996. 20(4): 229-249.

Michelini, RL, Passalacqua, R., & Cusimano, J. 1976. Effects of seating arrangement on group participation. Journal of Social Psychology. 99: 179-186.

Mackinnon, Sean P. ; Jordan, Christian H. ; Wilson, Anne E. Birds of a feather sit together: Physical similarity predicts seating choice. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin. 2011 37(7): 879(14).

Norum, G.A., Russo, N.J., and Sommer, R. 1967. Seating patterns and group tasks. Source: Psychology in the schools. 4(3): 276-280.

Pease, Barbara and Allan Pease. 2006. The Definitive Book of Body Language Hardcover. Bantam.

Riess, M. and P. Rosenfeld. 1980. Seating preferences as nonverbal communication: a self-presentational analysis. Journal of Applied Communications Research 8(1): 22.

Robinson, Jeffrey David. Getting Down to Business Talk, Gaze, and Body Orientation During Openings of Doctor-Patient Consultations. Human Communication Research. 1998. 25(1): 97-123.

Straube, Benjamin ; Green, Antonia ; Jansen, Andreas ; Chatterjee, Anjan ; Kircher, Tilo. Social cues, mentalizing and the neural processing of speech accompanied by gestures. Neuropsychologia. 2010. 48(2): 382-393.

Stephenson, G. M. and B. K. Kniveton. 1978. Interpersonal and interparty exchange: an experimental study of the effect of seating position on the outcome of negotiations between teams representing parties in dispute. Human Relations 31(6): 555-566.

Scherer, S. E., & Schiff, M. R. Perceived intimacy, physical distance, and eye contact. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1973, 36, 835-841.

Scott, J. A. Comfort and seating distance in living rooms: The relationship of interactants and topic of conversation. Environment and Behavior, 1984, 16, 35-54.

Sommer, R. Studies in personal space. Sociometry, 1959, 22,247-260.

Sommer, R. The distance for comfortable conversation: A further study. Sociometry, 1962, 25, 111-116.

Sommer, R. Personal space: The behavioral basis of design. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. 1969.

Weiss, M., & Keys, C. The influence of proxemic variables on dyadic interaction between peers. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Association; Chicago, 1975, August.

What Does Body Language of Chin Tuck Mean?

What Does Body Language of Chin Tuck Mean?

BodyLanguageProjectCom - Chin Tuck 1Cue: Chin Tuck

Synonym(s): N/A

Description: When the chin is pulled down toward the sternum.

In One Sentence: Tucking the chin shows that one is taken aback.

How To Use it: Use the chin tuck to show that you are not in agreement with what was said. Tucking in the chin can also signal submission especially if combined with lowering the head. When you want to raise an objection without verbally stating it, quickly tucking the chin in shows others that you have been ‘punched’ in the chin by their thoughts. Performing this gesture, therefore, may cause them to backtrack on their suggestion, or put them on their heels trying to justify what they have said. Regardless, it can make them act more conservatively.

Context: a) General b) Dating

Verbal Translation: a) “I don’t like what I just heard so I’m tucking my chin down in disdain.” b) “To appear smaller, I’m tucking my chin and lowering my eyes so you don’t hurt me.”

Variant: See Disgust Facial Expression and Contempt Facial Expression, Head Lowered in Judgement, Chin Jut and Chin Lift.

Cue In Action: a) Bill tucked his chin in as he had a look of disdain on his face. b) She pulled her chin in to appear more childlike and submissive.

Meaning and/or Motivation: Pulling the chin in spells anger and disdain or when used in courtship submission, innocent and childlike.

As the profile of the chin is reduced, it eliminates the exposure it suffers during an attack. The chin is particularly vulnerable to injury and a quick blow can send someone unconscious. Therefore, a tucked chin indicates that a person does not wish to engage in conflict. When someone wants to confront an attacker, they will perform the opposite cue by jutting the chin out as a challenge.

Cue Cluster: The chin tuck is accompanied by a sneering nose and looking downward or eyes averted, head turned away, shoulders slumped cowering. When it is used in courtship it is accompanied by a coy smile and eyes cast upward.

Body Language Category: Closed body language, Defensive, Dislike (nonverbal), Escape movements, Negative body language, Submissive body language.

Resources:

Beall, Alec and Jessica L. Tracy. The Puzzling Attractiveness of Male Shame. Manuscript submitted to Evolutionary Psychology. www.epjournal.net – 2014. 12(x): 1-39
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/male-nonverbal-shame-attractive/

Bohns, Vanessa K. and Scott S. Wiltermuth. It Hurts When I Do This (Or You Do That): Posture And Pain tolerance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 2012. 48: 341-345.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/dominant-and-submissive-postures-affects-more-than-public-perception-it-also-affects-felt-pain-and-physical-strength/

Blidstein, Gerald J. The Nonverbal Language of Prayer (review).Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies. 2007 25(2): 195-196.

Cunha, U. ; Leduc, M. ; Nayak, U.S.L. ; Isaacs, B.. Why do old people stoop?
Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics. 1987 6(4): 363-369.

Conti, Richard P ; Conti, Melanie A. Mock jurors’ perceptions of facial hair on criminal offenders. Perceptual and motor skills. 2004 98:(3 Pt 2): 1356-8

Dunn, Cynthia Dickel. Speaking politely, kindly, and beautifully: ideologies of politeness in Japanese business etiquette training. Multilingua: Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication. 2013. 32(2): 225(21).

De Souza, Altay Alves Lino ; Baião, Vera Baumgarten Ulyssea ; Otta, Emma
Perception of men’s personal qualities and prospect of employment as a function of facial hair. Psychological reports. 2003. 92(1): 201-8.

Dixson, Barnaby J ; Tam, Jamie C ; Awasthy, Monica. Do women’s preferences for men’s facial hair change with reproductive status? Behavioral Ecology. 2013 24(3): 708-716.

Grezes, Julie; Le´onor Philip; Michele Chadwick; Guillaume Dezecache; Robert Soussignan and Laurence Conty. Self-Relevance Appraisal Influences Facial Reactions to Emotional Body Expressions. PLoS ONE. 2013. 8(2): e55885. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0055885
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/face-reacts-body-anger-brains-wired-process-emotional-body-language

Gröning, Flora ; Liu, Jia ; Fagan, Michael J ; O’Higgins, Paul. Why do humans have chins? Testing the mechanical significance of modern human symphyseal morphology with finite element analysis. American journal of physical anthropology 2011. 144(4): 593-606.

Ginsburg, Harvey J. ; Pollman, Vicki A. ; Wauson, Mitzi S. Odom, Richard D. (editor). An ethological analysis of nonverbal inhibitors of aggressive behavior in male elementary school children. Developmental Psychology. 1977 13(4): 417-418.

Hall, Judith ; LeBeau, Lavonia ; Reinoso, Jeannette ; Thayer, Frank. Status, Gender, and Nonverbal Behavior in Candid and Posed Photographs: A Study of Conversations Between University Employees. Sex Roles. 2001 44(11): 677-692.

Hehman, Eric; Jordan B. Leitner and Samuel L. Gaertner. Enhancing Static Facial Features Increases Intimidation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 2013; 49: 747-754.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/tilting-the-head-is-display-of-intimidation-study/

Izard, Carroll E. (1971). The Face of Emotion (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts).

Johnson, Richard R. and Jasmine L. Aaron. Adults’ Beliefs Regarding Nonverbal Cues Predictive of Violence. Criminal Justice and Behavior. 2013. 40 (8): 881-894. DOI: 10.1177/0093854813475347.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/wanna-fight-nonverbal-cues-believed-indicate-violence

Kret, M. E. and B. de Gelder. When a Smile Becomes a Fist: The Perception of Facial and Bodily Expressions of Emotion in Violent Offenders. Exp Brain Res. 2013. 228: 399-410. DOI 10.1007/s00221-013-3557-6.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/reading-bodily-postures-facial-expressions-incorrectly-can-disastrous-just-ask-violent-offenders/

Katza, Carmit; Irit Hershkowitz; Lindsay C. Malloya; Michael E. Lamba; Armita Atabakia and Sabine Spindlera. Non-Verbal Behavior of Children Who Disclose or do not Disclose Child Abuse in Investigative Interviews. Child Abuse & Neglect. 2012. 36: 12-20.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/reading-nonverbal-behaviour-child-abuse-cases-encourage-children-divulge-information-truth-telling/

Krumhuber, Eva ; Manstead, Antony ; Kappas, Arvid. Temporal Aspects of Facial Displays in Person and Expression Perception: The Effects of Smile Dynamics, Head-tilt, and Gender. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 2007. (1): 39-56

Li Huang, Adam D. Galinsky, Deborah H Gruenfeld and Lucia E. Guillory. Powerful Postures Versus Powerful Roles: Which Is the Proximate Correlate of Thought and Behavior? 2011, Psychological Science; 22(1): 95–102.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/whats-more-powerful-nonverbal-power-or-real-power/

Mignault, Alain and Chaudhuri, Avi. The Many Faces of a Neutral Face: Head Tilt and Perception of Dominance and Emotion. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 2003 27(2): 111-132.

Marshall, Steven D. ; Low, Laura E. ; Holton, Nathan E. ; Franciscus, Robert G. ; Frazier, Mike ; Qian, Fang ; Mann, Kyle ; Schneider, Galen ; Scott, Jill E. ; Southard, Thomas E. Chin development as a result of differential jaw growth American Journal of Orthodontics & Dentofacial Orthopedics. 2011 139(4): 456-464.

Martens, Jason P.; Jessica L. Tracy and Azim F. Shariff. Status signals: Adaptive
benefits of displaying and observing the nonverbal expressions of pride and shame, Cognition & Emotion. 2012. 26(3): 390-406. DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2011.645281
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/significant-nonverbal-expression-pride-shame-body-language-detailed-examination-origin-function/

Middleton, Jacob. Bearded patriarchs: Jacob Middleton investigates the eccentric set of prejudices against shaving that led our Victorian forefathers to adorn their chins with a lush growth of facial hair. History Today. 2006, Vol.56(2), p.26(2).

Neave, Nick and Shields, Kerry. The effects of facial hair manipulation on female perceptions of attractiveness, masculinity, and dominance in male faces. Personality and Individual Differences. 2008 45(5): 373-377.

Nelson, Nicole L. and James A. Russell. Preschoolers’ Use of Dynamic Facial, Bodily, and Vocal Cues to Emotion. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 2011; 110: 52-61.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/children-read-body-language-study/

Pitterman, Hallee ; Nowicki Jr, Stephen. A Test of the Ability to Identify Emotion in Human Standing and Sitting Postures: The Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy-2 Posture Test (DANVA2-POS). Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs. 2004. 130(2): 146-162.

Riskind, John H. Manis, Melvin (editor). They stoop to conquer: Guiding and self-regulatory functions of physical posture after success and failure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1984 47(3): 479-493.

Rule, Nicholas, O.; Reginald B. Adams Jr.; Nalini Ambady and Jonathan B. Freeman. Perceptions Of Dominance Following Glimpses Of Faces And Bodies. Perception. 2012; 41: 687-706 doi:10.1068/p7023
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/people-can-read-dominance-split-second

Shariff, Azim F. and Jessica L. Tracy. Knowing Who’s Boss: Implicit Perceptions of Status From the Nonverbal Expression of Pride. Emotion. 2009.9(5): 631-639.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/can-you-tell-whos-boss-by-the-nonverbal-expression-of-pride/

Stienen, Bernard M. C.; Akihiro Tanaka and Beatrice de Gelder. Emotional Voice and Emotional Body Postures Influence Each Other Independently of Visual Awareness. PLoS ONE. 2011. 6(10): e25517. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0025517.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/body-language-read-quickly-subconsciously-study/

Schubert, T. W. (2005). Your highness: Vertical positions as perceptual symbols of power. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 89, 1–21.

Teixeira Fiquer, Juliana; Paulo Sérgio Boggio and Clarice Gorenstein. Talking Bodies: Nonverbal Behavior in the Assessment of Depression Severity. Journal of Affective Disorders. 2013. 150: 1114-1119.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/using-nonverbal-behaviour-to-assess-depression-severity/

Tracy, Jessica L. and Richard W. Robins. The Nonverbal Expression of Pride: Evidence for Cross-Cultural Recognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2008. 94(3): 516–530. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.94.3.516
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/nonverbal-expression-pride-recognized-cross-culturally/

Hehman, Eric; Jordan B. Leitner and Samuel L. Gaertner. Enhancing Static Facial Features Increases Intimidation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 2013; 49: 747-754.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/tilting-the-head-is-display-of-intimidation-study/

Weisfeld, Glenn E. and Jody M. Beresford. Erectness of Posture as an Indicator of Dominance or Success in Humans. Motivation and Emotion. 1982. 6(2): 113-130.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/body-language-cues-dominance-submission-children/

Welker, Keith M.; Stefan M.M.; Goetz, Shyneth Galicia; Jordan Liphardt and Justin M. Carré. An Examination of the Associations Between Facial Structure, Aggressive Behavior, and Performance in the 2010 World Cup Association Football Players. Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology (forthcoming in print, online July).
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/facial-width-predicts-strength-soccer-field

Weisbuch, Max ; Slepian, Michael L ; Eccleston, Collette P ; Ambady, Nalini. Nonverbal Expressions of Status and System Legitimacy. Psychological Science. 2013. 24(11): 2315-2321.

Wogalter, Michaels. ; Hosie, Juditha. Effects of Cranial and Facial Hair on Perceptions of Age and Person. The Journal of Social Psychology. 1991 131(4): 589-591.

Walsh, Joseph ; Eccleston, Christopher ; Keogh, Edmund. Pain communication through body posture: The development and validation of a stimulus set. Pain. 2014. 155(11): 2282-2290.

Zeinstra, Gertrude G.; M.A. Koelen; D. Colindres ; F.J. Kok; C de Graaf. Facial Expressions in School-Aged Children are a Good Indicator of ‘Dislikes’, but not of ‘Likes.’ Food Quality and Preference. 2009. 20: 620-624.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/read-kids-dislike-food-facial-expressions-accurate-detecting-dislike-not-like-children/

Welker, Keith M. ; Oberleitner, David E. ; Cain, Samantha ; Carré, Justin M. Upright and left out: Posture moderates the effects of social exclusion on mood and threats to basic needs. European Journal of Social Psychology. 2013 43(5): 355-361.

Body Language of The Chair Straddler or Seat Straddling

Body Language of The Chair Straddler or Seat Straddling

BodyLanguageProjectCom - Chair StraddlingCue: Chair Straddling

Synonym(s): Seat Straddling

Description: A sitting posture where a person sits on a chair backwards with their legs spread wide open and the forearms rested on the back of the chair.

In One Sentence: The chair straddler is perceived as cowardly as his genitals are on display, but he hides behind the shield of the chair.

How To Use it: Use this posture to appear timid and cowardly, but also dominant and aggressive. In other words, its use is limited to appearing socially awkward. Perhaps its use is best left to television characters trying to appear socially challenged.

Context: General

Verbal Translation: “I’m going to spread my legs behind this protective barrier showing myself to be dominant, authoritative and yes cowardly at the same time.”

Variant: See Leg Spreading.

Cue In Action: Charles made himself comfortable by pulling up a chair from another table, turning it around and sitting in it. His folded arms were placed on the back of the chair and his legs spread wide open facing everyone else.

Meaning and/or Motivation: A dominant body position where the back of the chair is utilized as a barrier or shield to separate the individual from others. So while leg spreading appears dominant since the genitals are fully exposed, the back of the chair acts like a shield making the chair straddler appear cowardly. Chair straddlers are people who wish to remain protected while interacting with others.

If the straddler is the type who habitually tosses figurative spears or flings arrows from behind his barrier, then he may be read as insecure and lacking in confidence. The chair straddler might defend his seating style by saying “it’s comfortable,” but the body language reader should ask himself “what it is about the posture, that makes the straddler feel so comfortable?”

Cue Cluster: The arms are usually folded across the back of the chair coupled with a crooked smile, leaning in to invade space, and a boisterous attitude.

Body Language Category: Dominant body language, Arrogance or arrogant body language, Aggressive body language, Barriers, Defensive, Low confidence body language, Expansive movements, Threat displays, Crotch Display.

Resources:

Allen, Jill; Sarah J. Gervais and Jessi L. Smith. Sit Big to Eat Big: The Interaction of Body Posture and Body Concern on Restrained Eating. Psychology of Women Quarterly 2013. 37(3): 325-336. DOI: 10.1177/0361684313476477pwq.sagepub.com
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/sit-big-to-eat-big-how-constrictive-postures-reduce-food-consumption/

Arnette, S. L., & Pettijohn, T. F., II. (2012). The effects of posture on self-perceived leadership. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 3, 8–13.

Balzarotti, Stefania ; Piccini, Luca ; Andreoni, Giuseppe ; Ciceri, Rita “I Know That You Know How I Feel”: Behavioral and Physiological Signals Demonstrate Emotional Attunement While Interacting with a Computer Simulating Emotional Intelligence. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 2014. 38(3): 283-299.

Argyle, M., & Dean, I. Eye contact, distance and affiliation. Sociometry, 1965, 28, 289-304.

Baxter, James C., and Richard M. Rozelle (1975). “Nonverbal Expression as a Function of Crowding During a Simulated Police-Citizen Encounter.” In Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Vol. 32, No. 1), pp. 40-54.

Boucher, Michael L. Holzberg, Jules D. (editor). Effect of seating distance on interpersonal attraction in an interview situation. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 1972 38(1): 15-19.

Bohns, Vanessa K. and Scott S. Wiltermuth. It Hurts When I Do This (Or You Do That): Posture And Pain tolerance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 2012. 48: 341-345.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/dominant-and-submissive-postures-affects-more-than-public-perception-it-also-affects-felt-pain-and-physical-strength/

Briñol, P., Petty, R. E., & Wagner, B. (2009). Body posture effects on self-evaluation: A self-validation approach. European Journal of Social Psychology, 39, 1053–1064.

Bernstein, Constance. Winning trials nonverbally: six ways to establish control in the courtroom. Trial. 1994. 30(1).61(5).

Brownell, Judi. Communicating with credibility: The gender gap. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly. 1993. 34(2): 52-61.

Beaulieu, Catherine. Intercultural Study of Personal Space: A Case Study. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 2004 34(4):794-805.

Cacioppo, J. T., Priester, J. R., & Berntson, G. G. (1993). Rudimentary determinants of attitudes: II. Arm flexion and extension have differential effects on attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 5–17.

Cashdan, Elizabeth. Smiles, Speech, and Body Posture: How Women and Men Display Sociometric Status and Power. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 1998. 22(4): 209-228.

Cuddy, Amy J.C. ; Glick, Peter ; Beninger, Anna. The dynamics of warmth and competence judgments, and their outcomes in organizations. Research in Organizational Behavior. 2011. 31: 73-98.

Carney, Dana R.; Amy J.C. Cuddy; Andy J. Yap. Power Posing: Brief Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance. Psychological Science, 2010; 21 (10): 1363-1368.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/benefits-power-posing-high-stakes-performance/

Cesario, J., & McDonald, M. M. (2013). Bodies in context: Power poses as a computation of action possibility. Social Cognition, 31, 260–274.

Cuddy, A. J. C., Wilmuth, C., Yap, A. J., & Carney, D. R. (in press). Preparatory power posing affects nonverbal presence and job interview performance. Journal of Applied Psychology.

Cook, M. Experiments on orientation and proxemics. Human Relations, 1970, 23, 61-67.

Coutts, Larrym. ; Ledden, Maribeth. Nonverbal Compensatory Reactions to Changes in Interpersonal Proximity. The Journal of Social Psychology. 1977 102(2): 283-290.

Desteno, David ; Breazeal, Cynthia ; Frank, Robert H ; Pizarro, David ; Baumann, Jolie ; Dickens, Leah ; Lee, Jin Joo. Detecting the Trustworthiness of Novel Partners in Economic Exchange. Psychological Science. 2012. 23(12): 1549-1556.

Dolphin, Carol Zinner. Beyond hall: Variables in the use of personal space in intercultural transactions. Howard Journal of Communications. 1988. 1(1): 23-38.

Edinger, Joyce A. ; Patterson, Miles L. Zeaman, David (editor). Nonverbal involvement and social control. Psychological Bulletin. 1983. 93(1): 30-56.

Fatt, James P. T. It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.(nonverbal communication). Communication World. 1999. 16(6): 37(4).

Fischer, Julia; Peter Fischer; Birte Englich; Nilüfer Aydin and Dieter Frey. Empower My Decisions: The Effects of Power Gestures on Confirmatory Information Processing. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 2011. 47: 1146-1154.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/downside-power-posing-body-language-looking-power-posing-action-study/
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/benefits-power-posing-high-stakes-performance/

Friedman, R. S., & Fo¨rster, J. (2000). The effects of approach and avoidance motor actions on the elements of creative insight. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 477–492.

Gifford, Robert ; O’Connor, Brian. Nonverbal intimacy: Clarifying the role of seating distance and orientation. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 1986 10(4): 207-214.

Gardin, Hershel ; Kaplan, Kalman J. ; Firestone, Ira J. ; Cowan, Gloria A. Lanzetta, John T. (editor). Proxemic effects on cooperation, attitude, and approach-avoidance in a Prisoner’s Dilemma game. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1973. 27(1): 13-18.

Graziano, Michael S.A. and Cooke, Dylan F. Parieto-frontal interactions, personal space, and defensive behavior. Neuropsychologia. 2006. 44(6): 845-859.

Gorkan Ahmetoglu, Viren Swami. Do Women Prefer “Nice Guys?” The Effect Of Male Dominance Behavior On Women’s Ratings. Social Behavior And Personality, 2012; 40(4), 667-672.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/how-to-significantly-increase-male-attractiveness-with-simple-body-language-nice-guys-finish-last-once-again/

Gorkan Ahmetoglu, Viren Swami. Do Women Prefer “Nice Guys?” The Effect Of Male Dominance Behavior On Women’s Ratings. Social Behavior And Personality, 2012; 40(4), 667-672.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/how-to-significantly-increase-male-attractiveness-with-simple-body-language-nice-guys-finish-last-once-again/

Greenberg, Carl I. ; Firestone, Ira J. Greenwald, Anthony G. (editor). Compensatory responses to crowding: Effects of personal space intrusion and privacy reduction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1977. 35(9): 637-644.

Graziano, Michael S.A. and Cooke, Dylan F. Parieto-frontal interactions, personal space, and defensive behavior. Neuropsychologia. 2006. 44(6): 845-859.

Haase, Richard F. ; Dimattia, Dominic J. Berdie, Ralph F. (editor). Proxemic behavior: Counselor, administrator, and client preference for seating arrangement in dyadic interaction. Journal of Counseling Psychology. 1970 17(4): 319-325.

Holt, Daphne J ; Cassidy, Brittany S ; Yue, Xiaomin ; Rauch, Scott L ; Boeke, Emily A ; Nasr, Shahin ; Tootell, Roger B H ; Coombs, Garth. Neural correlates of personal space intrusion. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience. 2014. 34(12): 4123-34.

Huang, L., Galinsky, A. D., Gruenfeld, D. H., & Guillory, L. E. (2011). Powerful postures versus powerful roles: Which is the proximate correlate of thought and behavior? Psychological Science, 22, 95–102.

Koppensteiner, Markus ; Grammer, Karl. Body movements of male and female speakers and their influence on perceptions of personality. Personality and Individual Differences. 2011. 51(6): 743-747.

Koppensteiner, Markus ; Stephan, Pia ; Jäschke, Johannes Paul Michael. From body motion to cheers: Speakers’ body movements as predictors of applause. Personality and Individual Differences. 2015. 74: 182-185.

Lee Ann Renninger, T. Joel Wade, Karl Grammer. Getting that female glance: Patterns and consequences of male nonverbal behavior in courtship contexts. Evolution and Human Behavior. 2004; 25: 416–431.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/part-i-how-to-read-male-sexual-body-language-a-study-for-women-and-the-men-who-wish-to-cheat-the-system/

Laird, J. D., & Lacasse, K. (2014). Bodily influences on emotional feelings: Accumulating evidence and extensions of William James’s theory of emotion. Emotion Review, 6, 27–34.

Lee, E. H., & Schnall, S. (2014). The influence of social power on weight perception. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143, 1719–1725.

Leigh, Thomas W. ; Summers, John O. An initial evaluation of industrial buyers’ impressions of salespersons’ nonverbal cues. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management. 2002. 22(1): 41(13).

Mehrabian, Albert ; Williams, Martin Mcguire, William J. (editor). Nonverbal concomitants of perceived and intended persuasiveness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1969. 13(1): 37-58.

Michalak, J., Mischnat, J., & Teismann, T. (2014). Sitting posture makes a difference: Embodiment effects on depressive memory bias. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 21, 519–524.

Minvaleev, R. S., Nozdrachev, A. D., Kir’yanova, V. V., & Ivanov, A. I. (2004). Postural influences on the hormone level in healthy subjects: I. The cobra posture and steroid hormones. Human Physiology, 30, 452–456.

Mcelroy, James C. ; Morrow, Paula C. Personal space, personal appearance, and personal selling. Psychological Reports. 1994 74(2): 425(2).

Mcgurk, Barry J. ; Davis, John D. ; Grehan, John. Assaultive behavior personality and personal space. Aggressive Behavior. 1981. 7(4): 317-324.

Neumann, R., & Strack, F. (2000). Approach and avoidance: The influence of proprioceptive and exteroceptive cues on encoding of affective information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 39–48.

Nair, S., Sagar, M., Sollers, J., III, Consedine, N., & Broadbent, E. (2014). Do slumped and upright postures affect stress responses? A randomized trial. Health Psychology. Advance online publication. doi:10.1037/hea0000146

Pease, Barbara and Allan Pease. 2006. The Definitive Book of Body Language Hardcover. Bantam.

Park, Lora E.; Lindsey Streamer; Li Huang and Adam D. Galinsky. Stand Tall, But Don’t Put Your Feet Up: Universal and Culturally-Specific Effects of Expansive Postures On Power. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 2013; 49: 965–971.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/are-expansive-postures-of-power-universal-or-cultural/

Roll, William V. ; Schmidt, Lyle D. ; Kaul, Theodore J. Berdie, Ralph F. (editor). Perceived interviewer trustworthiness among black and white convicts. Journal of Counseling Psychology. 1972. 19(6): 537-541.

Ryan, Mary E. Good nonverbal communication skills can reduce stress. (Law Office Management). Trial. 1995. 31(1): 70(5).

Ranehill, Eva; Anna Dreber; Magnus Johannesson; Susanne Leiberg; Sunhae Sul and Roberto A. Weber. Assessing the Robustness of Power Posing: No Effect on Hormones and Risk Tolerance in a Large Sample of Men and Women. Psychological Science, March, 2015. doi: 10.1177/0956797614553946 http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/power-posing-no-effect-hormones-amy-cuddy-wrong/

Riskind, J. H. (1984). They stoop to conquer: Guiding and selfregulatory functions of physical posture after success and failure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 479–493.

Riskind, J. H., & Gotay, C. C. (1982). Physical posture: Could it have regulatory or feedback effects on motivation and emotion? Motivation and Emotion, 6, 273–298.

Stepper, S., & Strack, F. (1993). Proprioceptive determinants of emotional and nonemotional feelings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 211–220.

Strelan, P., Weick, M., & Vasiljevic, M. (2013). Power and revenge. British Journal of Social Psychology, 53, 521–540.

Sharpley, Christopher F ; Halat, Jennifer ; Rabinowicz, Tammy ; Weiland, Birgit ; Stafford, Jane. Standard posture, postural mirroring and client-perceived rapport. Counselling Psychology Quarterly. 2001. 14(4): 267-280.

Scherer, S. E., & Schiff, M. R. Perceived intimacy, physical distance, and eye contact. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1973, 36, 835-841.

Scott, J. A. Comfort and seating distance in living rooms: The relationship of interactants and topic of conversation. Environment and Behavior, 1984, 16, 35-54.

Sommer, R. Studies in personal space. Sociometry, 1959, 22,247-260.

Sommer, R. The distance for comfortable conversation: A further study. Sociometry, 1962, 25, 111-116.

Sommer, R. Personal space: The behavioral basis of design. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. 1969.

Tamir, M., Robinson, M. D., Clore, G. L., Martin, L. L., & Whitaker, D. J. (2004). Are we puppets on a string? The contextual meaning of unconscious expressive cues. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 237–249.

Tiedens, L. Z., & Fragale, A. R. (2003). Power moves: Complementarity in dominant and submissive nonverbal behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 558–568.

Welker, K. M., Oberleitner, D. E., Cain, S., & Carré, J. M. (2013). Upright and left out: Posture moderates the effects of social exclusion on mood and threats to basic needs. European Journal of Social Psychology, 43, 355–361.

Werner, Carol ; Brown, Barbara ; Damron, Gary Steiner, Ivan D. (editor). Territorial marking in a game arcade. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1981. 41(6): 1094-1104.

Weiss, M., & Keys, C. The influence of proxemic variables on dyadic interaction between peers. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Association; Chicago, 1975, August.

Yuksel, Atila. Nonverbal Service Behavior and Customer’s Affective Assessment. Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality & Tourism. 2008. 9(1): 57-77.

Yap, Andy J. Abbie S. Wazlawek, Brian J. Lucas, Amy J. C. Cuddy, Dana R. Carney. The Ergonomics of Dishonesty: The Effect of Incidental Posture on Stealing, Cheating, and Traffic Violations, 24(11); 2281-2289.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/body-posture-physical-environment-determine-feelings-and-behaviour-study/

Body Language of The Bow and Body Bend

Body Language of The Bow and Body Bend

No picCue Bow and Body Bend

Synonym(s): Kowtow (Chinese), b) Standing Fetal Position (when due to pain), Prostration.

Description: a) The bow is a gesture done by bending at the waist toward the ground. b) A standing fetal position where the body bends at the waist.

In One Sentence: Bowing is a form of appeasement and also submission which is used to show respect.

How To Use it: Use the bow to show others respect or admiration. This can be done by titling the head down slightly which comes across as shame, or by lowering the eyes. When both cues are done simultaneously, this signals a desire to placate a higher authority. Lowering the body by bending at the waist can also be used to show that one is not in full spirits. This is read as cowering. When done in the face of authority, this may produce feelings of sympathy rather than aggression. In turn, they may offer care and assistance to try to ‘lift your spirits.’

Context: General.

Verbal Translation: a) “I respect you enough to trust you won’t hit me on the top of my head while I lower my eyes toward the ground.” b) “I’ve been emotionally hurt (in the guts) and feel like I need to crouch over in pain.”

Variant: See Crouching.

Cue In Action: a) When addressing the King, Sir Charles bent at the waist and bowed to show his admiration. b) After missing a crucial putt, Tiger bend over in emotional agony.

Meaning and/or Motivation: a) It is a form of supplication as it lowers the body. It is usually done in front of an audience or high ranking official as a way to accept their gratitude or adulation. The body bend shows others that they respect the authority figure and that they are ready to submit to them and their will.

b) A standing fetal position meant is meant to protect or comfort during emotional stress. The body takes on a smaller position and hunches up in exasperation. When the body bends in this way, it’s trying to appear submissive and create a smaller target preventing a more dominant individual from attacking. We see this type of posture when people are hurt emotionally and it is especially prominent while in a seated position. The body will lean to the side and the arms will fold over the stomach as if the guts were cramped up in pain.

Cue Cluster: b) Normally accompanied by hands coming up to the head and clasping or sometimes cut short as if swatting the air away in disgust.

Body Language Category: Body size reduction, Defensive, Escape movements, Frustration or frustrated body language, Protective reflexes, Emotional body language, Submissive body language.

Resources:

Adams, E.S., Mesterton-Gibbons, M., 1995. The cost of threat displays and the stability of deceptive communication. J. Theor. Biol. 175, 405–421.

Bohns, Vanessa K. and Scott S. Wiltermuth. It Hurts When I Do This (Or You Do That): Posture And Pain tolerance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 2012. 48: 341-345.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/dominant-and-submissive-postures-affects-more-than-public-perception-it-also-affects-felt-pain-and-physical-strength/

Bartholomewn, Morgan E.; Sheri L. Johnson. Nonverbal Dominance Behavior Among Individuals at Risk for Mania. Journal of Affective Disorders. 2014. 159: 133-138.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/failure-to-use-submissive-body-language-linked-to-bipolar-and-mania-study/

Blidstein, Gerald J. The Nonverbal Language of Prayer (review).Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies. 2007 25(2): 195-196.

Boyson, A. R., Pryor, B., & Butler, J. (1999). Height as power in women. North American Journal of Psychology, 1, 109–114.

Burgoon, J. K., & Hoobler, G. (2002). Nonverbal signals. In M. L. Knapp & J. A. Daly (Eds.), Handbook of interpersonal communication (3rd ed., pp. 240–299). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Burgoon, J. K., Johnson, M. L., & Koch, P. T. (1998). The nature and measurement of interpersonal dominance. Communication Monographs, 65, 308–335.

Carney, D. R., Hall, J. A., & LeBeau, L. S. (2005). Beliefs about the nonverbal expression of social power. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 29, 105–123.

Cashdan, Elizabeth. Smiles, Speech, and Body Posture: How Women and Men Display Sociometric Status and Power. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 1998. 22(4): 209-228.

Cunha, U. ; Leduc, M. ; Nayak, U.S.L. ; Isaacs, B.. Why do old people stoop?
Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics. 1987 6(4): 363-369.

Dunn, Cynthia Dickel. Speaking politely, kindly, and beautifully: ideologies of politeness in Japanese business etiquette training. Multilingua: Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication. 2013. 32(2): 225(21).

Ellis, L. (1994). The high and the mighty among man and beast: How universal is the relationship between height (or body size) and social status? In L. Ellis (Ed.). Social stratification and socioeconomic inequality (Vol. 2, pp. 93–111). Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.

Ginsburg, Harvey J. ; Pollman, Vicki A. ; Wauson, Mitzi S. Odom, Richard D. (editor). An ethological analysis of nonverbal inhibitors of aggressive behavior in male elementary school children. Developmental Psychology. 1977 13(4): 417-418.

Kimbrell, G. Relationship of the upright agonistic posture in the foot shock situation to dominance-submission in male C57BL/6 mice. Psychonomic Science. 1969. 16(3): 167-168.

Katza, Carmit; Irit Hershkowitz; Lindsay C. Malloya; Michael E. Lamba; Armita Atabakia and Sabine Spindlera. Non-Verbal Behavior of Children Who Disclose or do not Disclose Child Abuse in Investigative Interviews. Child Abuse & Neglect. 2012. 36: 12-20.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/reading-nonverbal-behaviour-child-abuse-cases-encourage-children-divulge-information-truth-telling

Li Huang, Adam D. Galinsky, Deborah H Gruenfeld and Lucia E. Guillory. Powerful Postures Versus Powerful Roles: Which Is the Proximate Correlate of Thought and Behavior? 2011, Psychological Science; 22(1): 95–102.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/whats-more-powerful-nonverbal-power-or-real-power/

Mehrabian, Albert Holzberg, Jules D. (editor). Inference of Attitudes From the Posture, Orientation and Distance of a Communicator. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 1968. 32(3): 296-308.

Mehrabian, Albert Deese, James (editor). Significance of posture and position in the communication of attitude and status relationships. Psychological Bulletin. 1969. 71(5): 359-372.

Matsumoto, D., & Willingham, B. (2006). The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat: Spontaneous expressions of medal winners of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91(3), 568–581.

Mouterde, S. C., Duganzich, D. M., Molles, L. E., Helps, S., Helps, R., & Waas, J. R. (2012). Triumph displays inform eavesdropping little blue penguins of new dominance asymmetries. Animal Behaviour, 83, 605–611.

Malatynska, E.,Knapp,R.J.,2005.Dominant-Submissive Behavior as Models of Mania and Depression. NeuroScience and.Biobehavior .Rev.29(4–5): 715–737, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2005.03.014.

Meier, B. P., Hauser, D. J., Robinson, M. D., Friesen, C. K., & Schjeldahl, K. (2007b). What’s ‘up’ with God?: Vertical space as a representation of the divine. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 699–710.

Meier, B. P., & Robinson, M. D. (2004). Why the sunny side is up: Associations between affect and vertical position. Psychological Science, 15, 243–247.

Meier, B. P., & Robinson, M. D. (2005). The metaphorical representation of affect. Metaphor and Symbol, 21, 239–257.

Meier, B.P., Robinson, M.D., & Caven, A.J. (in press). Why a big mac is a good mac: Associations between affect and size. Basic and Applied Social Psychology.

Melamed, T. (1992). Personality correlates of physical height. Personality and Individual Differences, 13, 1349–1350.

Middleton, W. C., &Moffett, D. C. (1940). The relation of height and weight measurements to intelligence and to dominance-submission among a group of college freshmen. Research Quarterly of the American Association for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation, 11, 53–59.

Montepare, J. M. (1995). The impact of variations in height on young children’s impressions of men and women. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 19, 31–47.

Matsumura, Shuichi ; Hayden, Thomas J. When should signals of submission be given?–A game theory model. Journal of Theoretical Biology. 2006. 240(3): 425-433.

Morris, Desmond (1994). Bodytalk: The Meaning of Human Gestures (New York: Crown Publishers).

Prieto, A. G., & Robbins, M. C. (1975). Perceptions of height and self-esteem. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 40, 395–398.

Park, Lora E.; Lindsey Streamer; Li Huang and Adam D. Galinsky. Stand Tall, But Don’t Put Your Feet Up: Universal and Culturally-Specific Effects of Expansive Postures On Power. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 2013; 49: 965–971.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/are-expansive-postures-of-power-universal-or-cultural/

Pitterman, Hallee ; Nowicki Jr, Stephen. A Test of the Ability to Identify Emotion in Human Standing and Sitting Postures: The Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy-2 Posture Test (DANVA2-POS). Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs. 2004. 130(2): 146-162.

Richards, Lynne ; Mcalister, Laurie. Female Submissiveness, Nonverbal Behavior, and Body Boundary Definition. The Journal of Psychology. 1994 128(4): 419-424.

Riskind, John H. Manis, Melvin (editor). They stoop to conquer: Guiding and self-regulatory functions of physical posture after success and failure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1984 47(3): 479-493.

Rule, Nicholas, O.; Reginald B. Adams Jr.; Nalini Ambady and Jonathan B. Freeman. Perceptions Of Dominance Following Glimpses Of Faces And Bodies. Perception. 2012; 41: 687-706 doi:10.1068/p7023
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/people-can-read-dominance-split-second

Robinson, Michael D. ; Zabelina, Darya L. ; Ode, Scott ; Moeller, Sara K. The vertical nature of dominance-submission: Individual differences in vertical attention. Journal of Research in Personality. 2008. 42(4): 933-948.

Schubert, T. W. (2005). Your highness: Vertical positions as perceptual symbols of power. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 1–21.

Schwartz, B., Tesser, A., & Powell, E. (1982). Dominance cues in nonverbal behavior. Social Psychology Quarterly, 45, 114–120.

Stepper, S., & Strack, F. (1993). Proprioceptive determinants of emotional and nonemotional feelings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 211–220.

Scarpa, Stephano; Alessandra Nart; Erica Gobbi and Atillo Carraro. Does Women’s Attitudinal State Body Image Improve After One Session Of Posture Correction Exercises? Social Behavior and Personality. 2011; 39(8): 1045-1052.

Sturman, Edward D. Involuntary Subordination and Its Relation to Personality, Mood,
and Submissive Behavior. Psychological Assessment. 2011. 23(1): 262-276 DOI: 10.1037/a0021499
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/nonverbal-submission-men-women-depression-critical-examination-use-disuse-submission/

Schenkel, Rudolf. Submission: Its Features and Function in the Wolf and Dog. American Zoologist. 1967. 7(2): 319-329.

Tracy, J. L., & Matsumoto, D. (2008). The spontaneous expression of pride and shame: Evidence for biologically innate nonverbal displays. Proceedings from the National Academy of Sciences, 105(33), 11655–11660.

Tracy, J. L., & Robins, R. W. (2007). The prototypical pride expression: Development of a nonverbal behavior coding system. Emotion, 7(4), 789–801.

Tiedens, Larissa Z ; Fragale, Alison R. Power moves: complementarity in dominant and submissive nonverbal behavior. Journal of personality and social psychology. 2003. 84(3): 558-68.

Tracy, J. L., & Robins, R. W. (2004). Show your pride: Evidence for a discrete emotion expression. Psychological Science, 15, 194–197.

Weisfeld, Glenn E. and Jody M. Beresford. Erectness of Posture as an Indicator of Dominance or Success in Humans. Motivation and Emotion. 1982. 6(2): 113-130.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/body-language-cues-dominance-submission-children/

Walsh, Joseph ; Eccleston, Christopher ; Keogh, Edmund. Pain communication through body posture: The development and validation of a stimulus set. Pain. 2014. 155(11): 2282-2290.

Welker, Keith M. ; Oberleitner, David E. ; Cain, Samantha ; Carré, Justin M. Upright and left out: Posture moderates the effects of social exclusion on mood and threats to basic needs. European Journal of Social Psychology. 2013 43(5): 355-361.

The Body Language of Body Lowering or Body Shrinking

The Body Language of Body Lowering or Body Shrinking

BodyLanguageProjectCom - Body Lowering 2Cue: Body Lowering

Synonym(s): Body Shrinking, Lowering The Body, Shrinking The Body,

Description: A technique whereby a person takes a lower position relative to another which can include the overall body and posture, the head shrunk into the shoulders, sitting down from a standing position and so forth.

In One Sentence: Body lowering signals a desire to shrink the body’s overall size to appear more submissive.

How To Use it: Use body lowering to signal that one is willing to relinquish dominance to another person. In a dating context, a man might lower himself so that he can match his female partner’s eye level and build intimacy rather than tower over and dominant her. A boss might lower himself to the level of an employee to build trust. A server might crouch down at the edge of the table while taking orders. This can help build trust between him and his patrons giving him a shot at a higher tip. As body lowering also shrinks the size of the overall profile it can reduce punishment by appearing more submissive. It can also allow a person to fly under the radar when avoiding being called on such as in a classroom situation. Use body lowering when you want to build trust, show submission, and hide in plain sight.

Context: a) Social, b) Dating, c) Business

Verbal Translation: a) “I’m lowering my body, cowering, so that you don’t see me as a threat and won’t punish me so severely.” b) “I’m lowering my body so that you don’t see me as a threat and protect me, care for me, or give something to me” c) “I don’t want to be called upon so I’m going to slink down in my chair, head down – I don’t know the answer to this question.”

Variant: See Body Raising, Bow and Body Bend, Sinking In The Chair. The curtsey, bow and body bend are examples of body lowering that shows a willingness to submit to the audience and accept their adulation. Some churches also accept a curtsey went entering a pew.

Cue In Action: a) When pulled over by the cops, Jake shrunk down in his shoulders, propped himself against his car with his legs bent at the knee, head drooping. b) Deborah was beginning to like Jeff and whenever she and he were standing next to him, she shrunk her body and melted into his by placing her head down against his chest.

Meaning and/or Motivation: A technique whereby a person takes on a lower position relative to another. This implies that a person wishes to take on a lesser role by submitting and receive care and authority passively from another (this person is more dominant).

Status and dominance are closely related to the relative height of a person which is why people are naturally seen as needing protection when shorter and conversely, naturally as leaders when they are taller.

Height can be artificially reduced by sitting, standing at the bottom of a staircase, slouching, drooping the head and so forth.

Tall men and women might find their posture suffers because they tend to slink down to fit in with the rest of the crowd rather than standing tall. All techniques indicate the desire to reduce overall size so as not to appear threatening.

Cue Cluster: Body lowering is usually associated with other submissive cues such as head lowered and eye contact avoidance. However, in dating, women may couple eye contact with body lowering so as to take a submissive role to appease and flirt with men.

Body Language Category: Appease, Defensive, Fearful body language, Low confidence body language, Nonthreatening body language, Readiness to submit postures, Submissive body language.

Resources:

Aviezer, Hillel; Ran R. Hassin; Jennifer Ryan; Cheryl Grady; Josh Susskind; Adam Anderson; Morris Moscovitch and Shlomo Bentin. Angry, Disgusted, or Afraid? Studies on the Malleability of Emotion Perception. Psychological Science. 2008. 19(7): 724-732.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/emotions-read-context-study/

Aggarwal, Pankaj and Min Zhao. Seeing the Big Picture: The Effect of Height on the Level of Construal. Journal of Marketing Research, forthcoming; 2014
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/height-embodies-thinking-height-marketing/

Boyson, A. R., Pryor, B., & Butler, J. (1999). Height as power in women. North American Journal of Psychology, 1, 109–114.

Burgoon, J. K., & Hoobler, G. (2002). Nonverbal signals. In M. L. Knapp & J. A. Daly (Eds.), Handbook of interpersonal communication (3rd ed., pp. 240–299). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Burgoon, J. K., Johnson, M. L., & Koch, P. T. (1998). The nature and measurement of interpersonal dominance. Communication Monographs, 65, 308–335.

Bohns, Vanessa K. and Scott S. Wiltermuth. It Hurts When I Do This (Or You Do That): Posture And Pain tolerance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 2012. 48: 341-345.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/dominant-and-submissive-postures-affects-more-than-public-perception-it-also-affects-felt-pain-and-physical-strength/

Brin, Pablo and Oli Richard. Body Posture Effects On Self-Evaluation: A self-Validation Approach. European Journal of Social Psychology. 2009; 39: 1053–1064.

Carney, D. R., Hall, J. A., & LeBeau, L. S. (2005). Beliefs about the nonverbal expression of social power. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 29, 105–123.

Cashdan, Elizabeth. Smiles, Speech, and Body Posture: How Women and Men Display Sociometric Status and Power. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 1998. 22(4): 209-228.

Ellis, L. (1994). The high and the mighty among man and beast: How universal is the relationship between height (or body size) and social status? In L. Ellis (Ed.). Social stratification and socioeconomic inequality (Vol. 2, pp. 93–111). Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.

Eddie Harmon-Jones and Carly K. Peterson. Supine Body Position Reduces Neural Response to Anger. Association for Psychological Science. 2009; 20 (10): 1209-1210.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/supine-body-posture-reduces-aggression/

Flack, William F., Jr. Peripheral Feedback Effects of Facial Expressions, Bodily Postures, and Vocal Expressions on Emotional Feelings. Cognition and Emotion. 2006. 20 (2), 177-195. DOI:10.1080/02699930500359617
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/body-and-facial-expressions-influence-mood/

Girard, Jeffrey M.; Jeffrey F. Cohna; Mohammad H.Mahoor S.; Mohammad Mavadati;
Zakia Hammal; and Dean P. Rosenwalda. Nonverbal Social Withdrawal In Depression: Evidence From Manual And Automatic Analyses. Image and Vision Computing. 2013.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/body-language-signals-withdrawal-depression

Kimbrell, G. Relationship of the upright agonistic posture in the foot shock situation to dominance-submission in male C57BL/6 mice. Psychonomic Science. 1969. 16(3): 167-168.

Kret, M. E. and B. de Gelder. When a Smile Becomes a Fist: The Perception of Facial and Bodily Expressions of Emotion in Violent Offenders. Exp Brain Res. 2013. 228: 399-410. DOI 10.1007/s00221-013-3557-6.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/reading-bodily-postures-facial-expressions-incorrectly-can-disastrous-just-ask-violent-offenders/

Katza, Carmit; Irit Hershkowitz; Lindsay C. Malloya; Michael E. Lamba; Armita Atabakia and Sabine Spindlera. Non-Verbal Behavior of Children Who Disclose or do not Disclose Child Abuse in Investigative Interviews. Child Abuse & Neglect. 2012. 36: 12-20.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/reading-nonverbal-behaviour-child-abuse-cases-encourage-children-divulge-information-truth-telling

Li Huang, Adam D. Galinsky, Deborah H Gruenfeld and Lucia E. Guillory. Powerful Postures Versus Powerful Roles: Which Is the Proximate Correlate of Thought and Behavior? 2011, Psychological Science; 22(1): 95–102.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/whats-more-powerful-nonverbal-power-or-real-power/

Navarro, Joe. 2008. What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People. William Morrow Paperbacks.

Marsh, Abigail A; Henry H. Yu; Julia C. Schechter and R. J. R. Blair. Larger than Life: Humans’ Nonverbal Status Cues Alter Perceived Size. PLoS ONE. 2009. 4(5): e5707. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0005707.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/large-life-nonverbal-dominance-affects-perception-size/

Marsh, Abigail A; Karina S. Blair; Matthew M. Jones; Niveen Soliman, and R. J. R. Blair. Dominance and Submission: The Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex and Responses to Status Cues Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 2009. 21:4, pp. 713–724.

Meier, B. P., Hauser, D. J., Robinson, M. D., Friesen, C. K., & Schjeldahl, K. (2007b). What’s ‘up’ with God?: Vertical space as a representation of the divine. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 699–710.

Meier, B. P., & Robinson, M. D. (2004). Why the sunny side is up: Associations between affect and vertical position. Psychological Science, 15, 243–247.

Meier, B. P., & Robinson, M. D. (2005). The metaphorical representation of affect. Metaphor and Symbol, 21, 239–257.

Meier, B.P., Robinson, M.D., & Caven, A.J. (in press). Why a big mac is a good mac: Associations between affect and size. Basic and Applied Social Psychology.

Melamed, T. (1992). Personality correlates of physical height. Personality and Individual Differences, 13, 1349–1350.

Middleton, W. C., &Moffett, D. C. (1940). The relation of height and weight measurements to intelligence and to dominance-submission among a group of college freshmen. Research Quarterly of the American Association for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation, 11, 53–59.

Montepare, J. M. (1995). The impact of variations in height on young children’s impressions of men and women. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 19, 31–47.

Matsumura, Shuichi ; Hayden, Thomas J. When should signals of submission be given?–A game theory model. Journal of Theoretical Biology. 2006. 240(3): 425-433.

Mehrabian, Albert Holzberg, Jules D. (editor). Inference of Attitudes From the Posture, Orientation and Distance of a Communicator. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 1968. 32(3): 296-308.

Mehrabian, Albert Deese, James (editor). Significance of posture and position in the communication of attitude and status relationships. Psychological Bulletin. 1969. 71(5): 359-372.

Matsumoto, D., & Willingham, B. (2006). The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat: Spontaneous expressions of medal winners of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91(3), 568–581.

Mouterde, S. C., Duganzich, D. M., Molles, L. E., Helps, S., Helps, R., & Waas, J. R. (2012). Triumph displays inform eavesdropping little blue penguins of new dominance asymmetries. Animal Behaviour, 83, 605–611.

Nelson, Nicole L. and James A. Russell. Preschoolers’ Use of Dynamic Facial, Bodily, and Vocal Cues to Emotion. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 2011; 110: 52-61.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/children-read-body-language-study/

Oosterwijk, Suzanne; Mark Rotteveel; Agneta H. Fischer and Ursula Hess. Embodied Emotion Concepts: How Generating Words About Pride and Disappointment Influences Posture. European Journal of Social Psychology. 2009. 39: 457–466. DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.584
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/embodiment-nonverbal-posture-thinking-pride-shame-literally-changes-body-language/

Oosterwijk, S., Rotteveel, M., Fischer, A. H., & Hess, U. Embodied emotion concepts: How generating words about pride and disappointment influences posture. European Journal of Social Psychology. 2009. 39, 457–466.

Pitterman, Hallee ; Nowicki Jr, Stephen. A Test of the Ability to Identify Emotion in Human Standing and Sitting Postures: The Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy-2 Posture Test (DANVA2-POS). Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs. 2004. 130(2): 146-162.

Prieto, A. G., & Robbins, M. C. (1975). Perceptions of height and self-esteem. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 40, 395–398.

Park, Lora E.; Lindsey Streamer; Li Huang and Adam D. Galinsky. Stand Tall, But Don’t Put Your Feet Up: Universal and Culturally-Specific Effects of Expansive Postures On Power. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 2013; 49: 965–971.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/are-expansive-postures-of-power-universal-or-cultural/

Pablo Brin and Oli Richard. Body posture effects on self-evaluation: A self-validation approach. European Journal of Social Psychology. 2009; 39: 1053–1064.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/posture-affects-confidence-of-thoughts/

Pablo Briñol; Richard E. Petty and Benjamin Wagner. Body Posture Effects on Self-Evaluation: A Self-Validation Approach. European Journal of Social Psychology. 2009. 39(6): 1099-0992. DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.607.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/fix-posture-fix-confidence/

Rule, Nicholas, O.; Reginald B. Adams Jr.; Nalini Ambady and Jonathan B. Freeman. Perceptions Of Dominance Following Glimpses Of Faces And Bodies. Perception. 2012; 41: 687-706 doi:10.1068/p7023
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/people-can-read-dominance-split-second

Richards, Lynne ; Mcalister, Laurie. Female Submissiveness, Nonverbal Behavior, and Body Boundary Definition. The Journal of Psychology. 1994 128(4): 419-424.

Robinson, Michael D. ; Zabelina, Darya L. ; Ode, Scott ; Moeller, Sara K. The vertical nature of dominance-submission: Individual differences in vertical attention. Journal of Research in Personality. 2008. 42(4): 933-948.

Sturman, Edward D. Involuntary Subordination and Its Relation to Personality, Mood, and Submissive Behavior. Psychological Assessment. 2011. 23(1): 262-276 DOI: 10.1037/a0021499
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/nonverbal-submission-men-women-depression-critical-examination-use-disuse-submission/

Scarpa, Stephano; Alessandra Nart; Erica Gobbi and Atillo Carraro. Does Women’s Attitudinal State Body Image Improve After One Session Of Posture Correction Exercises? Social Behavior and Personality. 2011; 39(8): 1045-1052.

Schubert, T. W. (2005). Your highness: Vertical positions as perceptual symbols of power. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 89. 1–21.

Schwartz, B., Tesser, A., & Powell, E. (1982). Dominance cues in nonverbal behavior. Social Psychology Quarterly, 45, 114–120.

Stepper, S., & Strack, F. (1993). Proprioceptive determinants of emotional and nonemotional feelings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 211–220.

Schenkel, Rudolf. Submission: Its Features and Function in the Wolf and Dog. American Zoologist. 1967. 7(2): 319-329.

Tiedens, Larissa Z ; Fragale, Alison R. Power moves: complementarity in dominant and submissive nonverbal behavior. Journal of personality and social psychology. 2003. 84(3): 558-68.

Tracy, J. L., & Matsumoto, D. (2008). The spontaneous expression of pride and shame: Evidence for biologically innate nonverbal displays. Proceedings from the National Academy of Sciences, 105(33), 11655–11660.

Tracy, J. L., & Robins, R. W. (2004). Show your pride: Evidence for a discrete emotion expression. Psychological Science, 15, 194–197.

Tomei, Alexander and Jeremy Grivel. Body Posture and the Feeling of Social Closeness: An Exploratory Study in a Naturalistic Setting. Current Psychology. 2014. 33:35–46
DOI 10.1007/s12144-013-9194-1
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/stand-increase-feelings-closeness-use-body-posture-influence-perception/

Weisfeld, Glenn E. and Jody M. Beresford. Erectness of Posture as an Indicator of Dominance or Success in Humans. Motivation and Emotion. 1982. 6(2): 113-130.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/body-language-cues-dominance-submission-children/

Welker, Keith M. ; Oberleitner, David E. ; Cain, Samantha ; Carré, Justin M. Upright and left out: Posture moderates the effects of social exclusion on mood and threats to basic needs. European Journal of Social Psychology. 2013 43(5): 355-361.

Body Language of Blank Face or Deadpan Face

Body Language of Blank Face or Deadpan Face

BodyLanguageProjectCom - Blank Face or Deadpan FaceCue: Blank Face or Deadpan Face

Synonym(s): Poker Face (the), Pan Face, Stone Face, Block Face.

Description: A neutral, relaxed face, showing no expression. The face and jaw is relaxed and the eyes are generally vacant.

In One Sentence: A blank face is a signal that a person is vacant and is internalizing emotions or thoughts.

How To Use it: Use the deadpan face in poker when bluffing (or otherwise) such that people can not read your emotions. The blank face is also helpful when trying to appear in control of a situation. Emotional outbursts have been shown to be counterproductive in business settings. A face that lacks expression, especially when under high stress, shows others that you can keep things under control.

Context: High Stress.

Verbal Translation: “I really don’t want to be read or give any emotions away so I’m just going to wipe any hint of life from my face.”

Variant: During emotional downtime a person can also support a vacant expression as they relax inside their own mind for some time – even while in public.

Cue In Action: His opponent was searching and studying his face, he wasn’t sure if he had a good hand or was just bluffing. All he saw staring back at him was a Deadpan face.

Meaning and/or Motivation: This expression is used to either conceal emotion (on purpose) or be an actual reflection of a lack of emotion such as watching television, during deep thought or boredom.

Cue Cluster: When someone doesn’t want to be read, they will usually freeze solid and reduce arm and hand movements, their head will be still and unchanging. They don’t want to give others any clues at to their inner thoughts.

Body Language Category: Boredom, Closed body language, Defensive, Emotional body language, Masked emotions, Stressful body language.

Resources:

Burgress R. and C. Baldassarre. 2006. Ultimate guide to poker tells: devastate opponents by reading body language, table talk, chip moves, and much more. Chicago, Triumph Books.

Baumeister, Jenny-Charlotte; Raffaella Ida Rumiati and Francesco Foroni. When the Mask Falls: The Role of Facial Motor Resonance in Memory for Emotional Language. Acta Psychologica. 2015. 155: 29–36. http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/stiff-poker-face-interrupts-emotional-memories/

Browning, E. ; Huynh, C. ; Peissig, J. Show Me Your Poker Face: Are Poker Players Better at Recognizing Emotional Expressions? Journal of Vision. 2013. 13(9): 599-599.

Carvajal, Fernando ; Rubio, Sandra ; Serrano, Juan ; Ríos-Lago, Marcos ; Alvarez-Linera, Juan ; Pacheco, Lara ; Martín, Pilar. Is a neutral expression also a neutral stimulus? A study with functional magnetic resonance. Experimental Brain Research, 2013. 228(4): 467-479.

Channell, Marie Moore ; Barth, Joan M. Individual differences in preschoolers’ emotion content memory: the role of emotion knowledge. Journal of experimental child psychology. 2013. 115(3): 552-61.

Ekas, Naomi V. ; Haltigan, John D. ; Messinger, Daniel S. The Dynamic Still-Face Effect: Do Infants Decrease Bidding over Time when Parents Are Not Responsive?
Developmental Psychology. 2013. 49(6): 1027-1035.

Giuseppe Blasi; Ahmad R. Hariri; Guilna Alce; Paolo Taurisano; Fabio Sambataro; Saumitra Das; Alessandro Bertolino; Daniel R. Weinberger and Venkata S. Mattay. Preferential Amygdala Reactivity to the Negative Assessment of Neutral Faces. 2009. 6(9): 847-853.

Heisel, Marnin ; Mongrain, Myriam. Facial Expressions and Ambivalence: Looking for Conflict in All the Right Faces. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 2004. 28(1): 35-52.

Kraft, Tara L ; Pressman, Sarah D. Grin and Bear It. Psychological Science. 2012. 23(11): 1372-1378.

King, Laura A. Ambivalence over emotional expression and reading emotions in situations and faces. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1998 74(3): 753(10)

LaBarbera, J. D., C. E. Izard, P. Vietze, and S. A. Parisi (1976). “Four- and Six-Month-Old Infants’ Visual Responses to Joy, Anger, and Neutral Expressions.” In Child Development (Vol. 47), pp. 535-38.

Mignault, Alain and Chaudhuri, Avi. The Many Faces of a Neutral Face: Head Tilt and Perception of Dominance and Emotion. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 2003 27(2): 111-132.

Matsumoto, David ; Hwang, Hyisung C. Desteno, David (editor). Judgments of Subtle Facial Expressions of Emotion. Emotion. 2014. 14(2): 349-357.

Pinkham, Amy E. ; Brensinger, Colleen ; Kohler, Christian ; Gur, Raquel E. ; Gur, Ruben C. Actively paranoid patients with schizophrenia over attribute anger to neutral faces. Schizophrenia Research. 2011 125(2): 174-178.

Rothman, Naomi B. Steering Sheep: How Expressed Emotional Ambivalence Elicits Dominance in Interdependent Decision Making Contexts. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. 2011. 116: 66-82.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/ambivalent-facial-expression-form-dominance-study

Sturman, Edward D. Invluntary Subordination and Its Relation to Personality, Mood,
and Submissive Behavior. Psychological Assessment. 2011. 23(1): 262-276 DOI: 10.1037/a0021499
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/nonverbal-submission-men-women-depression-critical-examination-use-disuse-submission/

Schlicht, Erik J.; Shinsuke Shimojo; Colin F. Camerer; Peter Battaglia and Ken Nakayama. Human Wagering Behavior Depends on Opponents’ Faces. PLOS one. July 2010. 5(7): e11663. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0011663.g001
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/which-faces-bluff-best-in-poker/

Shah, Rebecca ; Lewis, Michael. Locating the neutral expression in the facial-emotion space. Visual Cognition. 2003. 10(5): 549-566.

Trevarthen, Colwyn (1977). “Descriptive Analysis of Infant Communicative Behaviour.” In H. R. Schaffer, ed., Studies in Mother-Infant Interaction (London: Academic Press), pp. 227-70.

Woud, Marcella L. ; Becker, Eni S. ; Lange, Wolf – Gero ; Rinck, Mike. Effects of approach-avoidance training on implicit and explicit evaluations of neutral, angry, and smiling face stimuli.(Relationships & Communications). Psychological Reports. 2013. 113(1): 1211(18).

Wolf K, Mass R, Ingenbleek T, Kiefer F, Naber D et al. (2005) The facial pattern of disgust, appetence, excited joy and relaxed joy: an improved facial EMG study. Scand J Psychol 46: 403-409. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9450.2005.00471.x. PubMed: 16179022.

Vanderhasselt, Marie – Anne ; Kühn, Simone ; De Raedt, Rudi. Put on your poker face’: neural systems supporting the anticipation for expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. 2013 8(8): 903-910.

The Hidden Meaning of Blading Body Language, Body Angling or Ventral Displays

The Hidden Meaning of Blading Body Language, Body Angling or Ventral Displays

BodyLanguageProjectCom - Blading Body Language, Body Angling or Ventral Displays 2Cue: Blading Body Language, Body Angling or Ventral Displays

Synonym(s): Ventral Displays, Ventral Fronting, Ventral Denial, Ventral Distancing, Body Orientation, Body Angling, Seated Body Pointing, Turning The Body Away From Someone, Turning The Body Toward Someone, Chest Orientation, Facing Away, Facing Toward.

Description: The turning of the body, the shoulders and chest, either toward or away from stimuli.

In One Sentence: Bodies turn toward ideas and people they agree with, and turn away from ideas and people they disagree with.

How To Use it: The application of blading body language is simple in practice. To show or feign agreement simply turn your shoulders toward the speaker. To show or feign disagreement simply turn your shoulders away from the speaker. Feigning either condition can force other people to chase you, despite your general agreement. This can be effective in a dating context as your counterpart will work harder to placate your interests. This can also be effective in negotiations. Simply blade away to show that the offer advanced does not meet your conditions. Your “disinterest” will create an incentive to boost their offer in your favour.

Context: General.

Verbal Translation: a) “I like what I’m hearing so my body is angling toward you so we’re facing each other even more” b) “I don’t like what I’m hearing so my body is angling away from you so I can leave.”

Variant: Bodies might be angled or leaned in toward someone that is liked the most rather than for any form of agreement or disagreement.

Cue In Action: a) Jill turned her shoulders toward Bill when he paid her an honest compliment. b) When the much more successful associate, Frank arrived, Jill slowly turned away from Bill to focus her attention on Frank. After turning toward Frank, she made eye contact and began preening herself by fixing her hair. Her interest shifted from Bill to Frank which was obvious to onlookers by her shift in orientation.

Meaning and/or Motivation: Torsos house important vital organs that are responsible for keeping the body alive. Heart, lungs, liver, intestines and so forth are all easily accessible through a thin layer of skin, fat, muscle, ribs and a sternum and exposing our ventral side means that we trust we won’t be attacked and is therefore a signal of openness and liking. Ventral sides are usually oriented toward people we like and away from those we dislike.

Torsos will turn and angle away more and more as an encounter becomes more disagreeable. On the other hand, torsos will angle and turn toward as an encounter becomes more agreeable. When torsos face each other head-on, however, this can indicate direct confrontation or, contrarily, high intimacy (and engagement).

“Blading away” is to “turn the back on someone.” This demonstrates dislike, disagreement and disengagement.

“Blading toward” is to “turn to face someone.” This demonstrates liking, agreement and engagement.

Think of a knife, a “blade” that is turned on an angle so as to slice more or less sharply.

The greater the angle the greater the relative nonverbal meaning.

Cue Cluster: a) Ventral fronting or blading toward can be accompanied by leaning in to increase proximity, removing objects to create a clear view and various agreement indicators such as head nodding, eye contact, and touching. b) Ventral denial can appear with slouching, lean backward, orienting the torso away, or placing objects in front of the body such as clothing or books.

Body Language Category: a) Attentive, Courtship display, Liking, Indicators of sexual interest (IOsI), Intention movements, Orienting reflex or orienting response b) Barriers, Defensive, Dislike (nonverbal), Escape movements, Indicators of disinterest (IOD), Indicators of sexual disinterest (IOsD), Intention movements, Orienting reflex or orienting response.

Resources:

Allison, T., Puce, A., & McCarthy, G. (2000). Social perception from visual cues: role of the STS region. Trends in Cognitive Neurosciences, 4, 267–278.

Argyle, M., & Dean, I. Eye contact, distance and affiliation. Sociometry, 1965, 28, 289-304.

Boucher, Michael L. Holzberg, Jules D. (editor). Effect of seating distance on interpersonal attraction in an interview situation. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 1972 38(1): 15-19.

Broth, Mathias and Lorenza Mondada. Walking Away: The Embodied Achievement of Activity Closings in Mobile Interaction. Journal of Pragmatics. 2013. 47: 41-58.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/nonverbally-negotiate-conversation-walking-away/

Bania, Amanda E. ; Stromberg, Erin E. Call, Joseph (editor). The Effect of Body Orientation on Judgments of Human Visual Attention in Western Lowland Gorillas.
Journal of Comparative Psychology. 2013. 127(1): 82-90.

Belhiah, Hassan. Tutoring as an embodied activity: How speech, gaze and body orientation are coordinated to conduct ESL tutorial business. Journal of Pragmatics. 2009. 41(4): 829-841

Beaulieu, Catherine. Intercultural Study of Personal Space: A Case Study. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 2004 34(4):794-805.

Baxter, James C., and Richard M. Rozelle (1975). “Nonverbal Expression as a Function of Crowding During a Simulated Police-Citizen Encounter.” In Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Vol. 32, No. 1), pp. 40-54.

Cook, Mark. 1970. Experiments on orientation and proxemics. Human Relations 23 (1): 61-76.

Cacioppo, J. T., Hawkley, L. C., Crawford, L. E., Ernst, J. M., Burleson, M. H., Kowalewski, R. B., et al. (2002). Loneliness and health: Potential mechanisms. Psychosomatic Medicine. 2002; 64: 407-417.

Cook, M. Experiments on orientation and proxemics. Human Relations, 1970, 23, 61-67.

Clack, B., Dixon, J., & Tredoux, C. (2005). Eating together apart: Patterns of segregation in a multi-ethnic cafeteria. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 15, 1-16. doi:10.1002/casp.787

Castelli, Luigi ; Carraro, Luciana ; Pavan, Giulia ; Murelli, Elisa ; Carraro, Alessia. The Power of the Unsaid: The Influence of Nonverbal Cues on Implicit Attitudes. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 2012 42(6): 1376-1393.

Coutts, Larrym. ; Ledden, Maribeth. Nonverbal Compensatory Reactions to Changes in Interpersonal Proximity. The Journal of Social Psychology. 1977 102(2): 283-290.

Dolphin, Carol Zinner. Beyond hall: Variables in the use of personal space in intercultural transactions. Howard Journal of Communications. 1988. 1(1): 23-38.

Eerland, Anita; Tulio M. Guadalupe; Ingmar H. A. Franken and Rolf A. Zwaan. Posture as Index for Approach-Avoidance Behavior. PLOS one. February 2012. 7(2): e31291.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/approach-versus-avoidance-posture-in-nonverbal-body-language/

Friesen, C.K., & Kingstone, A. (1998). The eyes have it: Reflexive orienting is triggered by nonpredictive gaze. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 5, 490–493.

Felipe, N. Interpersonal distance and small group interaction. Cornell Journal of Social Relations, 1966, 1, 59-64.

Felipe, N. Connotations of seating arrangements. Cornell Journal of Social Relations, 1967, 2, 37-44.

Gifford, Robert ; O’Connor, Brian. Nonverbal intimacy: Clarifying the role of seating distance and orientation. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 1986 10(4): 207-214.

Gardin, Hershel ; Kaplan, Kalman J. ; Firestone, Ira J. ; Cowan, Gloria A. Lanzetta, John T. (editor). Proxemic effects on cooperation, attitude, and approach-avoidance in a Prisoner’s Dilemma game. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1973. 27(1): 13-18.

George, N., Driver, J., & Dolan, R. J. (2001). Seen gaze-direction modulates fusiform activity and its coupling with other brain areas during face processing. Neuroimage, 13, 1102–1112.

Goodboy, Alan, K. and Maria Brann. Flirtation Rejection Strategies: Towards an Understanding of Communicative Disinterest in Flirting. The Quantitative Report. 2010. 15(2): 268-278.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/how-to-reject-flirting-using-nonverbal-and-verbal-tactics/

Gunderson, Virginia M. ; Lockard, Joan S. Human postural signals as intention movements to depart: African data. Animal Behaviour. 1980 28(3): 966-967.

Greenberg, Carl I. ; Firestone, Ira J. Greenwald, Anthony G. (editor). Compensatory responses to crowding: Effects of personal space intrusion and privacy reduction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1977. 35(9): 637-644.

Graziano, Michael S.A. and Cooke, Dylan F. Parieto-frontal interactions, personal space, and defensive behavior. Neuropsychologia. 2006. 44(6): 845-859.

Hall, Edward T. (1963). “A System for the Notation of Proxemic Behavior.” In American Anthropologist (Vol. 65), pp. 1003-26.

Holt, Daphne J ; Cassidy, Brittany S ; Yue, Xiaomin ; Rauch, Scott L ; Boeke, Emily A ; Nasr, Shahin ; Tootell, Roger B H ; Coombs, Garth. Neural correlates of personal space intrusion. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience. 2014. 34(12): 4123-34.

Hietanen, J. K. (1999). Does your gaze direction and head orientation shift my visual attention? Neuroreport, 10, 3443–3447.

Hall, Jeffrey A. and Chong Xing. The Verbal and Nonverbal Correlates of the Five Flirting Styles. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 2015. 39:41–68. DOI 10.1007/s10919-014-0199-8
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/first-12-minutes-flirting-using-nonverbal-communication-study-reveals-26-body-language-cues-attraction/

Hietanen, Jari. Social attention orienting integrates visual information from head and body orientation. Psychological Research.2002 66(3): 174-179.

Haase, Richard F. ; Dimattia, Dominic J. Berdie, Ralph F. (editor). Proxemic behavior: Counselor, administrator, and client preference for seating arrangement in dyadic interaction. Journal of Counseling Psychology. 1970 17(4): 319-325.

IJzerman, Hans; Marcello Gallucci; Wim T.J.L. Pouw; Sophia C. Weigerber; Niels J. Van Doesum and Kipling D. Williams. Cold-Blooded Loneliness: Social Exclusion Leads To Lower Skin Temperatures. Acta Psychologica. 2012. 140:283-288. http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/body-temperature-actually-drops-during-social-exclusion/

Koppensteiner, Markus ; Stephan, Pia ; Jäschke, Johannes Paul Michael. From body motion to cheers: Speakers’ body movements as predictors of applause. Personality and Individual Differences. 2015. 74: 182-185.

Kenner, Andrew N. ; Katsimaglis, George. Gender differences in proxemics: taxi-seat choice. Psychological Reports. 1993 72(2): 625(2).

Kaminski, Juliane ; Call, Josep ; Tomasello, Michael. Body orientation and face orientation: two factors controlling apes’ begging behavior from humans
Animal Cognition. 2004. 7(4): 216-223.

Kawashima, R., Sugiura, M., Kato, T., Nakamura, A., Hatano, K., Ito, K., Fukuda, H., Kojima, S., & Nakamura, K. (1999). The human amygdala plays an important role in gaze monitoring: A PET study. Brain, 122, 779–783.

Katza, Carmit; Irit Hershkowitz; Lindsay C. Malloya; Michael E. Lamba; Armita Atabakia and Sabine Spindlera. Non-Verbal Behavior of Children Who Disclose or do not Disclose Child Abuse in Investigative Interviews. Child Abuse & Neglect. 2012. 36: 12-20.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/reading-nonverbal-behaviour-child-abuse-cases-encourage-children-divulge-information-truth-telling

Lockard, J.S. ; Allen, D.J. ; Schiele, B.J. ; Wiemer, M.J. Human postural signals: Stance, weight-shifts and social distance as intention movements to depart. Animal Behaviour. 1978 26: 219-224.

Langton, S. R. H. (2000). The mutual influence of gaze and head orientation in the analysis of social attention direction. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 53A, 825–845.

Langton, S. R. H., & Bruce, V. (1999). Reflexive visual orienting in response to the social attention of others. Visual Cognition, 6, 541–567.

Langton, S. R. H., & Bruce, V. (2000). You must see the point: Automatic processing of cues to the direction of social attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 26, 747–757.

Lawson, Rebecca P. ; Clifford, Colin W. G. ; Calder, Andrew J. About Turn: The Visual Representation of Human Body Orientation Revealed by Adaptation. Psychological Science. 2009. 20(3): 363(9).

Montgomery, Derek ; Moran, Christy ; Bach, Leslie. The influence of nonverbal cues associated with looking behavior on young children’s mentalistic attributions.
Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 1996. 20(4): 229-249

Moore, Monica. Courtship Signaling and Adolescents: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. Journal of Sex Research. 1995. 32(4): 319-328.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/girls-just-want-to-have-fun-the-origins-of-courtship-cues-in-girls-and-women/

McBride, Glen, M. G. King, and J. W. James (1965). “Social Proximity Effects on GSR in Adult Humans.” In Journal of Psychology (Vol. 61), pp. 153-57.

Newman, Robert C. ; Pollack, Donald Holzberg, Jules D. (editor). Proxemics in deviant adolescents. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 1973 40(1): 6-8.

Navarro, Joe. 2008. What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People. William Morrow Paperbacks.

Okken, Vanessa ; Van Rompay, Thomas ; Pruyn, Ad. Room to Move: On Spatial Constraints and Self-Disclosure During Intimate Conversations. Environment and Behavior. 2013. 45(6): 737-760.

Remland, M. S. and T. S. Jones 1995. Interpersonal Distance, Body Orientation, and Touch: Effects of Culture, Gender, and Age. Journal of Social Psychology 135(3): 281-297.

Robinson, Jeffrey David. Getting Down to Business Talk, Gaze, and Body Orientation During Openings of Doctor-Patient Consultations. Human Communication Research. 1998. 25(1): 97-123.

Remland, Martins. ; Jones, Tricias. ; Brinkman, Heidi. Interpersonal Distance, Body Orientation, and Touch: Effects of Culture, Gender, and Age. The Journal of Social Psychology. 1995 135(3): 281-297.

Sartori, Luisa ; Becchio, Cristina ; Castiello, Umberto. Cues to Intention: The Role of Movement Information. Cognition. 2011. 119(2): 242-252.

Straube, Benjamin ; Green, Antonia ; Jansen, Andreas ; Chatterjee, Anjan ; Kircher, Tilo. Social cues, mentalizing and the neural processing of speech accompanied by gestures. Neuropsychologia. 2010. 48(2): 382-393.

Scherer, S. E., & Schiff, M. R. Perceived intimacy, physical distance, and eye contact. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1973, 36, 835-841.

Scott, J. A. Comfort and seating distance in living rooms: The relationship of interactants and topic of conversation. Environment and Behavior, 1984, 16, 35-54.

Sommer, R. Studies in personal space. Sociometry, 1959, 22,247-260.

Sommer, R. The distance for comfortable conversation: A further study. Sociometry, 1962, 25, 111-116.

Sommer, R. Personal space: The behavioral basis of design. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. 1969.

Stern, Daniel and Estelle Bender (1974). “An Ethological Study of Children Approaching a Strange Adult.” In Richard Friedman et al. (Eds.), Sex Differences in Behavior (New York: John Wiley and Sons), pp. 233-58.

Uchino, B. N., Cacioppo, J. T., & Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K. (1996). The Relationship Between Social Support And Psychological Processes: A Review With Emphasis On Underlying Mechanisms And Implications For Health. Psychological Bulletin. 1996; 119: 488-531.

Underwood, M. K.. Glares of Contempt, Eye Rolls of Disgust and Turning Away to Exclude: Non-Verbal Forms of Social Aggression among Girls. Feminism & Psychology. 2004 14(3): 371-375

Wicker, B., Michel, F., Henaff, M.-A., & Decety, J. (1998). Brain regions involved in the perception of gaze: A PET study. Neuroimage, 8, 221–227.

Weiss, M., & Keys, C. The influence of proxemic variables on dyadic interaction between peers. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Association; Chicago, 1975, August.

Werner, Carol ; Brown, Barbara ; Damron, Gary Steiner, Ivan D. (editor). Territorial marking in a game arcade. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1981. 41(6): 1094-1104.

Zeinstra, Gertrude G.; M.A. Koelen; D. Colindres ; F.J. Kok; C de Graaf. Facial Expressions in School-Aged Children are a Good Indicator of ‘Dislikes’, but not of ‘Likes.’ Food Quality and Preference. 2009. 20: 620-624.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/read-kids-dislike-food-facial-expressions-accurate-detecting-dislike-not-like-children/