Author Archive for Chris Site Author

Why Our Pets Look Like Our Kids And Couples Like Each Other

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Why is it that married men and women look similar to each other? Do we subconsciously choose partners that look like us, or is something else at play? You probably at least suspect by now that some element of body language is involved, and you’d be right. A 1987 study by Zajonc and colleagues from the University of Michigan set out to discover if couples really to look alike and why this is so. They had subjects compare photographs of married couples when they were first married to photographs after twenty-five years of marriage. The results showed that there was an obvious similarity within couples, that is, they looked alike, and it was also found that couples that had greater facial similarity tended to report greater happiness.

When couples live together they begin to look alike, and this trend happens over time, as the researchers discovered, since new couples had less facial similarity than did older couples. This was explained due to the tendency to mirror one another and empathize with our partners emotions. This causes facial musculature to become increasingly more toned in similar areas as our partners. It is these expressions that create wrinkles in specific patterns around the eyes, mouth and forehead, which in turn carve our faces into ones that mirror our spouse. With time, the even the root facial expressions become the norm for each and happen with or without the spouse being present. This phenomenon isn’t isolated to our spouses, it can be found in our children, or anyone else that spend a great of time with us. It has been said that our personality is the average of the five people we spend the most time with. Perhaps this also extends to our facial expressions! Mirroring is a very profound force in our lives and we should note and correct our bad habits in our expressions. When greeting your spouse, or children do you smile gleefully or is your face expressionless or worse, does it scowl?

The appearance of our pets is an entirely different matter since animals have very restricted ability to move their faces and the emotions they experience don’t come across to us in the same way that it does with people. So why is it that our pets look like us, but more so like our children? The answer lies in neoteny, for one, and secondly due to selection preference. Pets through extensive breeding tend to have more neotenized features. For example, their eyes are often droopy, their tails and ears lay flat instead of standing erect and they have soft fuzzy fur. Dogs through eons of artificial selection pressure have retained only a select few traits of their wolf ancestors especially in its adult form. Humans much prefer dogs that appear “cute”, play fetch, leap and bound, and wrestle to dogs that attack and kill prey. It should be noted though, that some masters do relate to this type of animal and adopt similar pets. Neoteny explains why dogs look like children, and our interests, purpose, or intention for the dog selects the breed while our own physical appearance influences which dog breed we eventually choose. In other words, we choose dogs in our own unique image and likeness because we relate to them. This is why we find aggressive tattooed owners with pitbulls, dainty pink-loving celebrities with toy dogs or “tea cups” and why tall skinny people choose bigger lengthy dogs like greyhounds.

When Mirroring Creates Flow

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We're both "the captain!"

We’re both “the captain!”

Matching speech patterns is an effective way to build rapport and create flow and it includes changing dialect, speech rate or tempo, pitch, tonality, voice inflection, use of words and even accent. This is what is called the “communication accommodation theory” and it has been heavily researched. It also forms a part of neurolinguistic programming (NLP) which was covered previously. The theory’s main proposition is that during interactions, people modify their communication behaviour and patterns to more closely resemble the person with which they are trying to gain the most from. Gains in this context can include social approval, employment, or to build friendships and rapport. NLP also goes much deeper than just mirroring speech patterns to include mirroring other facets of a person’s traits.

The theory says that people can also differentiate their speech patterns so as to appear more dissimilar, and thereby create division in personalities or ideas. As is the case with all forms of mirroring, similarities attract. Whereas a significant portion of mirroring involves body positions, verbal mirroring can also be potent. Accents are immediately recognized and when they appear they immediately conjure thoughts of dissimilarity. Mirroring language patterns is a good way to quickly reduce differences and show a willingness to interact positively. Mirroring in language can include matching humour type, frequency and style. If speech is free of humour, than to connect with that person, dropping humour altogether would be advantageous, but if they lace personal humour or self deprecating humour then using a few jokes yourself can help build a connection. Similarly, matching analogy use, the use of questions, matching chattiness or matter of factness of the conversation, use of hand gestures, eye contact and even sentence structure can build rapport quickly. Far from being a copy-cat game, it’s a subtle matching of the speech patterns preferable to your counterpart and adopting them yourself. Even if we don’t consciously use this technique to build rapport, subconsciously we do it anyway, especially if we like the person. Effective use of NLP can build comfort, relaxation and create familiarity. Perfected, the technique will create instant friendships and lifelong bonds. At worst, its use will lead to a lowering of barriers between people and a greater likelihood of being welcomed.

When two people match speech patterns exactly or nearly, we can this “pacing.” Conversation will appear to flow uninterrupted and information will be shared backwards and forwards between the two people. Pacing can include more than just verbal actions. Regulators such as head nods, gestures and micro movements call all work together to create a rhythm. Speed of speech is one important factor to maintain. Speaking too quickly can put pressure on people as they will feel that it is difficult to properly express their views and opinions. Anyone who’s conducted an important interview over the phone with a broken connection with someone they’ve never meet in person knows how hard it is to maintain pacing. The pauses created by the poor connection leads people to jump in to speak despite the fact that the other person hasn’t yet reaching their conclusion. This creates a choppy, disjointed, cumbersome, and even painful conversation. Twins and family members are best at pacing, as are close friends. Rapport is when closeness is developed making people more alike in their thought process, than different. Speech matching is a technique that recognizes the differences in communication styles between people, but rather than dwelling on these differences, forces people to accept and even incorporate these traits into their own speech to quickly build rapport with others.

High order NLP in speech and rapport requires much more attention than this book can ever give it, so this brief summary was only meant as a primer for future research. If this kind of technique fascinates you, I highly recommend reading further, it is a very illuminating area of study.

When Mirroring Can Backfire

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Mirroring can backfire around people who want to dominate instead of build rapport. Your boss who takes you aside and wants to put the “rivets to you” isn’t going to respond to mimicry. In fact, trying to mirror him is likely going to make matters worse. In most cases, a dominant boss who displays dominant body language is not interested in employing someone equally as dominant. The default condition, or rule of thumb, to working with dominant people, unless lead otherwise (by your boss), is to show submissive postures. Fight dominance in superiors with submission, that is, hold your legs together, arms inward and hands on your lap.

There are a few exceptions when dominance should be fought with mirroring such as when we wish to rise in ranks by building equality with our bosses or wish to compete head on with other dominant people for positions or perks. Other times a boss will require someone specifically to hold a position of dominance, so will be looking for someone who reminds them of themselves. Bosses will seek these people for higher management. Lawyers can and should posture dominantly to each other. For them it can work to thwart challenges. It is expected in lawyers, and in other professions, to fight fire with fire, but in normal circumstances, mirroring will only raise the hackles of others further.

A second related instance where mirroring is not advised is during confrontation and aggression and this defines our second rule of thumb which is to avoid mirroring in hostile situations. To avoid a full blown fist fight, diffuse aggression with submissive postures. This doesn’t mean you can’t come out the winner, it just requires a different approach. More than anything it requires defining winning in a different way than traditional. In other words, walk away unscarred, alive and you’ve won!

The final caveat to mirroring is to use it only during win-win negotiations and avoid it during win-lose negotiations. Win-lose situations are when one side clearly wins and the other looses. Poker is a win-loose situation where one person wins the chips directly from another person, whereas win-win situations happen anytime prices have room for flexibility such as negotiating on the price on a piece of carpet, a car, or a house, where once the price is agreed upon both parties will benefit. Other arrangements that are win-win are partnerships that involve no money at all, but rather an equal input of labour. Therefore, our final rule of thumb is to only use mirroring when there is give and take involved, or when the task includes cooperation beneficial to both sides. The caveat, of course, which was mentioned previously, is that all mirroring must always go unnoticed for it to be effective.

What Stops Mirroring?

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Because mirroring is so efficient and useful to us, it should naturally happen across all people in equal proportions and remain consistent across time, but this is far from true. While differences in connectivity happen between various groups of people or cliques, we also feel more connectivity to certain individuals within a group. Therefore, mirroring will have various strengths across various pairings. Over time our goals and needs change too, and so too do our opinions and ideals. So as we develop, our relationships to people also change. The level of rapport we feel with another person affects the level of mirroring, and a lack of liking can even stop mirroring dead. There are many factors that affect mirroring or lack thereof such as inward versus outward looking people, high versus low self monitors, and the goals desired. If mirroring should suddenly turn cold or fail to start at all, we should be aware of possible explanation just in case it is something we can control or fix.

Inward looking people are those that define themselves specifically by virtues or characteristics attributed directly to them. Inward looking people call themselves intelligent, tall or friendly. Outward looking people, on the other hand, create their identity by their social role, the groups they belong to, their friends and relationships. Someone who sees themselves outwardly will say they are a daughter, a mother of a son, an aunt and the coach of a soccer team. Outward looking people will also be more likely to affiliate with others, and will therefore tend to partake much more in mirroring. Inward looking people will be found to resist mirroring, and extremely inward looking people can even become uncomfortable with mirroring. Extreme inward looking people who wish to maintain their identity will show their discomfort by consistently modifying their body positions to become different than their counterparts so as to clearly maintain a line of separation.

Mirroring is also affected by another personality trait called the desire to “self monitor.” Self monitoring is defined as the desire or ability to regulate oneself to fit into any given environment. “High self monitors” are more likely to change their behaviour in lieu of the situation and seem to be less consistent across context. This personality type is more likely to mirror others. “Low self monitors” are just the opposite, and remain pretty much the same across most situations. They don’t tend to feed off others or try to please them by acting differently in order to fit in. They seem less interested in “belonging” to groups and seem hold the same values across settings. Naturally, this type of person tends to mirror others much less.

The final reason for mirroring inhibition stems from having different goals. When ideas differ we want to send a clear message that our minds don’t agree. Mirroring under perceived disagreement can become particularly discomforting and put people on edge. Testing general agreement without using risky verbal dialogue can be done by mirroring our counterpart and verifying the degree to which they accept imitation. If they quickly adopt new postures, than there’s a good chance that they disagree.

Mirroring is reserved for those that are highly motivated to get along with others due to their personality traits coupled with the rewards that are in it for them in particular.

Using Mirroring In Negotiations

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Negotiation finds itself in all walks of life. Even small children know that negotiation is important as they work to secure toys and privileges from parents and other children, although sometimes they revert to brute force and temper tantrums! Adults focus on bigger ideas, and negotiate for jobs, salaries and sales. Part of your occupation likely involves some form of negotiation on a daily basis but even if it doesn’t, most people find that negotiation finds itself in their personal lives as well, if not just to secure a better deal on a mattress or a watch at the hockshop.

We soon learn that our ability to influence, persuade, and interact with others play a large role in the final outcome and within this social game are liking, trust and therefore rapport. He who can control these factors best, will secure the large piece of the pie! Negotiations can be stressful affairs because we are almost dealing with a limited resource in some respect or another and this increasing the propensity for competition. It is the element of competition that further breeds distrust and conflict. Having methods to dilute these negative elements are of vital importance.

One of the key factors in negotiations is the desire to withhold information especially as it applies to more novice deal makers. We naturally expect deception and competition in deal making and so we prepare for the worst, but in actual fact, this preconception leads us to destroy the odds of coming out of the affair on the upside. Rather, research shows that it is the sharing of information that creates cooperation, builds trust, and influence others such that they see your side and empathize with you. Ultimately this empathy is what leads to positive outcomes for both parties, within the limits of constructive possibilities for both parties, of course. When negotiating, we must still balance cooperation and information sharing within the realms of the game such that we don’t give up too much information or reveal the outer limits that we are prepared to submit as loses to our negotiating partner. But this does not mean we shouldn’t be upfront about our net positions, as there is always a possibility that both parties can find mutual benefit, but if neither party shares information, how would anyone know what is at stake?

This brings us to mirroring as an effective tool to bring negotiators quickly onto the same page without using risky or damaging dialogue. In a 2008 study by Maddux and colleagues individual negotiators in an imagined negotiation scenario where instructed to subtly mirror the actions of the other. It was found that mirroring helped them secure a better outcome and allowed them to perform better as a whole than negotiators who were instructed to focus more on their own strategy and where no mention of mirroring was given. The subjects that mirrored in this experiment created more value for themselves under the parameter of the study and that benefit did not come at the expense of their opponents. The study suggests that mirroring creates more information sharing which lead to a greater ability to bend on concessions and hence formulate more positive outcomes for each party.

In their second study, they used two groups once again. One was instructed to mirror and the other was instructed to use their own strategy. In this case however, the subjects either acted as a buyer or seller and they were negotiating the purchase of a gas station. In the scenario, which was cleverly devised, there was no overlap in the price with which the seller was willing to accept and of which the buyer was willing to pay, making the negotiation more than about price alone. Some key outside factors that played into the negotiation was that the seller was keen to leave quickly to travel caused by burnout from running the gas station, but that upon his return he would require employment from the purchaser to recover some of his expenses. This was compatible with the interests of the buyer who wanted to hire managers to run the station in the future. The deal hinged upon the desire of the seller to divulge this information and to what degree, if any, either party would drop or raise their closing price. Not surprisingly, ten of fifteen groups where buyers were instructed to mirror led to an acceptable deal, whereas only two of sixteen reached a deal where the buyer did not. They also cross referenced the level of mirroring with deal success and found that as mirroring increased, so too did deal making. As a positive side effect, trust also increased with mirroring.

It’s obvious from these studies that mirroring can have a profound positive effect on negotiations. They can open the channels of communication and release valuable information between parties resulting in creation of value, deal making and trust. When no mirroring happens, deal making suffers, but when mirroring happens both parties stand to benefit.

What To Mirror To Gain Favours

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When people's bodies are out of sink, the differences of opinion are amplified.

When people’s bodies are out of sink, the differences of opinion are amplified.

Proper mirroring is far from the game we play as children. The goal of kid’s is to irritate their opponent with exact copying of gestures even expressions and word, whereas the goal of adults is to formulate agreement and rapport. In adults, necessarily, more subtle mirroring must follow. In the experiments listed above, the researchers set to mirror only those actions which occur subconsciously, those that happen out of normal awareness. Movements such as foot shaking, body scratching, face or hair touching or changes in posture are good ways to start the mirroring process. Your goal should always be to avoid getting caught consciously mirroring someone else since being detected will create negative feelings more so than if no mirroring was done at all. Motions such as leaning in, crossing legs and folding arms can also be used, but must be done with caution since these are much larger motions and can be more easily detected.

Echoing which is like mirroring where similar body postures are replicated, but of which happen sometime later, is a technique that makes the rapport building process more subtle. In echoing, postures and gestures are not concurrent with what is going on with others, but instead happen after some time has elapsed. To be effective, echoing happens within thirty seconds to a minute of separation, but can even happen with several minutes of separation, where only subtle rapport is felt.

Where body positions are fluent, yet echoed, and bodies seem to jive as if in an elaborate dance and where conversation flows smoothly we find “total synchrony.” We say that these people are on the same “wavelength.”

Some ways we mirror with our bodies:

[A] Shifting weight from one foot to the other foot or keeping the weight on the same foot.
[B] Leaning on a bar top or up against a wall or other structure.
[C] Crossing the legs in the same direction or opposite direction when facing each other.
[D] Keeping the legs uncrossed.
[E] Gesturing with the hands similarly.
[F] Drinking in unison or holding drinks with the same hand.
[G] Placing both hands, or just one hand, on the hips.
[H] Leaning in, or leaning out.

Research Into Purposeful Mirroring

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A 1999 study by Tanya Chartrand and John Bargh, showed that forced mirroring had a positive effect on liking. In this study, half of the time researchers either mimicked or did not mimic subjects. The remaining actions and behaviours remained the same across both groups meaning that the only factor being manipulated was either mimicry or lack thereof. The participants who had been mimicked reported a greater liking and reported that the conversation carried on much smoother then what was reported by subjects that did not receive any mirroring.

Another study showed that mimicry arouse spontaneously amongst strangers. In this study, participants were examined interacting on two separate occasions. In the first session the researcher interacted with the subject while purposely rubbing their face and in the second, they shook their foot. Videotapes of the session showed that the participants mirrored the actions of the researcher, that is, when the researcher rubbed their face, they did too, and when they shook their foot, so too did the subject. At the end of the study, when asked of their awareness of their mannerisms the subjects pleaded ignorance to their mimicry. This suggests that imitation when around others is spontaneous and happens without prompting. In other words, we naturally imitate others.

Dutch researcher Rick van Baaren and colleagues in a 2003 study demonstrated that mirroring leads to a greater sense of closeness between people. In this marketing study, body posture and mannerisms of participants was either imitated or not. Subjects that were mirrored rated the researchers significantly higher on a closeness rating scale. Thus, despite feigned mirroring, subjects still reported greater liking. In a second study it was found that tipping size increased by sixty-eight percent simply by verbally repeated the orders of patron and in a third study, individuals were more likely to help someone who had dropped items when they had been previously mirrored.

Mirroring can therefore be a powerful and practical tool when used deliberately as evidenced by the research. The research suggests that the propensity to mirror is an adaptive way to converse more efficiently and smoothly. Several other studies show us that people are both more likely to imitate others whom they like, and also like those of which they imitate. This has implications on persuasion since liking has a profound effect on our influence of others. The research also tells us that others are not normally aware of the mirroring that is happening around them, nor of the effect mirroring has on their actions and beliefs. In essence, mirroring is an effective and powerful tool which can be used to create bonds, build rapport, and in essence, get what we want from others.

The Chameleon Effect (Mimicry)

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It's like looking into the mirror.

It’s like looking into the mirror – and we see ourselves.  This eases our tension.

A term first coined by Chartrand and Bargh in 1999, the “chameleon effect” refers to the unconscious mimicry of postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviours such that one partner in an interaction passively and unintentionally changes his body positions to match that of others. He further describes that this changes are context specific and person specific. There are some key points in this idea. First is that the mirroring happens without conscious awareness, which will become important later as we explore the applications of mirroring. Second, a persons perception of another’s behaviour works to increase the likelihood of it appearing in others.

In other studies it was observed that nonverbal mirroring increased over time within a group of people. Rapport, liking, empathy and group building also increases over time. When students were asked to mirror the nonverbal language of their instructor they reported a stronger sense of involvement with them. It has even been reported that the absence of mirroring can even produce differences amongst people instead of just inhibiting cohesion.

Introduction – Chapter 12

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When people "jive," they are in agreement and this commonality leads to liking.

When people “jive,” they are in agreement and this commonality leads to liking.

Mirroring or “isopraxis” is as important to lifelong friends as to strangers meeting for the first time, since mirroring is a way to test and maintain the level of rapport being established between two people or groups of people. Mirroring as it applies to nonverbal communication describes body postures, body positions and gestures that are held in unison or echoed a few seconds later, across people as they interacting. When full mirroring appears it is as if each person is looking into the mirror and seeing their reflection. When full mirroring happens, it indicates a high level or rapport, or connectivity between people.

We mirror as a form of bonding with one another, and it happens without our conscious awareness. In fact, mirroring is difficult to carry out in a natural way at a conscious level as we will see in this chapter. The evolutionary origins of mirroring might stem from imitative learning, where gestures and movements or skills are passed from one person to another. Children learn to imitate our facial expressions and quickly graduate to imitating our body positions, and then later they imitate us as we carry out tasks. If you’ve even driven with a youngster, you’ve watched them pretend to drive with their arms up, rocking the wheel left and right, or working the stick shift. Imitation has been said to be the greatest form of flattery and in mirroring this is the case.

In ancient times, mirroring would have created group cohesion and identity. Sports groups, riot officers, firemen, and a myriad of occupations all wear the same uniform. It is this dress that formulates the beginnings of the behaviour that eventually leads to a group’s ability to functioning in unison. Imagine if policemen all showed up in different dress and tried to control a crowd. To the rioters, they would seem as if they were rogue rioters themselves which would only exacerbate the problem. The rioters would identify the policemen as part of their group instead of part of the police group, which would only lead to additional chaos.

However, the police know the importance of mirroring, so they arrive with exactly the same gear, dress and comportment. They wave their batons, walk, stomp and chant in unison to display a fortified front. The uniform also serves to identify members of their group and dispel others quickly. A rioter who was able to secure a loose baton wouldn’t last long in the group in the group of police, even if he could adopt the same postures, chants and stomps, because he’d still lack the proper uniform. However, if he could obtain this too, he’d fit right in and would be accepted as part of the group without question. The results of this would be devastating, since his behaviours, no matter how random or unjust, would be tolerated by his “peers”. He could begin to smash windows or beat up other rioters and it would be initially overlooked by his group causing confusion. The uniform, because of mirroring and rapport, provides the rogue officer with additional powers, so he can get away with things that a rioter can not. This extension of power only lasts so long before it would be questioned though, and the same sort of behaviour is present in real life situations as it relates to mirroring. It builds rapport and group cohesion and identifies those that belong to us and fit in with our ideologies, and those that do not. When we are in groups we easily loose our individual mentality in favour of group cohesion. The rioters escalate their terror for the same reason. They are part of a group, identify with it and so adopt similar behaviour.

Mirroring and uniforms do not apply just to the police. In fact, it applies to almost every walk of life, in every office or business across the planet. We act and dress a certain way even when we are relaxing with friends. When we go to concerts we clap, sing, stand, drink and with the right group, listening to right music, may even join a mosh pit with others to slam our bodies together violently to celebrate the music. Mirroring says that we are on the same page. It’s like saying look at the two of us, we walk the same, talk the same and our bodies move in unison, therefore we must agree. Mirroring can cut so deep that breathing, blinking, and even our heart rates can beat in unison. Mirroring is such a profound quality of social animals as a whole. Our cities are built upon our abilities to mirror with row upon row of houses repeating one after the other, all with a small patch of green grass at the front and hopefully a bit more at the back. We all cut it short to make it presentable and to keep up with our neighbours. We compete with others just to fit in and be the same as them. Far from being a bad thing, mirroring creates social order, promotes peace and productivity and leads to cooperation.

Mirroring in rapport building is ubiquitous and serves a purpose but it also finds itself in some peculiar places. Yawning is one of them. Yawning is one of the more pronounced forms of mirroring since it has a contagious element. Yawning in one person sets off a chain of yawns within the rest of a group, even if the members don’t know each other. Picking up a foreign accent or adopting the idiosyncrasies of friends are two forms of subtle mirroring. Full blown mirroring happens when we cross our arms in unison, drink or eat together or even finish each other’s sentences. Twins have been known to connect in such a dramatic fashion that sentence finishing is commonplace and some twins can even begin sentences in unison. Mirroring comes out too in tone of voice, syntax, rhythm and use of pauses. Dancing is another form of pervasive mirroring and without building a connection, dance appear sloppy and uncoordinated. Women might even use it as a selective tool when evaluating potential suitors. If you can’t jive together in a coordinated fashion, can you be expected to raise a family together, what about create a family? Anecdotally, dance has been said to be a reliable predictor of how we perform in bed, so if you prefer a slow passionate dance over a break neck shake, keep this in mind! Let us not leave out facial expressions, emotions and overall mood as a subject to mirroring in others either. This is covered in the pages to follow.

Summary – Chapter 11

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This chapter focused on emotional body language. We began by discussing New York style body language called “displacement behaviour.” We saw that displacement behaviours include actions set to preoccupy in order to dehumanize the outside world – especially in more crowded areas. The list of behaviours included nail biting, gum chewing, grooming, tapping the does, head scratching or playing with jewelry, but can also mean looking and acting ‘out of touch’ or closed off.

Next, “fight or flight” was finally shifted to “freeze, flight or fight” finally putting it into the proper order. Following this was clenching behaviour where we found that actions such as gripping the wrist of the opposite hand in behind the back, or wringing the hands out like a wet article of clothing, are forms of restraint. We also hit on nervous hands and how shaking can tell us a lot about what sort of emotions a person is experiencing.

We then moved onto poor self image and the language that tells. Here we found that auto contacts including stroking the beard, rubbing the hands, tugging the ear, massaging the throat, pulling the fingers, rubbing the back of the neck and so forth, are linked to insecurity since they attempt to provide reassurance. We hit on eyebrow lowering and that when they are permanently lowered by the newly incarcerated it signifies easy prey for existing inmates. Interlaced fingers and palm finger stroking, on the other “hand”, were both labeled as emitted by those with negative thoughts. In the section on suckling and mouthing we saw that the mouth and lips provide a target for tactile gratification to provide comfort. Here we saw that anytime the fingers go to the mouth or lips to suckle, that our target is regressing to an infantile stage, and is trying to regain the security they felt as a child.

We found that compressed lips indicate stress, down-turned smile unhappiness, anger or tension, and lip pursing indicates that a thought, usually negative, is being processed. We found that tongues can depict deep concentration or a cheeky attitude, and that sneering signals contempt, disapproval and disrespect the world over. Ear language was covered next and we learned that ear grabbing refers to “hearing no evil” showing disbelief or an attempt to close off communication by blocking the ears. Hostile body language, on the other hand, was found to be more similar to sexual body language, but only in so much as the body language showed through figuratively onto ourselves when we would much rather inflict it onto others. Examples of such hostile body language included pulling or pinching at one’s own ears, cheeks, hair, or face. Next we covered the sequence by which bodies reject and then how they relax.

We discovered that the neck becomes particularly sensitive under pressure and like the cheeks, it becomes red and engorged with blood when we become nervous. Thus when people are under pressure they tend to touch or cover it so as to pacify. Women also tend to cover their “suprasternal notch” when they are experiencing anxiety. We found that people who don’t cross their legs are generally uncomfortable because crossing significantly reduces the ability to act quickly during confrontation and exit. Next we found that the eyes and the body can block unwanted thoughts and images, that blushing indicates emotion and anxiety, and that asymmetry can show when emotions are faked, gravity defying behaviours means people are happy, and that there are six universal facial expressions. We learned that asymmetry is what tells us honest expressions from fake ones. We also discovered that everyone, no matter how extroverted, requires emotional downtime, that timid people will cocoon and that guilty people will turtle. We also found in this chapter that full body hugs, where the chest and hips make contact, shows sexual intimacy, and that light hugs, where the shoulders touch shows friendship. Lastly we covered the “hug-ender cue” or the “tap out” that tells others that the hug has run its full course and one party wishes to submit. We concluded with a list of additional emotional body language.