Tag Archive for Game

What To Mirror To Gain Favours

by  • March 6, 2013 • 0 Comments

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.

How To Use Barriers To Your Advantage

by  • March 6, 2013 • 0 Comments

Objects can be erected to deflect emotional attacks.

Objects can be erected to deflect emotional attacks.

My wife frequently uses headphones in public places to avoid talking to strangers even if she isn’t playing music into them. If strangers come up to her, she points to her headphones as if to say that she can’t hear them. If she was really interested in a conversation, or minding other people’s business, she could remove them, but her point is that she isn’t. Headphones are therefore a strong message of introversion of which we wish not to be bothered. If a person strongly insists on interacting with her, she takes a long time to remove her headphones and accompanies it with irritated body language. She might even only partially listen to the person who has infringed on her privacy, although this is an advanced technique, before placing the headphones back on.

Now you might think that she’s being rude, but this is far from the case. She, like you, and everyone else, has the right to refuse to speak to whomever we please. We each owe no service to anyone else, especially interactions that were not mutually invited. Lack of eye contact in this case is a big factor in the right to refuse to interact. Dark eye glasses can close people out even more successfully, because it avoids accidental eye contact. Eye glasses make conversations shorter and less productive than one’s that occur when the eyes are exposed. Obviously, if we wish to welcome and continue a conversation or increase its effectiveness, we should promptly remove our sunglasses, even in really sunny conditions, so we might benefit from mutual gaze. When your counterpart wears glasses too, you might however, both agree to keep them on.

Barriers for negatively reasons are most common, but as in the peek-a-boo game that is played by men and women, objects can be used to tease and arouse in courtship. This is the case with “eye hiding”, which happens when a drinking glass, menu, or even people moving about a room temporarily put out of vision our object of affection. It can also happen by slightly turning away, or lowering the eyes coyly. Dropping the eyes out of sight or looking over the shoulder when done by women is particularly seductive. The loss of sight sends us into spells of worry, but when they suddenly reappear it sends our hearts races with relief. Small babies especially enjoy this game, sending them into giggle fits, and adults play along happily. When adults play the game with each other, it is only slightly more sophistication.

How one holds their arms while seated at a table can tell us the degree of acceptance or defensiveness they have toward us or our views. For example, having the arms apart indicates general agreement, having both arms parallel but uncrossed shows partial agreement, and having the arms folded on the table indicates disagreement. In this case, arms are being used as barriers. We have covered ways to break barriers and open those who show closed body language earlier. To reiterate though, we concluded that while it’s possible to open someone by offering them objects such as a drink or reading material to uncross their arms, it is usually best to openly address their concerns.

Improper use of barriers happen to all of us, because we aren’t totally aware or continuously conscious of their hidden meaning. Take a social gathering for example, where nearly everyone will have drinks and snacks on hand. How do we hold them while we stand, what about while we sit? While standing, more times than not, our arms are cocked at ninety degrees keeping our arm parallel to the floor to keep our drink upright preventing it from spilling. Unfortunately, this sends a bad message because it is a partially closed body position since it creates a barrier that isolates our bodies from others. While drinking alcohol can make people more social, having to hold the drink at the chest impedes our ability to use our hands properly and expressively. If you absolutely must drink or you think it is required to fit in with the crowed, then try holding your glass to your side so that you don’t block off the center-line of your body. If a table or bar top is nearby, use it to store your drink and so free your hands to gesture with palms up. While sitting at a table, feel free to put your drink to your flank so that you aren’t talking over it, and your arm, the entire evening. For a lot of people, drinks are crutches, something to hold on to, and as described earlier, are a form of security blanket. If you think you’re ready to “grow up”, try standing free form instead of toting your drink around at your chest. It’s not as easy as it sounds!

Objects as small as pens, but as large as books or newspapers, can be used to indicate division between people and create space between them. Just like the beverage example however, using the pen to write on a piece of paper by crossing the center-line of the body effectively closes it off. If no object is present at all, the barrier can still be formed by leaning on the table with both forearms and putting weight on them. This anchors and locks the barrier into the table. Although it is a closed message, it can be diminished to a degree by leaning forward toward your company. Holding the pen out and away from the body shows the opposite message. It is an indication that someone wishes to “extend” or offer an idea to them, and they wish their idea would cross the center-line of the table and enter into the other person’s ideology. The same sort of casual invasion of space, showing a desire to become connected, happens anytime the center-line cut evenly between two people, is breached. This can happen with reading material or business documents, hands in gesture, hands to touch, the sharing of food and of course love letters.

Conversations in busy places can be shut off completely just by raising a book and beginning to read. Sometimes this isn’t enough, so emphasis needs to be placed on it. We do this by peering rudely over them with an off-putting face and then slowly raising the reading material again. Obviously, this message is only rarely missed or ignored.

If you are the subject of unwanted blocking then begin by reviewing the pattern of communications that has lead to this result. Have you come on too strong? Were your ideas overly political or religious? Have you been too expressive or aggressive? Whatever the case, your best bet is to back-off and use relaxed body language to diffuse whatever anger you might have created. Ease the tension by taking a break and allowing your partner to have some emotional downtime. Try to devise a way to regain common ground, even if it means changing the subject or leaving it entirely to start fresh another day. Whatever you do, don’t bother trying to push your ideas forth too strongly, as they will simply be met with increased resistance. Finally, not everyone who uses barriers do so because they dislike other’s based on personal grounds, rather some just require more space and privacy, even in public.

A Caution About Biases During The Baselining Process

by  • March 5, 2013 • 0 Comments

Self hugging can mean that he's shy or just a place to put his hands.

Self hugging can mean that he’s shy or just a place to put his hands.

We also have inherent biases which we must be careful of when try to read other people. Our dislike of certain people could influence us to read their language in a less then favourable light. Knowing that this bias is an inherent possibility, can at least protect us in terms of accuracy, and set up conditions that avoid possibly destructive fallout. This is only one factor to be careful of while reading people as it relates to baselining. Reading lying body language, by example, is very difficult and not having anything to compare it to essentially makes it impossible.

Poker is an excellent game that hones our nonverbal analysis of people, and the best modern day poker players will, with the advent and popularity of televised poker, review thousands of hours of video on their opponents. While some of the time they are watching to pick up on specific “tells” they are also developing their baseline. By doing so, even prior to meeting them they can have some players pegged. They can then use their baseline to determine actions, especially novel ones, that are out of the ordinary. If you’ve ever walked into a new poker group, you understand exactly what I mean. You might know some of the people, but usually there are others that you haven’t yet met add to this a novel context and you’ve got your work cut out for you. Since you don’t know the other player’s baselines you naturally end up being cautious and if you know poker cautious being “tight” can be just as bad as being “loose”. Over time you build their character and they start to “make sense”. In everyday life we call this process “getting to know someone” but in the body language world, we are formulating their baseline. Baselining is really about having the ability to compare someone to themselves.

Nose crinkle can mean a negative thought as in a game of poker. I've, however, see this gesture feigned (and yes I lost the hand over this bluff).

The ‘nose crinkle’ can mean a negative thought as in getting a bad card in a game of poker. I’ve, however, seen this gesture feigned (and yes I lost the hand over this well executed bluff).

Let’s look at arm crossing or even touching the nose. Everyone thinks that arm crossing means that someone is closed and unreceptive. This might be true for some people some of the time, but to others, it means that they are comfortable. If I were to cross my arms, just now, would it mean I was closed? No, it wouldn’t, it simply means that my arms are crossed. The same goes for nose touching as an indication of lying or deception. Some people touch their nose at the end of every sentence – it’s their idiosyncrasy. Does this mean that every word that comes from their mouth is a lie? It could be, but it is not likely. Once we’ve caught someone in a lie we can backtrack and look at the clues that preceded the lie and those that followed the lie to pick up on cues that might have given him away. Poker players do just this, although for them it’s simpler since there really are only two possible scenarios, he is bluffing, or he really has a strong hand. Video even provides professional poker players with one hundred percent of the information at hand, there are no secrets and so baselining can happen very quickly. In real life, things are not as obvious and there is a lot of gray in between the truth and a lie so it takes a lot more effort do develop baselines, however with practice even novel situations with unknown people will begin to appear similar to other past experiences and people. So baselining provides us with information that we can use in the future when lying or any other emotional behaviour is suspected, where we can draw from our database of “tells” and make educated guesses about the truthfulness, or emotional state of our subject or subjects.

OK vs. Not Ok Personality Traits

by  • March 5, 2013 • 6 Comments

Dr. Eric Berne, the founder of the psychological school of Transactional Analysis (abbreviated TA) coined the terms “OK” and “Not OK” to describe two essential types of people. The “OK” types are secure and confident in who they are and carry little emotional “baggage” whereas the “Not OK” types are insecure about themselves and often feel inferior. Dr. Berne also helped to define certain terms that were important in studying social interaction. When two people meet eventually one of the persons will acknowledge the presence of the other person. He called this the “transactional stimulus” where a “transaction” refers to a conversation between people. When people interact to each other, they talk or express nonverbal body communication, they issue a “transactional response”. Those that are (obsessively) interested in social dynamics often begin to think of interactions down to the unit. These definitions, however, are merely presented for interest sake, since for our purpose they aren’t terribly important.

Berne’s approach was much different from that of Freud who though perhaps too simplistically, that he could learn everything about someone just by asking them, and then listening to their response. Berne felt that therapists could learn more about people by watching their body language and facial expressions instead of words by themselves.

Eric Berne published a very popular and interesting book called Games People Play in 1964. To date it has sold over five million copies. The book describes the function and dysfunction that happens in human interactions. Without getting into too much detail, let’s look at one example of a game.

The example I wanted to bring forward makes light of how we control our interactions with people by the tone and words we choose. As a boss, if we attack an employee by taking up a controlling “parental” role we will normally elicit a childish tantrum in return. The real way to deal with adult situations is to attack them from a constructive integrity based position where we act like “adults”. Adult actions normally yield adult responses, but as we see in Berne’s book, not everyone uses the best framework to work through life. As he sees it, some people get stuck between three ego states, the “Parent”, “Child” and “Adult”. Berne outlines well over ninety games that people play, some good, but mostly bad. He defines games as social interactions that are counterproductive. Today, there are few ardent followers that use the TA approach in any rigid way, even the ego states have been scrutinized, however, the principles of the method do help us look at how we run our lives and the ways we hold ourselves back through games we play with ourselves and others. He also ran a results-based framework which was new to psychiatry at the time and says that if it’s not working for you and you aren’t getting the results you want, change it!