Tag Archive for Nlp

When Mirroring Creates Flow

by  • March 6, 2013 • 0 Comments

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.

Using The Eye Trick To Predict Things

by  • March 5, 2013 • 1 Comment

What's she thinking?

What’s she thinking?

To apply the psychic NLP eye trick examine where people look as they attempt to recollect or express their thoughts. For most right-handed people, eye movement up and to the left is a signal that one is accessing a visual memory whereas movement up and right means that a person is trying to construct a visual image. Eyes either right or left, but still level, indicate an auditory process such as remembering sounds and words. Eyes down and left indicate internal dialogue or self talk, and down and right indicate a tactile or visceral feeling. When the eyes are straight ahead, unfocused or dilated, they signal that visual or sensory information is being accessed.

These eye patterns appear to be consistent for all right handed people throughout the world except for a few minor exceptions. Many left handed people though tend to reverse from left to right and access information opposite to right handed people. Therefore, they tend to look down and left to access feelings instead of up and left.

These patterns can provide us with information that have predictive powers. By watching and reading the eye direction of other people we can draw inferences about how they are accessing the information which can be particularly helpful when trying to determine their intentions. Lie detection comes first to mind, but we can also deduce how one is internalizing thought by what their eyes are doing. As it pertains to lying, for example, right and up (constructed visual) and right and level (constructed auditory) both show that a person is trying to create or imagine new details about something whereas left and up (visual remembered) and left and level (auditory remembered) indicating that a person is remembering something that had actually happened.

A word of caution though is that it is not all that easy to follow someone’s eyes and some of the expressions last just fractions of seconds. Not only this, but people can access multiple parts of their brain to recall the similar ideas. Some people also have habitual eye movements that have developed over time so a person that is highly visual might look up and left, or right, regardless of the type of question being asked. Someone who is kinesthetically oriented might look down and right all the time even in reference to a thought about music or sound. However, even these cues can give us indications of the
types of mind they have and therefore the type of person they are. By using eye gaze in NLP we can better tailor presentations to key in on more visual or auditory elements as required by our listeners.

Here is a list of questions to help determine what type of learner you are working with in order to better help you tailor information:

Eye Access Cues.

Eye Access Cues.

1) Visual Remembered: Think of the colour of your first bicycle. Think of the first person you saw as you entered the office this morning.
2) Visual Construction: Imagine what it would be like to fly. Imagine your dream home and pretend you are entering through the front door, what do you see?
3) Auditory Remembered: What was one of your most favourite things your parents have ever said to you? What types of sounds do you most enjoy?
4) Auditory Constructed: What would a rabbit sound like it if could talk? What would your boss say if he knew you were stealing office supplies?
5) Auditory Digital (Internal Self Talk): What does the sound of your inner voice make? What kind of dialogue happens when you think of your spouse and children? When do you find you talk to yourself the most?
6) Kinesthetic Remembered (Tactile and Emotional): Imagine what sandpaper feels like against your skin. Imagine what a cat feels like as you pet it. Think of a time in your life when you felt you had accomplished something that made you proud. When was the last time you were completely exhausted?
7) Kinesthetic Construction (Tactile and Emotional): Imagine the feeling of sand between your fingers that gradually turned sticky instead of rough. Imagine the feeling of helplessness turned into empowerment.

Eye Direction, Thought And NLP

by  • March 5, 2013 • 0 Comments

Eye movements are well known in neuro-linguistic programming abbreviated NLP, a system developed to help induce behavioural changes and improve communication between colleagues as well as to retrain thinking in business. It was developed in the 1970s by two researches in California, Richard Bandler and John Grinder who noted that the predominant research into human behaviour focused on problems rather than on solutions. NLP rather, focuses on the behaviour of successful people and is thought that by copying them, others too, can be successful. “Neuro” refers to the fives senses (hearing, touch, smell, sight, taste) “Linguistic” refers to the use of language to order thought and behaviour and “Programming” reflects the way ideas and thought are organized into actions. NLP is driven by defining positive outcomes, understanding how other’s perceive particular circumstances, and in identifying the roots by which thoughts affect images, sound or feelings.

It was discovered through experiment that eye movement is related to that part of the brain people where accessing. It began when researches noticed that the brain processed different information in different hemispheres. It was found that right handed people tended to shift their heads and eyes to the right during “left hemisphere” tasks such as logical and verbal processing and left handed people had entirely opposite patterns.

A typical left-handed person would have the opposite meanings for their eye-directions.  Therefore, people tended to look to the opposite sides of the brains for the answers. Eye movements in this way, is one of the most well known but also the most controversial discoveries of NLP. It might also be one of the most valuable. The researches attached electrodes to subjects to track eye movement and brain wave characteristics. They were then asked questions related to sight, hearing or feeling tasks that involved memory or right brain processing and mental construction or left brain processing. Eye movement was shown to be related to how people process information. For example, upward eye movements reflected visual processing, lateral eye movements reflected auditory processing and downward movements reflected either kinesthetic (touch) or an inner thought or feeling.