Tag Archive for Desire

How People Learn

by  • March 5, 2013 • 0 Comments

Turn the music down, she's a visual learner!

Turn the music down, she’s a visual learner!

There are three main ways in which people process new information. They are auditory (spoken words), kinesthetic (touch) and visual (images). When presenting information it is important to identify which methods are most suitable because every person absorbs information in a different way and so prefers to learn through specific mediums. It is also important to realize your own unique tastes so you can satisfy your own needs and learn more effectively.

Auditory learners, those who learn primarily through spoken words make up about twenty five percent of the population. This group of people prefers to hear the information through oral presentation, lectures and speeches. Oral learners will be found playing music frequently, or will leave a television or radio in the background to stimulate them. Other oral learners will be distracted by sound so they instead run white noise machines or play nature or ocean sounds to sooth themselves. You can also identify auditory learners because they will say things like “That rings a bell”, “I hear you” or “That doesn’t sound right”.

Visual learners account for around thirty five percent of the population. They will prefer charts, maps, graphs, images and photographs. You can identify a visual learner because they will say things like “I can see that”, “I just don’t see how that’s possible” or “yes, I see, that makes perfect sense”. Obviously having at least some visual props will assist any presentation but if you are looking to impress a visual learner, the more the better.

Kinesthetic learners represent the remaining forty percent and they prefer to learn mainly by touch. They prefer to learn by doing rather than simply watching and so they take poorly to lecture situations and can exhibit a desire to move. They often want to take action before learning, and jump right in, so to speak. Kinesthetic learners can be restless or hyperactive when under-stimulated physically. These types of learner will prefer dioramas, physical models, role-playing, or reenactments. Kinesthetic learners prefer test driving ideas or building things as they learn about them. We can identify kinesthetic learners as they will often say things like “Let’s bounce that idea around”, “I can’t quite grasp that idea”, “I’m having trouble feeling that” or “Yeah I can warp my fingers around that one.” More often than not, people will learn through every channel, despite having a more preferred method. Therefore, to teach effectively, it’s important to use as many of the teaching techniques as possible, not only so you can involve the greatest percentage of people, but so that you can use more of everyone’s senses making a much more diverse and powerful presentation.

Shifty Eyes

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Eyes that dart are associated with lying. In reality, eyes that shift are a sign of emotional discomfort, which may be due to any stress, not just the stress of lying.

Eyes that dart are associated with lying. In reality, eyes that shift are a sign of emotional discomfort, which may be due to any stress, not just the stress of lying.

Paul Ekman’s research into lying says that people often attribute shifty or darting eyes to liars, however, as a predictor of a lie it actually falls short. Looking away from complicated human faces helps us concentrate and so it doesn’t really tell us much more than that thought is taking place. Human lie detectors may suppose that no thought needs to take place when truth telling, so they eyes need not be diverted. In reality however, the eyes can wander due to a variety of reasons not the least of which are connected to the thought of being mistrusted, labeled a liar, or being punished.

Therefore the stress and nervousness of being put on the spot is enough to cause the eyes to exhibit patterns that seem dishonest. Experienced poker players, wishing to disguise a strong hand, can careful craft misleading “eye tells” fooling other players. For example, wincing at a card that is actually a good card, or using darting eyes when telling the truth, or best yet, producing cues at random, can really confuse opponents. The research also notes that pathological liars are particularly adept at maintaining eye contact even more so then people who are honest. Researchers have theorized that liars want to track the success of their lies and so by watching the face of their victims, they can gauge their effectiveness accordingly and adjust if necessary. Therefore, the real give-away to lying might, in fact be an increase in eye contact rather than a decrease in eye contact. However, as it turns out, even this clue is sometimes misleading as it can be adjusted accordingly as we saw in the poker example above.

Another reason we might see poor eye contact is as an indication of the desire to exit an undesirable situations. At social events or parties, this is especially the case. We might catch eyes moving about the room as the minds of guests wander for more stimulating interactions. So to gauge interest you can note where their eyes wander and how much eye contact they use. Our eyes go to where our minds already are, and of which our bodies want to be. We of course think it to be rude to just up and leave whilst speaking to a fellow guest, however by casting our gaze randomly or specifically to our object of interest we send the same message. While too much eye contact can also be rude and unnatural, so too is extended periods spent looking away, or looking all about the room in a distracted fashion. Eye patterns, therefore, need to be carefully constructed to send the message we intend.

The Friendly Social Gaze

by  • March 5, 2013 • 2 Comments

When friends talk to one another they aren’t trying to peer into their souls, rather, they gaze. The gaze is non-threatening and like the intimate gaze, which follows, the eyes travel over the face in a specific pattern. In the friendly gaze, the eyes travel in a triangular pattern from eye to eye then to the mouth with some infrequent looks to the rest of the body. The reason we cast our eyes infrequently over other parts of the body is simply due to the reason that it is of less interest and of less value in friendship which is just the opposite of that which happens in the intimate gaze. With friends, gaze is brief, lasting only about three seconds followed by looking away. The research tells us that about seventy-five percent of the time eyes travel through the triangular pattern from the eyes to the mouth, ten percent of the time is spent on forays to the forehead and hair, and five percent to the chin, with the remaining time split on various other features.

After a period of gaze or mutual eye-contact both people will avert their eyes downward instead of left, right or upward. But if you are really in a comedic mood and want to put the fright into someone, break your eye contact by quickly looking up and taking a step backwards! They will most certainly think that something is about to fall on them which is the likely reason we rarely look up when breaking eye contact. Looking down, on the other hand is a symbol of submission whereas looking left or right can imply disinterest (or interest in something else), or a desire to withdraw from the conversation. Looking past or ‘through’ someone, by having an expressionless face, and unblinking eyes has the same affect, it places importance on other things aside from the conversation at hand. Of course, and as mentioned previously, feelings associated with improper eye contact is noted and held subconsciously, since for most people they are out of the normal range of awareness. That being said, people will attach powerful feelings and judgments to us based on how we use eye contact during conversation regardless of our true personalities.

The extreme end of negative thoughts and feelings related to eye contact comes from prolonged periods of unbroken eye contact – staring!

Introduction – Chapter 3

by  • March 5, 2013 • 0 Comments

If you spend time traveling or do business in more than one country then this chapter will prove invaluable. Not all body language happens the same way all over the world. To some this revelation gives them ammunition against body language because they say that since it is not totally universal, it is not innate and therefore not predictive, however this is not so. While some body language crosses culture, other language does not, what is important though, it to know which is which. We will spend the following chapter looking at how body language varies from region to region and hence from culture to culture and you will see that some body language is learned while some innate or genetic.

As we progress we will look at how emblems, illustrators, affect displays, adaptors and regulators add colour to our language and as how to use them. We will also discuss how these facets of body language vary across regions. The two take-away messages from this chapter is that it is the sender that determines the accuracy of the message no matter what the culture, and that it is up to you to decide what it means, and that it is the culture in which we find ourselves which dictates what’s normal. In this context, normal is what tells us how we should comport ourselves. We will see that our innate body language dictates our culture, that some gestures are universal (and some are not) and that touching preferences and desire (or tolerance) to closeness is learned. Finally we will cover the ways in which cultures meet and greet one-another.

You Have Four Minutes!

by  • March 5, 2013 • 2 Comments

You're on the clock, so make it count!

You’re on the clock, so make it count!

It has been repeatedly shown that the first four minutes are crucial to formulating life-long impressions of others. The research has shown that the reality of the matter is that it might even be shorter than this. [!dw-post-more level=”0″]Once a judgment has been past, people will vigorously resist changing it. In fact, our first impressions are so strongly held, that we’d prefer to ignore, omit or distort information about someone as it comes in that doesn’t fit our impressions than to modify our initial impressions of someone. Add to this, the fact that only some our time formulating impressions is done verbally through speaking, but all of our time is spent sending signals nonverbally. Our impressions are made passively, regardless of our desire to create them, so being caught on an off day can really hurt future relationship. If, say, for example, we are caught in a bad mood, or happen to be dealing with a rare crisis, the judgment others make during this period will follow us for a very long time. Shy people who take longer to warm up to others know this all to well and are often reminded of this fact later. As their relationships flourish, friends will tell them how their initial impressions of them were quite different from the person they have come to know. Being shy holds their true personalities from sight, and this hurts them in the short term because the initial impression they make comes across as indifferent and cold.

Knowing that impressions are so important, we can use it to our advantage by placing added emphasis on initial impressions and concentrate our efforts. Once this time has elapsed, we can either relax back to our regular selves and allow our newly created reputation to keep us afloat, or maintain out initial behaviour. The choice will be ours to make. This book will cover the all important job interview and skills to portray confidence and knowledgeable and how to pack it all into the typical four minute interview. Fortunately, this book is almost entirely about formulating and maintaining good impression. [/dw-post-more]So the rule here is to never ignore the power of first impressions. More often than not, first impressions are the ones that last for an entire relationship and can’t be easily corrected later. I should also emphasis that what you ‘say’ is often far less important than what you ‘do’. Listening, and using strong body language will illustrate a much stronger impression then being a good speaker, so always pay more credence to positive body language.