Tag Archive for Nonverbal Language

Recognizing Body Affect By Culture

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A universal facial expression - Anger.

A universal facial expression – Anger.

In 1969 researchers Albert Mehrabian and John Friar found that a person’s state, their mood, and their emotional state were reflected by changes in body positions. In this context we are referring to affect in terms of simple gestures like leg crossing and arm crossing to indicate a closed mind or palms up and arms uncrossed to show openness or a willingness to listen. In fact, most of this book covers body affect and systematically breaks it down in future chapters. This cultural discussion is therefore important in that it describes the universality of body language.

While little research has focused specifically on measuring emotion from body positions, it has been found that the central nervous system is responsible for perception of emotion and this emotion is fed back into our body’s machinery to produce affect. The ways in which people convey emotion through body positions (or affect) is mediated by many factors including age, gender and context. Despite these factors though, body positions due to emotion, also has a cultural component. It is generally agreed that the face holds particularly universal expressions in terms of emotions as mentioned in the previous section, but the remaining language spoken by the body seems less obvious.

For example, the Japanese tend to be less expressive with their body language overall and therefore rate others more intensely on their nonverbal language. In a 2006 study by Andrea Kleinsmith and her colleagues out of London it was found that even mild expressions were rated as more emotional by the Japanese subjects over the ratings of other cultures on the same affect. A Westerner in the eye of the Japanese appears like a flailing uncontrolled windmill with their arms moving about as they gesticulate while they speak, whereas the Japanese appear rigid and uptight to a Westerner. In the study however, the meaning behind body language was still rated similarly across all cultures showing that emotion does have universal traits and crosses cultures. Thus, while the amount of affect does vary across cultures, the meaning behind the body language crosses boarders.

Affect Or Emotional Displays

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A frown affect accompanies a sad story.

A frown affect accompanies a sad story.

Affect displays is subset of nonverbal language that reveal our emotional state. For example, if we are happy we can show enthusiasm, or if we are telling a sad story, we correspondingly show somber. Affect display include facial expressions such as smiling, laughing, crying or frowning.

Awareness of various kinds of affect and how it is used in speech will provide vital clues about the speaker and his or her intent. Affect displays occur in synchrony and within the rhythm of speech. They emphases certain words or phrases and are an integral part of speech and thought. They can tell us about the expressiveness of a person and also what they find most important in their speech by which words they choose to emphasize. Posture can also signal emotion as can a variety of other gestures.

Affect is also different from culture to culture. For example, Russians tend to smile much less than Americans and therefore an American might come across as overly friendly to a Russian. Conversely Russians might come across as disinterested or aloof to Americans because they smile less frequently. In reality, both cultures are neither aloof nor overtly content, they simply appear to be so as they are viewed through a complimentary cultural norm bias. There is no right or wrong way to display affect, which is to say that no culture is better or worse because it smiles, frowns or cries less or more than another during expression.

Summary – Chapter 2

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In this second chapter we have solidified our nonverbal foundation with the five cardinal rules of body language. First we covered the five basic rules of body language: the rule-of-four, congruence, context, baselining and intuition and perception. The ‘rule-of-four’ says that we need at least four independent, but related signals to reliably read someone whereas congruence says that we should pay particular attention when verbal language and nonverbal language do not match. Context on the other hand, says that we must be mindful of where and how cues develop since they could be confused with other variables and might mean something totally different or nothing at all. Baselining refers to the need to measure a person over time and in different situations before we can accurately predict their nonverbal meaning with any accuracy. The final rule says that we need to be conscious about intuition and perception so we don’t project meaning onto situations based on pre-conceived beliefs. We also covered how the feet are the most honest part of the body, and that coupled with putting presidency on negative body language over positive body language, we will have a greater success rate in reading people accurately.

Aside from these rules we looked at the flow of silent speech, how body language can be less confusing than verbal language, the differences between men and women, how women intuitively read body language and how age affects body language. We also discussed the importance that alpha’s, or leaders play in our lives and how we are either creating social norms (leading) or we are following them, how posture portrays confidence, the importance of ‘haptics’ or touch, in addition to body language as it relates to energy displacement and finally the meaning of fashion and preening.

Body Language Of Children

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BodyLanguageProjectCom - NeotenyBabies are almost entirely dependant on nonverbal communication in their first few months, that is, if we discount crying! As children age, they still rely, as adults do, on nonverbal language such as pointing at a toy rather then asking for it, pushing other children aside when it suites them, or even hugs to show affection and exaggerated pouting to garner sympathy. Babies as young as nine month’s old, who lack verbal language, can even begin using sign language to convey desires showing just how rooted non-verbal communication is all of us.

When young children lie they often have troubles making eye contact or they might hang their head, appear tense or they might even quickly pull both hands up and cover their mouths as if to shove the lie back in from where it came from. Even some adults will perform these gestures if they let slip a secret or particularly juicy piece of gossip in the wrong circle. However, at other times, both children and adults are not as obvious. A 2002 study by Victor Talwar and Kang Lee out of the University of Queens, Canada, however, showed that children as young as three are naturally adept at controlling their nonverbal language as it applies to deception. In the study, children were able to fool most of the evaluators of their deception as a videotape showing the lie was replayed. Children are not particularly skilled at lying through verbal channels though, and they slip up easily revealing inconsistencies in their stories, so this is where you can really catch them. We will cover deceptive body language at lengths later on.

Other emotional body language emitted by children is much more prevalent. For example, children use slouching and pouting to show that they are upset and disappointed but as we age, we drop our nonverbal cues in favour of verbal expression. We naturally become more adept at repressing what our bodies do and tend to use more conscious thought and spoken words since it is more direct and less easily misinterpreted. What starts off as a quick mouth slap movement to the mouth when lying (or swearing) in children, slowly becomes a touch to the corner of the mouth. Later, restraint forces the finger to the side even further and then instead of touching the mouth it touches the side of the nose instead. As people age, they become much more difficult to read. By logical progression, the hardest to read of all are sixty-year-old politicians!

As an interesting aside, dedicated parents even claim to be able to sense when a baby is about to relieve themselves and so avoid messy diapers. This technique is referred to as elimination communication. By reading gestures such as frowning, squirming, fussing or tensing, mother’s (or fathers!) in combination with baby’s particular rhythms, can detect when potty time is immanent. Once the baby’s cues have been deciphered the mother can anticipate potty time by holding baby over the toilet and cuing with “hiss-hiss” or “wiss-wiss” sounds. To associate the hissing sounds with urination, this process must be repeated ten to twenty times each day!

Silent Speech Has Flow

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How is the flow of your body language?

How is the flow of your body language?

Body language is like verbal and written language; it has structure. Body language flows, it has its own rhythm, vocabulary, grammar and punctuation. Some gesture are single letters which join with others to form words right on up to formulate full sentences and phrases until we finally reach full ideas and meaning. Part of the way things come together is connected to congruence, meaning that the overall body of language comes together seamlessly. Just like someone might have poor written grammar, some people have poor nonverbal language, sometimes even dramatically so leading to even more drastic consequences.

We are all born understanding the basics of body language and have the minds to master it, but none of us are born ready emitting perfect body language. Instead we learn body language like we learn to speak, by observation and practice. ‘Naturals’, as it were, may only exist because instead of ignoring body language like most people do, they bring it to consciousness early on and follow successful example around them. Their minds are subconsciously prepared to imitate good postures and appear in control and confident. As we will see, good body language isn’t something you are either born with, or must be without forever. It can be learned.

I recall a time when my wife and I were visiting a fellow who was giving away a second hand washing machine which would I would use for a rental apartment. His body language made him appear inept and he came across as awkward. He’d cross his arms when I was talking and when I’d make a point, he would do his best to contradict me. He’d lean in too close and his body odor was overpowering. This person had no reason to be dishonest, he explained that he needed the space in his house for another project. We took the machine because at the time we needed it, however since he gave us such a negative impression we still don’t know, to this day, if the machine works or not. I’ve never hooked it up or used it! My wife and I got a terrible impression of the guy and the feeling attached itself to everything about him including his free washer. It didn’t affect us while we were there, but as soon as we left, we were able to verbalize reasons for storing, instead of using the machine. We simply didn’t trust that the machine would work properly despite his verbal assurances, and instead of taking the energy to move it into the basement to test it, we stored it in the garage and purchased a new set. His body language told us that something must be wrong with the washing machine, that perhaps it ruined clothing or leaked and he just wanted some sucker to help him dispose of the machine. Other people who aren’t studied in body language but finding themselves in a similar situation would have concluded that their ‘gut feeling’ was off. Since I could read his cues, it was obvious to me why I didn’t trust him, but I did have to explain to my wife why she felt so uneasy.

This story illustrates the point about the strength of nonverbal body language and how salient and important it is. Even though the result was at no cost to him (and little cost to me), if he had been a commissioned salesman, or salesman of any sort, he would have lost the deal with certainty.

Context

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Touching the nose is associated with lying, but maybe she's got a runny nose.

Touching the nose is associated with lying, but maybe she’s got a runny nose.

Context is another important factor to consider while reading people. We often hear about verbal statements that are taken out of context and in this same way, we can take nonverbal language out of context as well. “That guy was obviously lying, he was scratching his face and neck and could barely sit still” might be accurate when being grilled by a panel of the media over missing fund money, but in the context of being attacked by a swarm of killer bees, not accurate at all!

Concluding that someone is cold hearted from a single meeting is another case of ignoring context. We often think people are shy after a first meeting, but are surprised that over time they open up and are actually quite expressive and talkative. However, what we fail to realized at the time might be that during an initial meeting, our subject of interest hadn’t been acquainted with any of the other twenty people in the group and as a natural consequence we acting as any normal person would. Temperature can also play havoc on cues of openness. Someone who crosses their arms tightly and crunches up could be defined as closed or aloof, but they also might be cold. Conversely, removing a jacket could mean that a person is warming up to others but could also mean that they are overheating.

Single events taken as all encompassing can set us up for problems in the future. A brief meeting in one location, with one set of people, centered on one task can not define any person. Single meetings only show how a person reacts on that day, based on whatever happened before then to set their mood and with whomever happens to be there. People are very complex, and so we must give them plenty of opportunity to display their true selves before drawing solid conclusions. This does not mean that what we gather on each occasion is useless, but rather that it needs to be compared across many situations before it can be used accurately. Until similar patterns develop across many different situations, take isolated incidents for what they really are. Predictive power happens through repeating patterns across many events and in many contexts.

Congruence

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Honest hands - palms up, but what happens next?

Honest hands – palms up, but what happens next?

Hands return to pockets indicate dishonesty and is incongruent with the intended meaning.

Hands return to pockets indicate dishonesty and is incongruent with the intended meaning.

The word congruence, as it relates to body language, refers to the degree to which body language cues in a person matches one another in terms of their meaning. If, for example, one is speaking honestly with the palms up (an honest gesture) we can say that the body language and verbal language are congruent. That is, honest words match up with honest body language. A child with their hands in their pockets (dishonest gesture) speaking about how they didn’t steal a cookie is incongruent since their body language does not match their verbal language.

We regularly place more importance on what words are used rather than how others gestures in their delivery, but this is a mistake. When we don’t have congruency and the verbal language doesn’t match the nonverbal gestures we should always place more importance on the nonverbal channel. Credence should almost always be given to nonverbal language over spoken words since the research tells us that it is often more accurate. When people plan lies they often rehearse the sentences and in what sequence they will deliver them, but they often ignore or disregard gestures that will accompany them. While we monitor our spoken words, our unconsciousness can leak unwanted information through our bodies. However, even if people were consciously aware that their body language gave them away, they would not know what to do since most people are completely unaware of the meaning their body conveys.

Politicians can leak information through congruency and this can give them away, although most politicians today are quite learned in body language. We should be suspicious of politicians, however, when they have their arms tightly folded against their chest while saying that they are open to change or to a door-to-door salesman that swears his life on a product but wipes downward with his hand as if to clear the lie. Another example is the cheating husband who tries to pass off a late meeting and then pulls at his neck tie, collar or scratch his neck indicating stress.

Sometimes however, knowledge about body language just comes off as less expressiveness. The body language thus tends to be much more controlled and subdued because it’s much easier to eliminate body language altogether then it is to add honest body language. However, even reduced expressiveness helps us read people because a relaxed and natural politician is more likely to be telling the truth. Therefore, even reserved body language can be a ‘tell’ to those who are in tune. Congruency therefore, is very important because it is a clear comparison between two communication channels, the verbal and nonverbal. When words are mismatched against the body language, we can be sure something dishonest is at play and these hints should instigate us, at minimum, to pay closer attention.

What Does It Mean To Read People?

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Reading people involves connecting all their signals, both verbal and nonverbal, throwing out the junk and connecting the rest to create meaning. The full story can only be told when all or most the factors about your target are connected. Research has shown that it is far easier to get away with a written lie over one told over the phone. From those facts you might guess that telling a lie in person is the hardest. Each additional communication channel that is added gives us more clues as to what is really going on.

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If we could adding information, such as a person’s heart rate and sweat gland activity which is the primary channels using in lie detector machines we could be even more accurate. Therefore, just using one channel, and ignoring others, won’t allow us to do our jobs as accurately as using all the available channels.

A classic boredom cue cluster, fingers tapping, blank face looking away.

A classic boredom cue cluster, fingers tapping, blank face looking away.

When we say that a person is “perceptive” what we really mean is that they are able to read the contradictions between what someone is saying and their body language. For example, someone might fidget, avoid eye contact and touch their nose but still be delivering a true statement. The reason is that, at times, these conflicting signals come from ambivalence, or outright uncertainty. Other times body language leaks through fatigue or other anomalous stimuli. The expert body language reader will intuitively understand the roots of nonverbal signals primarily by examining people through context and then relate the body language seen to actual meaning. For example, a good body language reader will properly connect fidgeting, tapping toes, and scratching the side of the nose with being tired, which is the right conclusion, rather than lying, one that is fabricated, because they will note the right circumstances surrounding the nonverbal language.
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To accurately read body language we need to connect the perception we have of the situation with the body language present, then use context, coupled with our know history of the person we are reading (i.e. their disposition and habits, or their “baseline”) to determine what is really going on. Advanced reading of body language is not simple, the process happens quickly and continuously.