Tag Archive for Reading Body Language

Age, Age Gaps, Status And Its Affect On Body Language

by  • March 5, 2013 • 0 Comments

Since we’ve isolated women as the best readers of body language, it’s time to weed out the rest of the bad apples from the bunch. In fact, many other factors, aside from our sexes, play into our ability to read and use body language.

The first such factor is our age. Children first learn to communicate through nonverbal channels by using posture, gestures and proximity to influence the behaviour of the adults around them. If this doesn’t work they will resort to crying but for the most part this is non-directional and unsophisticated. In children, it is their body language which helps us to figure out their true desires. Before they can signal nonverbally, we are simply left guessing so thankfully children have relatively simple and predictable needs. Once they figure out the use of words, their nonverbal gestures quickly diminish and eventually get mostly left by the wayside. Children who first begin to speak will show more interest in speaking then other channels even if it means they need to interact more with their adult counterparts versus other children of the same age. At the age of three, most children have lost or dropped almost all of their nonverbal communication and are fully into verbal speech.

Age also plays another more important role in reading body language. Those people that are closest to our age are the easiest to read. Our ability to accurately read others is much lower with people who are much younger and much older then ourselves and easiest amongst our own peer group. We spend the most amount of time with our peer group so familiarity could be a factor, however, more importantly is our ability to relate and empathize. So the take-away message is that our ability to empathize with the needs, desires and emotions of others is a key part in reading body language. Empathy is the ability to put ourselves in the shoes of others and to feel what they feel.

The greater the gap in age between the reader and the target, the greater is the discrepancy in accuracy. If you’ve ever watch siblings of similar age, you know that they have an uncanny ability to interpret and understand each other. It’s particularly interesting to watch small children decipher each others seemingly nonsensical gibberish and random movements. Naturally it follows that teenagers and seniors are difficult to read by the middle aged and children are poor readers of all adults (or at least do a good job pretend to be).

Older faces are difficult to read naturally, even for other seniors. Older faces have
weaker muscle tone, and so produce less exaggerated expressions. What expressions are made are then covered by wrinkles disguising them even more. Status and occupational differences that we see everyday at work, also make it difficult for us to read others. Upper management dealing with lower management in a company or teachers dealing with students must deal with cohort differences daily and it can become stressful.

Higher status people might lack the interest to associate with lower status people and low status people might sense this and so return less eye contact feeling not cared about. This lack of empathy spirals into each party caring less and less about each other. Lower status employees may also feel envious of higher status employees and share less information with them make it difficult to develop empathy. Health care workers that spend a lot of time with seniors can develop skills and read them more accurately, but only if they empathize with them. To be a good body language reader, you have to be able to put yourself in someone else’s position, and see the world as they do.

Baselining

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Does he always sit on his hands or is he hiding something?

Does he always sit on his hands or is he hiding something?

Baselining is probably one of the most important and often overlooked aspects of reading body language. It refers to the “normal” motions that populate the repertoire of each and every person on the planet. Normal here is the operative word. We can’t even begin to read someone until we first have their baseline pegged. For example, to read someone that is normally flighty and constantly moving, as agitated is wrong since they are merely acting out their particular “idiosyncratic nonverbal behaviour.” That is, the body language that is particular to specific people and that makes up their repertoire, or basket of cues considered normal for them. This person might be flighty or high strung by nature but they certainly can’t be constantly agitated by nature as our nervous systems can’t tolerate perpetual stress. A person high strung by nature who seemingly freezes instantly is telling us based on their baseline that something is up. Baselining tells us that a condition in their environment has changed and it has affected them. It now becomes our job to detect the cause for the change.

Baselining involves learning about how a person usually sits, how they use their hands to gesture, where they place their hands while at rest and relaxed or when nervous, how they place their feet when standing, their overall posture, how they prefer to cross their legs such as whether they cross them equally left over right as right over left, and so on. The list to baselining is utterly endless as are the myriad of cues that can be emitted from the human body, fraught with or, absent of, meaning.

By establishing a baseline it will be possible to catch sudden changes in body language. This is the ultimate purpose to establishing a person’s baseline. Without catching the changes, body language loses its ability to indicate exactly what is going on. For example, a younger brother that is acting exuberant and ecstatic who is jumping around with joy and happiness, who, at a moments notice, finds himself in the presence of an older brother only to suddenly cease his joyful movements, turtles his head into his shoulders, and becomes quiet, says a lot about what kind of relationship they have been having lately. Body language is directly linked to emotions, and so when it changes, we know that something has cause the change, and more often than not, it will be precisely the event that preceded it.

These changes aren’t just limited to events either, they can also be tied to words spoken, or even topics. A married couple might be carrying on amicably, but when there is mention of an ex-girlfriend, even casually, the wife might begin to display dominant and closed body language such as crossing arms, wagging fingers, or scolding eyes. She is indicating that this women or topic is a particular sore spot between them and the sudden change in mood, from good to bad, tells us that it is the topic that is the issue. Criminal investigators will frequently steer suspects off-topic (and seemingly off the record) by talking about favourite pass-times or hobbies by example. This serves the investigator by producing relaxed body language. Once a baseline is established interrogators begin to introduce facts surrounding the investigation to measure their effects. They might begin with items not even connected to the trial and then suddenly introduce a murder weapon, for example, to see if nervous body language appears. During criminal investigations the murder weapon can be kept a secret from the public especially early on, so only the real criminal would exhibit a visceral response to viewing it. While these sorts of interrogations won’t directly lead to a conviction, it does provide clues for further exploration. Like all body language, clues tell us if we are on the right track or if we’ve eliminated leads, at least for the time being.

Those who don’t know about baselining will find it difficult to read other people who lack similar affect to themselves since their only reference of normal is what they do or what the average person they associate with do (which more often then not is very similar to themselves anyway since we tend to hang out with those of like mind). People that don’t baseline won’t see people for their individual characteristics, idiosyncrasies, culture and habits. As we work through life we should have our family, friends, coworkers, bosses, instructors, or anyone else we interact with regularly pegged for their baseline. This will not only make reading them easier, it will also give us “archetypes” that can be cross referenced as comparisons. This in turn, gives us a better chance at evaluating others, even strangers, on the spot, and in real time.

Introduction – Chapter 2

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Mastery of anything begins by first learning the basics, and body language is no different. A solid structure can not be built without first forming and pouring a solid foundation. This chapter is aimed at accomplishing just that, as we tackle the basic, but very important rules of body language. It might seem as though reading body language is as easy and simple as just reading cues and postures, but it isn’t. At times it can be downright confusing, although the aim here is to simplify the language by breaking it apart then reassembling it, but not until the cues are first put through a strong filter. One of the filters we use is based on the five cardinal rules of body language which says that we need to use the rule of four. This rule tells us that we need at least four related cues to form a conclusion. We also need the cues to ‘jive’ called congruence, they must be taken in context, fit along some baseline of behaviour and finally must not be filter through a bias, meaning that they must be true rather than created fictitiously for an ulterior purpose. We will examine the five cardinal rules in detail in the pages to follow.

Just like regular spoken language or written language, silent speech or nonverbal communication also has what is called flow. Body language has rhythm, syntax and all the other nuances associated with general communication and ignoring this flow is akin to throwing away valuable information. We will also see that body language is much more reliable than spoken words because people generally pay little attention to it, and because of this, people will monitor it less readily allowing it to appear naturally and untainted. We will see that when body language and spoken language contradict one another, we should rely more heavily on what is happening non-verbally.

We will also cover the differences in body language reading ability between men and women, how age can influences reading, which may or may not be surprising and how leaders or alpha members of our society call the shots even when it comes to body language. We will touch a bit on good posture, how best to use touching, and how body language relieves pent up energy and displaces it. Finally we will touch briefly on the meaning of fashion and how it plays into nonverbal communication.

Why We Should Picture People Naked!

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How does this posture appear fully nude?

How does this posture appear fully nude?

My final thought in this opening chapter should keep your imagination in full gear because I am about to recommend that you do something naughty to become more proficient at reading body language. I’m instructing you to picture your body language subjects as if they were totally nude! Body language cues came about over our evolutionary history, so it naturally follows that they developed without clothing or coverings. Imagine, for example, a full body steeple where the arms are placed behind the head and the body leans back with the legs spread wide open – a crotch display! It is the way a proud (or arrogant) man sits to put his full package on display. True, it is slightly less offensive with clothing on, but it still carries the exact same meaning since its true intentions were delivered as if the clothing were absent. Picturing people naked helps us to think about not just the message, but also the route behind the message. Men who hold their legs spread wide open are perceived as arrogant but women who hold the exact same posture will be thought of as sexually open or “easy.” While each party might not specifically intend to deliver this message, it matters little to how others subconsciously perceive them.

What is her body saying with it's "openness."

What is her body saying with it’s “openness.”

Arrogance and sexual openness are not the only gestures that are made more salient by picturing people naked but they are the most dramatic. We can also picture meek gestures in the same way. Women that place their hands over their laps are doing so for just the opposite reason as do women who spread their legs, they do so to hide or protect their genitals for view or from access. The same intention is obvious when women fold their arms over their chest. They are trying to hide and protect their breasts since someone or something has made them withdraw and has made them insecure. Naturally, their arms fold, one over the other, and they hide from view something important to them. There will be times though, when protection isn’t the reason, arm crossing due to being cold is one of them. We will discuss the importance of context in this regard in more detail later. There are other times still, when women put themselves on full display. Women do so by walking with their hips forward and chest back. This is called the parade and her intension is to have men and subordinate women take notice. If you have trouble visualizing this, put it in the context of the local nightclub. Suddenly you see that it follows naturally, and next time at a bar, you might actually notice it in an authentic context.

While we are on the subject of nudity, think about how and where we hold our possessions. A handbag can be held to our sides, but equally, it can be placed on our laps or held to our chest. Handbags therefore, can have a protective shielding purpose, as do other objects in our environment and some women will even admit this as fact by tell you that they feel naked without one! Desks can be used as barricades to block ourselves from view and chairs with backs can be used in full on assault by turning them backwards and straddling them, putting the “boys” or “girls”, on full display. Then from the security of our seated position we can toss verbal arrows and spears. People who sit in this way are obviously aware of being fully clothed and most certainly wouldn’t sit this way while naked, but that’s not the point. The point is that people continue to sit this way despite holding the evolutionary hardwiring telling them that the way they are sitting is offensive. Someone that is defensive, on the other hand, will use desks, walls, doors, or other barriers to protect and hide themselves rather than flaunt. You can think of shields such as handbags or jackets like towels, objects that we use fresh out of the shower to block our private areas from view and appropriately conceal our modesty. An excellent example of a real life “towel” and one that is very commonly used during presentations is the podium. Most would say that it is a great place to store our notes and an area to place the microphone, and nothing more, but in reality it’s a place of refuge that public speakers us to escape full view of the crowd. Only the most confident speakers who are accustomed to being exposed in front of large audiences will move about a stage for everyone to see.

So in summary, do as any amateur public speaker is recommended to do, when in doubt, and to make the points expressed in this book more salient, picture your targets naked!

How Hard Is It To Read People?

by  • March 5, 2013 • 0 Comments

Itchy nose or does this mean something else?

Itchy nose or does this mean something else?

Reading people is fairly simple and common sense once the language is learned, but initially there are a lot of cues to recall so at times it can be confusing. At first it might be difficult just remembering the cues, let alone pull them to consciousness when applicable, but with time this second language will seem to flow naturally and in real time. Body language is fluid and happening all the time around us so we can’t hit pause or rewind in real life to review individual cues. Thankfully, though, we don’t have to. Even beginners can get the gist of things just by picking up a few cues here and there, however the full meaning won’t come until the reader can piece together all the cues.

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When you begin to notice things you hadn’t before, it will be obvious that I have accomplished my goal.