Tag Archive for Shirt Collar

Other Emotional Body Language

by  • March 6, 2013 • 0 Comments

Stroking can take on many forms and depending on context can indicate the need for comfort.

Stroking can take on many forms and depending on context can indicate the need for comfort.

Emotional body language can arise anytime the hands touch the face, neck, shoulder, arm, hand, or leg as a direct response to negative events. These negative events can be anything from an embarrassing or sexist joke, being put on the spot, having to present to an audience or being asked a difficult question. When viewing emotional body language keep in mind that men tend to touch their faces more often, whereas women prefer to touch their hair, arms, neck, clothing or jewelry. Men also tend to be more aggressive with their gestures and will tend to cup their necks just below their chins or will stroke the back of their necks with their fingers. They might also be seen adjusting their tie or a shirt collar when no such adjustment is required. On the other hand women will grab or play with a necklace or cover the part of the neck just below the Adam’s apple and above the breast bone. Emotional manipulation can serve to calm by reducing blood pressure and lowering the heart rate.

Like most emotional body language they serve to pacify the body to make it feel better by stimulating nerve endings to release calming endorphins. For example, while in deep thought, the temples might be massaged with one or both hands, the head might be scratched and when facing extreme difficulty the hand might reach around and grab the back of the neck depicting a negative thought stemming from emotional discomfort, frustration, doubt, insecurity or restraint. Rubbing the forehead is an evaluative body language gesture, but it also signals an internal struggle where slight to severe discomfort is being experienced. Exhaling air forcefully through a compressed mouth can also be a pacifying message especially when done by a smoker, since it reminds him of a habit that calms him. We mentioned chewing gum as a displacement gesture earlier, but even it is an oral pacifier especially if the rate of chewing intensifies.

Some other examples of pacifiers include smoking cigarettes, licking the lips more, rubbing the chin, stroking their face, playing with pens, pencils, lipstick, pulling the hair or scratching the forearms or more subtly like brushing the hair, adjusting a tie (preening), or checking or playing with a watch seemingly results driven and purposeful.

Some people have even been known to talk to themselves to make peace and are otherwise perfectly normal and sane. These gestures usually find their way into the repertoire of people and become favourites. That is, they will use the same ones each time when they become tense making it easy for us to read them accurately.

When viewing these gestures keep in mind that they may ebb and flow in real-time to the level of threat present. For example, imagine a tense negotiation between a couple who are making plans for their honeymoon vacation. The wife might be seen cupping her arm under her elbow to support her arm covering her suprasternal notch while the husband clasps the back of his neck in a restraint posture. As he concedes she might drop one or even both arms, but without a concession from her of some sort, he might remain negatively locked or might place his arms crossed on his chest. Sensing this, she might agree to a compromise, or if she doesn’t, may stimulate him to ramp up his agenda futher sending her back into an emotional state where she might begin fingering her necklace by playing with it.

Adaptors

by  • March 5, 2013 • 0 Comments

Is he hot under the collar or is the collar simply uncomfortable?

Is he hot under the collar or is the collar simply uncomfortable?

Adaptors are movements or gestures that are used to manage our feelings or control our responses. Adaptors include movements done to improve comfort or reduce stress and often happen at such a low level they usually escape awareness. Adaptors include movements such as shifting in a chair or postural changes, crossing the legs, pulling at a shirt collar, adjusting a tie, loosening clothing and so forth.

What is interesting to researchers is that some adaptors serve a real purpose and others indicate stress. For example, sometimes our pants really are uncomfortable so we scratch our legs, other times the stress from outside pressure causes us to scratch in an effort to displace energy and distract us. Crossing the legs toward your date might be read as an indicator of interest, but might instead serve to alleviate numbness from loss of circulation. Children will rub their eyes repeatedly when tired, but this is not because they become itchy!

Scratching the nose is another example of an adaptor and could be misread as an indicator of a lying or might actually serve to relieve an itch. Another common adaptor used by adults is the head-grooming gesture where the hand messages the back of the neck or head to relive stress. This gesture is not an authentic gesture motivated by a physical purpose. Rather it used as a method to achieve comfort when facing discomfort applied from the outside. Just about every cue related to body language can be an adaptor. Arm crossing, leg crossing, scratching, fidgeting, twitching, rubbing the eyes, and so on, are all part of the human repertoire and not all have hidden meaning all of the time.

A gestures that indicates anxiety rather than a targeted scratch.

A gestures that indicates anxiety rather than a targeted scratch.

It is the job of the body language reader to decide which movements are motivated by a real physical purpose and which are motivated by an underlying emotional purpose. Usually stress release methods are person specific so once they are detected can be reliable as predictors in future encounters. Some might pull an ear lobe, rub one’s throat, pull on a collar or scratch the back of the hands. I will say that it’s usually pretty obvious when a gesture like scratching is real because it is targeted, quick, non-repetitive and provides instant relief, but when it’s as a response to emotional trauma, it show opposite characteristics. It is general in nature, perpetual, repetitive and provides no discernable relief (at least not instantaneously). The context, meaning high or low stress environment provides strong clues to the purpose of the adaptors. All proper body language reads should take context into consideration.

As we see, movements or adaptors come in two forms. They either have hidden meaning, or they do not. Plenty of emphasis has been given by researchers on these subconscious clues on the grounds that they would unlock secrets. However, the importance placed on adaptors is probably overstated and oversimplified. The real goal of the body language reader is to decipher the difference between adaptors with no meaning and movements and gestures that have actual meaning. Adaptors in cross-cultural meetings can also be potential landmines. For example, emblems, specifically because they are culturally engrained, are emitted without conscious thought. Many Arabic countries see the sole of the foot or the figure-four-leg cross as offensive and rude (an emblem of sorts to them) so they may classify a Westerner as something they intent not to be. It is clear to the Westerner that they wish only to take up a more comfortable seating position. The take-away message is to treat adaptors with the care they deserve instead of jumping to inaccurate, embarrassing or even disastrous conclusions.