Body language

We can learn so much just watching, listening and looking for patterns. Allan Pease’s book
gives a thorough, entertaining and valuable introduction to the full array of non–verbal communication from understanding territories and zones, to hand, arm, eye and leg barriers. Pease’s introduction is so clear it is worth quoting:

"As we approach the end of the twentieth century, we are witnessing the emergence of a new kind of social scientist – the non–verbalist. Just as the birdwatcher delights in watching birds and their behaviour, so the non–verbalist delights in watching the non–verbal cues and signals of human beings. He watches them at social functions, at beaches, on television, at the office or anywhere that people interact. He is a student of behaviour who wants to learn about the actions of his fellow humans so that he may ultimately learn more about himself and how he can improve his relationships with others.

It seems almost incredible that, over the million or more years of man’s evolution, the non–verbal aspects of communication have been actively studied on any scale only since the 1960s and that the public has become aware of their existence only since Julius Fast published a book about body language in 1970. This was a summary of the work done by behavioural scientists on non–verbal communication up until that time, and even today, most people are still ignorant of the existence of body language, let alone its importance in their lives.

Charlie Chaplin and many other silent movie actors were the pioneers of non–verbal communication skills; they were the only means of communication available on the screen. Each actor was classed as good or bad by the extent to which he could use gestures and other body signals to communicate effectively. When talking films became popular and less emphasis was placed on the non–verbal aspects of acting, many silent movie actors faded into obscurity and those with good verbal skills prevailed.

As far as the technical study of body language goes, perhaps the most influential pre–twentieth–century work was Charles Darwin’s The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals published in 1872. This spawned the modern studies of facial expressions and body language and many of Darwin’s ideas and observations have since been validated by modern researchers around the world. Since that time, researchers have noted and recorded almost one million non–verbal cues and signals. Albert Mehrabian found that the total impact of a message is about 7 per cent verbal (words only) and 38 per cent vocal (including tone of voice, inflection and other sounds) and 55 per cent non–verbal. Professor Birdwhistell made some similar estimates of the amount of non–verbal communication that takes place in humans. He estimated that the average person actually speaks words for a total of about ten or eleven minutes a day and that the average sentence takes only about 2.5 seconds. Like Mehrabian, he found that the verbal component of a face–to–face conversation is less than 35 ("Body Language" Alan Pease: Sheldon Press 1997)

If most of our impact is non–verbal, then it’s time we took more cognisance of how it works. Here are several instances of how it can help:

Matched body patterns: Just as we understand most readily when people talk in our language, so, often unconsciously, we respond best to those who reflect our body patterns. If we appreciate that, we can use our body patterns to put others at their ease, by reflecting / mirroring theirs.

Using zones and space: Most executives would feel an instant resentment at someone sitting at their desk. But understanding zones and space can have far more sophisticated application, and be more potentially significant. Pease describes the:

  • Intimate zone – 15–46cm apart
  • Personal zone – 46cm–1.2m apart
  • Social zone – 1.2–3.6m apart
  • Public zone – over 3.6m apart.

These zones matter, and they differ from one society to another – city dwellers will stand more closely than those from a sparsely populated area. To quote again from Pease:

"At a recent conference in the USA, I noticed that when the American attendees met and conversed, they stood at an acceptable 46 to 122 centimetres from each other and remained standing in the same place while talking. However, when a Japanese attendee spoke with an American, the two slowly began to move around the room, the American moving backwards away from the Japanese and the Japanese gradually moving towards the American. This was an attempt by both the American and Japanese to adjust to a culturally comfortable distance from each other. The Japanese, with his smaller 25 centimetre intimate zone, continually stepped forward to adjust to his spatial need, but by doing so he invaded the American’s intimate space, causing him to step backwards to make his own spatial adjustment. Video recordings of this phenomenon replayed at high speed give the impression that both men are dancing around the conference room with the Japanese leading. It is therefore obvious why, when negotiating business, Asians and Europeans or Americans look upon each other with some suspicion, the Europeans or Americans referring to the Asians as ‘pushy’ and ‘familiar’ and Asians referring to the Europeans or Americans as ‘cold’,stand–offish’ and ‘cool’. The lack of awareness of the distance variation of the intimate zones in different cultures can easily lead to misconceptions and inaccurate assumptions about one culture by another.

Dynamic gestures: Body language skills are relevant to almost every aspect of relationships. Understanding how to read other people’s thoughts through their gestures helps us with negotiating, selling, and anticipating frustration, disagreement and anger. What is most extraordinary of all, adopting an attitude, purely as an objective exercise, will impact on how we actually feel and react. Try this test with your partner, or close friend or on your own.

Step 1: Think of someone, some event that brings you great joy. Stand up straight, arms by your side, head up, smile, and relive and enjoy the feelings.

Now shake your arms, relax for a second, clear your mind.

Step 2: Hunch your shoulders, clasp your hands tightly in front of you, look down slowly to the left of you … can you go on feeling that joy?

By adopting a body shape, by reliving a strongly reinforcing feeling, even by telling ourselves we are an OK Fellow, we can influence our own mental set. Most of us, when confronted by a stressful or demanding interview, for example, are likely to feel some fear: Will I win the job? Will the panel like my presentation? Have I done everything I can do to win them over to my point of view? In our eagerness, and, to some extent, because of our fear of failure, we rush into our presentation, oversell our proposal, make exaggerated claims and come over as pushy, self–satisfied and insensitive. And yet we are not really like that at all. How can we be ourselves? Just try standing tall for a moment, smile, relax your shoulders and repeat several times "I like myself, I like myself, I like myself". Now go into the interview and be yourself, listen, enjoy being there, and respond to their needs. People may forget your name, but they will remember how you look, and whether you radiated happiness.

 

Comment on this page