Without Saying a Word

Kasia Wezowski, Patryk Wezowski

• Editorial: AMACOM
• Año: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780814439746
• Categoría: Social Sciences
• Categoría: Sociology

One wrong move can undercut your message. Believe it or not, our bodies speak louder than our words.

Postures, gestures, and expressions convey reams of information—and often not what you'd expect. A smile, for example, is usually considered welcoming. However, crook one corner of your mouth higher and you project superiority, subconsciously chasing other people away.

This book explains how even the subtlest motions have meaning. Distilling decades of research, Without Saying a Word deciphers these unspoken signals:

• facial expressions,
• fleeting micro expressions,
• positive body language,
• negative body language,
• And much more!

Discover which postures and gestures indicate confidence and build rapport—and which reveal disinterest, arrogance, or even aggression. Learn to end off-putting habits, accentuate good ones, and become an authentic and effective communicator.

Exhibiting body language that is open, honest, and self-assured increases your social influence and enhances your skill as a negotiator while the ability to read the emotions and intentions of others is equally indispensable. Whether you're making a presentation, pitching a project, or closing a deal, the right body language can be your best ally.

1

The Five Principles of Body Language Intelligence

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IN THIS CHAPTER, YOU’LL DISCOVER:

•     The bedrock principles that guide every interpretation

•     How body language changes across different cultures

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For every interpretation of body language, it is important to devote attention to a number of crucial principles that influence the meaning of all attitudes, gestures, and expressions (and also the conclusions you draw about them). These five principles are the bedrock of meaningful body language interpretation. You’ll learn to increase your body language intelligence by connecting what you see on the outside to what is really happening on the inside.

These basic principles apply to nonverbal communication in photographs and films, as well as in conversations. Learning to take proper account of all five basic principles when you interpret body language and apply them to your conclusions is the foundation of correctly understanding what’s really being communicated in your daily interactions.

1. Combinations Confirm Your Assumptions

The interpretations that you will find in the following chapters are only accurate in 60 to 80 percent of situations, if they occur singly or in isolation. If you see a certain movement occur repeatedly, the likelihood is greater that the interpretation is correct. If within a short period of time you see a combination of three to five movements that all give a similar signal, you can draw your conclusion with a high degree of certainty.

If someone touches the tip of his nose just once during a conversation, it may be that he simply has an itchy nose. But if during a two-minute period someone touches his nose, rubs his eyes, covers his mouth, takes a step backward, avoids eye contact, and crosses his arms, then there is a good chance that he either finds the situation stressful or that he is lying.

2. What Is Happening on the Inside Is What You See on the Outside

If you have to make a choice between what you hear (words) and what you see (movements), it is better to believe what you see. The body compensates for the things that are said. It is possible to put up a pretense or to hide stress for a short time, but as far as nonverbal communication is concerned it is much more difficult to conceal or falsify crucial information. Why? Our body instinctively shows on the outside what is happening on the inside.

Numerous studies have shown that our limbic system works faster than our powers of rational thought; expressions and gestures tend to tell the truth before we can consciously adjust our behavior. This conscious adjustment is ten thousand times slower than the uncontrollable signals of the limbic system. What people are experiencing internally will therefore be visible externally. The reverse is true as well: When you see someone with a facial expression that is not sad, it is highly likely that this person is not experiencing sadness at that moment. However, you still need to take into account principle number 5: If this person never has a sad facial expression, even at times when you know that she is experiencing sadness, you will need to amend your conclusions.

3. Context Influences Body Language

During our training courses, we are often asked: If someone often crosses his arms, does this mean he has a closed personality? What do you think? Is the answer to this question yes or no? If you correctly apply basic principle number 3, the right answer is “it all depends.” Whether or not someone has her arms crossed is dependent on the context in which she finds herself. For example, a person standing outside in the middle of winter who has forgotten her coat may very well have her arms crossed, but this simply means that she is cold. At the same time, she may very well be conducting a pleasant and enthusiastic conversation with her friends!

But what about someone dressed in doctor’s clothing and discussing something with a colleague in a hospital corridor? Hospitals are usually warm, so that in this case the crossed arms probably have something to do with the nature of the conversation. In other words, you need to pay careful attention to the location, the situation, and the surroundings of the person about whom you wish to draw conclusions.

“Body language always compensates for the things that are said with words.”

4. Look for Changes

We always try to avoid making interpretations based on a single photograph. If you have no points of comparison, your conclusions will be less accurate. To make reliable conclusions, what we look for above all are large and strong changes in body language positions. For example, if someone suddenly puts his legs in a debate position during a negotiation, while he otherwise seems relaxed, this has much greater meaning than if he has his legs in the debate position from the beginning of the discussion.

Timing is also very important: A significant change in body language position at the moment when a new price is mentioned says much more than if the same movement is made at a neutral moment in the conversation.

5. Take Account of Habits

When we give interpretations of meaning for a gesture like touching your nose, we often hear people say: “Yes, but I regularly touch the end of my nose when I am speaking. Everyone in my family does it. But it doesn’t mean we are lying!” This may be true: When you apply the fifth basic principle touching the nose may lose its traditional interpretation. Pay careful attention to the habits of the person you are interpreting as well as to movements that are “normal” for someone in the specific situation.

If someone has developed a particular movement as a habit over a number of years, normal interpretations of this movement given in the following chapters will not necessarily be correct.

If, for instance, someone is always in the habit of smiling, even when she is feeling hostile, then you cannot automatically interpret this person’s smile as an indication of pleasure. In order to know which movements, gestures, and expressions you need to exclude from your interpretation as unreliable, you first need to examine a sufficient number of situations to establish this person’s habits. In addition to habits, outside factors such as taking drugs or medicines, using alcohol, or having gesture altering treatments such as plastic surgery or Botox can all play a role. By taking proper account of a person’s habits, you can avoid mistakes such as interpreting a genuine expression of pleasure as an expression of contempt.

“Everybody speaks a body language.”

IS BODY LANGUAGE CULTURE DEPENDENT?

Experts are divided on this question. It is a subject that can lead to endless discussions, not least because of the need to first define exactly what is meant by the terms “body language” and “culture dependent” in the context of this specific question.

For example, some gestures are extremely offensive in one country, but very positive elsewhere. Consider the “circle” gesture made by closing the thumb and the index finger. In the United States and countries like Belgium and the Netherlands, this means “okay.” In France, it means “zero.” In Brazil, it means . . . something you should probably avoid saying. In this case, body language clearly differs from culture to culture. However, there are certain microexpressions that studies have shown to be associated with particular emotions in the same way in more than twenty different cultures. Similarly, North Americans and Europeans will make some hand gestures less frequently but bigger, whereas Asians will make the same gesture more frequently but smaller. Does this mean that in these contexts body language is culture independent?

So, which of the experts are right? It is difficult to say, but these examples make clear that the subject of nonverbal communication is not only wide-ranging and complex, but also depends on how you interpret the term “body language.” One thing is certain: One way or another, everybody speaks a body language.

The five basic principles are crucial. To draw accurate conclusions, you must apply all five to every interpretation of body language you make. Always keep them in mind and test all your assumptions against them. To make them easy to remember, we have combined the most important word of each of the five principles into the following sentence:

“Combinations Within Context Change Habits.”

With these five basic principles for interpreting body language, you are sufficiently well-armed to correctly identify the meanings of the movements, gestures, and expressions in the following chapters.

2

Self-confident Body Language

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IN THIS CHAPTER, YOU’LL DISCOVER:

• How to recognize when your conversation partner is receptive

• The body movements that stimulate trust and cooperation

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When I was thirteen years old, my first job was to distribute fliers to pharmacies. This involved me asking the pharmacist if I could place the fliers in a spot where they could easily be seen. Initially, I was very successful. On the first morning, I visited fifteen shops and none of them refused my request. Things went less smoothly for my girlfriend, who had the same task: It took her much longer and some of the pharmacists were unwilling to cooperate.

When it was my turn to be confronted with my first refusal, however, I immediately had the feeling that my initial enthusiasm had disappeared. The energy and power with which I had previously entered the stores were suddenly missing. This change of attitude also had a dramatic impact on my effectiveness. More refusals followed. But what had actually changed? Why did the same sentence—“Can I please put these fliers here on your counter?”—now produce such a different result from a few hours earlier? Why did the change in the way I felt make such a difference to the results I achieved?

What I didn’t realize at the time is that the key to success in situations of this kind is not the sentence, but the number of contact-supporting gestures you use when speaking it. The purpose of this chapter is to show you how you can use positive body language to help you convince people and how you can recognize the same signals in others.

Leaning the Upper Body Forward

The position of the upper body gives you basic information about the other person’s attitude toward you. If the upper body is leaning back or turned away, particularly if the arms are crossed, there is a good chance that the person wants to distance himself from the subject under discussion. Averting the upper body in this way is usually a sign that someone is not listening closely to what you are saying. Perhaps the subject is not important or interesting enough for him to lean forward in your direction. Many studies support this conclusion, including Schlenker in 1975.

POSITIVE ATTITUD...