Body Language Reading: A “How To”
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Body Language Reading: A “How To”

BODY LANGUAGE IS AN AMAZING COMMUNICATION TOOL. This is the case: Albert Mehrabian discovered in the 1950s that the “total impact” of a message was only 7 percent verbal, while 38 percent was vocal (pitch, inflection, other sounds), and a whopping 55 percent was nonverbal (ie, body language). Ray Birdwhistell (1974) also found that more than 65 percent of communication takes place nonverbally. If we want better communication skills, we had better study body language.

It is important to know that body language is an external reflection of a person’s internal emotional or mood state. The key to reading it is to be able to sense the person’s mood and match it with what they’re saying and look at the conditions under which they’re saying it, seeing the whole package of behavior, which is all you can see.

Surprisingly, we are rarely aware of our postures, movements and gestures; they can be a clear indication of our incongruous verbal behavior, and we almost never notice the nonverbal behavior of others when deciphering their messages. This is a huge communication trap.

There are three rules for accurate reading of nonverbal communication:

Rule 1. Read gestures in groups: This is the total package. “Only when you put a word in a sentence with other words, do you fully understand its meaning.” You just need more information to put it everybody together. Try and see if there is a theme in the gestures, movements or postures. See the whole person, without making it obvious.

Rule 2. Look for consistency: “When a person’s words and body language are in conflict, women ignore what is said”: non-verbal communication is five times more powerful as a means of communication compared to words alone . We need to look for congruence in verbal and nonverbal behavior. When words do not match actions, the person could be lying.

Rule 3. Read gestures in context: Look at the environment (warm/cold weather) and the situation (low stress/high stress) plus other contextual determinants to help read whether body language tells you more or less what you need to know .

The Peases suggest setting aside at least fifteen minutes a day to study body language simply by observing other people and also becoming aware of your own body language. It works anywhere where people are gathered. Try lowering the volume on your television and see if you can pick and choose what people communicate non-verbally.

Learning to read body language cues not only makes you more aware of how others try to dominate and manipulate, it also makes you realize that others are doing the same thing to us, and more importantly, we teaches how to be more sensitive and more in tune with other people’s feelings.

So, be a student of verbal and nonverbal communication behavior to not only learn more about others, but also to get to know yourself better!

More information: The definitive body language book: how to read the thoughts of others through their gestures – allan and barbara pease (2006), from the section “Understanding the Basics”, pp. 9-30. more information, http://www.peaseinternational.com

© Steve J Wickham, 2008.

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