Sunday, 8 March 2009

Nonverbal communication





Argyle affirms that nonverbal communication is sole way how animals communicate and it has primary character, which was a subjected evolutionary conversion. For example dog shows teeth on sign of anger. Animals often execute this gesture today. Thought biting or attacking opponent is not intention. They realize other purpose want to frighten away opponent or underline weight. Alike thing has at people. Nonverbal messages are certain social signal encoded by sender and decode by receiver. They inform of emotive state of second person, about his intention. Person sends nonverbal messages consciously or unaware, often a unintentional grimace of face can be gotten back as disapproval in the other hand fine face as reliance which dares other person. On quality of first impression, and also on our credibility and attractiveness in contacts with people significant influence have body language. During average two persons conversation, it is near 35% information transfer in the words, other 65% it is extra word information.




Nonverbal signals
• Appearance
• Way of moving
• Greeting
• Face expression
• Tone of voice
• Distance between persons
• Way of seat
• Gesticulation



Face expression
It is important area of intercommunication. It shows various reactions of persons on events or postures of other people. It is also an indicator of reaction on perception of message. Facial expression can express interest, boring present, indignation, fear and many others. One of main function of facial expression is intercommunication of emotive state such as regard and hostility. Agryle differs six kinds of main facial expressions:
• Happiness
• Surprise
• Fear
• Sadness
• Anger
• Disgust




These emotions have physiological base, they are even sighted at small children. It is possible to say, that person is born with them. However, usage of facial expression is defined by culture. In the other hand grimaces of disgusts or satisfaction appear independently e.g. during viewing of movie about disgusting topic, or utopia character. However, some cultures are able to hold on from facial expression e.g. during commenting observed movie. Model example for this is Ekman and Frisen’s experiment from 1969. Angered persons can reign over face expression, but they can’t reign over certain physiological states e.g. fastest breath, sweating etc. Mimic expressions are also certain social signals. If we want to achieve certain social purpose, we adopt definite face expression. We regard faster people with sincere smile than people who have stiff face. Facial expression is also signal of approval or disapproval of anybody's appearance, statements or situation. So, facial expression is social signal but in the other hand is a mirror of a human emotion states.

Perception
It is one of most important factor in social life of person. It superbly simplifies interactions and opens remaining communication channels. It is hard to imagine conversation between two people without eye contact. Peering as social signal already appears from earliest moments of childhood. Eye contact with mother is important factor in forming strong emotive relationship. We attach weight for perception. Peering is distinct signal of approval or dislike. If we keep eye contact, we know that we are object of anybody's interest and we are felt important. If eye contact proceeds with person, who is important for us and have strong positive connection with us, we feel satisfaction, we limit verbal contact in aid of perception. If however, this person doesn’t reciprocate eye contact we feel sadness, lack of acceptance, we felt in some manner been left out in the cold.


Voice
Voice has great importance often greater than words. Words are only words however voice gives them proper emotional tinge. Animals use voice. Babies also use it too. By crying and shouting they communicate with parents. Voice reflects person emotive states. According to Scherera, persons in depression say slowly with low and dropping voice. If person is afraid, it says with excited tone, fast, bumpily, and often committing language errors. There are paralinguistic characteristics of speech, which supply valuable information about postures, emotion, and features of characters. It is possible to adopt stony face expression, it is possible to smile suffering, but the hardest skill is to control tone of voice. Persons who speak fast, with high tone are perceived as aggressive, competent, tone of their voice is treated as persuasive. People also talk with different accents. We can find out from accent about person origin, culture and territorial affiliation.



Gesticulation
Gestures are part integral part of person expression. When we speak our whole body speaks too. Gestures can underline character of pronunciation or add additional messages. Gesticulating human can express something easier than recount it by words. Gesticulation can indicate people or objects. It can underline what we consider particularly important.
Person extravagantly gesticulating is perceived as incompetent. Other groups of irritating gestures are e.g. wringing of thumb, scratch over head, rubbing of nose etc. If we want to be reliable and perceived as competent we should reign over them and use them rarely. The other groups of gestures are gestures use independently on speech (head beck). These gestures are also culturally predefined e.g. has reverse meaning in Bulgaria than e.g. in Poland. Other gestures have religious nature e.g. sign of cross or expressing emotion gestures e.g. insulting gestures, victory sing - V, OK sign etc.

Position
People define attitude to others by body posture. Person who wants to be respected stand straight and confident in the other hand person asking for something adopts bent posture. Our posture can reflect our respect or disrespect. Persons with social position are often relaxed and confident. Gestures like hands in pocket or legs on the table are in most countries are impolite but in American culture are generally accepted. Education or professional position has influence on body position. It is easy to recognize posture of solider, office worker or intellectual. Newest research indicates that even style of walking is so characteristic for given person and it identifies him as papillary lines.



Touch
This is a very strong social signal and strong non-verbal communication. Touch has significant emotional ground. Peoples who have strong emotional bond touch each other. Woman and men, parents and children or spouses touch each other differently. Touch is not desirable signal in social contacts. In our culture the most in accepted form of touch is handshake. Squeeze should be certain, but not crushing. In polish culture we have a custom of kissing woman’s hand by men. However women presently don’t wish such treatment. People in formal contact don’t want to be touched in any form. Delicate touch is perceived as such, which encourages acceptance or foster influence. Will’s and Hamm’s research show that persons touched are more venerable than others. In the other hand those people are more embarrassed by the fact being touched. The fact that someone is touching us is not meaningless. Woman’s touch is more socially accepted than the men’s touch. If librarian touches person who hiring book then she become more liked. There are general rules about who can touch and what parts of body can be touched. Touch plays important role in close intimate relations. It is hard to imagine emotional contact without touch. Touch gives us sense of proximity and emotional attachments witch other person. Touch has cultural aspect too. Anthropologists differs contact cultures (e.g. northern Africa) and without contact (e.g. Europe, India, Japan).



Distance
Great importance in nonverbal communication has distance between persons who have contact. For people who are in closer relation the distance is smaller. Close contacts- short distance is very bad acceptable in interpersonal contacts. People who approaching other person in close distance is violating other person private space. In the other hand we can resign from our area of intimacy and tolerate for a short time lack of private space e.g. in the crowded bus or train. It is proven than after such situation we try to as quickly as possible reach area without other persons. Manipulation is one of many forms how people can use distance in interpersonal contacts. Specially arranged rooms that many people will be sited. For example others receive person who sits behind solid desk on a massive chair as a dominating one. In those situations important information is place and distance between other seats in the room.

Appearance
Value of garment in interpersonal contacts is extremely important. There are schools which teach their students how to get dressed and which clothes use in different occasions. For example tourist dressed in suit on the mountain trip looks funny but in the other hand person dressed in track suit on the important meeting is received as luck of respect and insult. Clothes can inform us about social position. In Sissons opinion people dressed in posh clothes have stronger influence on others. Well-dressed businessman is received as more authentic, competent. Man should wear well-matched suit, tie and shirt. He must remember that the only one element of his uniform can pattern. He can wear watch and ring but nothing else. Haircut should be neat and face shaved. Woman should be dressed in two-partial dress, shirt buckled under her neck and have sterling haircut.

Many channels of nonverbal communications are objet of analysis of auto presentation specialist who lead training showing how animalize benefits from nonverbal communications.
The way we are been perceived often decides about contact quality or business we wants to do.
So, it is very important to realize body language, understand it, and be able to control it. Skillful usage of canon of nonverbal messages can have important influence on our whole life.



1. Wikipedia
2. Arygle, M. (1999). Psychologia stosunków międzyludzkich. Wydawnictwo Naukowe
PWN, Warszawa.
3. Domachowski, W. Argyle, M.(1994). Reguły życia społecznego. Oksfordzka
Psychologia Społeczna. Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, Warszawa.
4. Thiel, E. (1997). Komunikacja niewerbalna. Mowa ciała. Astrum. Wrocław.
5. Internet:
http://pedagog.umcs.lublin.pl/~sylwesto/index.htm
http://eduseek.ids.pl/artykuly/artykul/ida/2003/idc/9/
http://republika.pl/body_language/www/

12 comments:

  1. I agree with you that non-verbal communication is very important... in some situations even more important then what we say. Luckily after some practise it's quite easy to control your body language.

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  2. Unfortunately, so little about unaware signals, which somethines are more important then the others.

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  3. As far as my opinion is concerned I'd like to say that non verbal communication is often neglected by people that lets say start their work. As I have seen such cases that young guy were instructed by "signs" not to say something at the meeting, ofcourse he didn't catch it. And our meeting became a flop. For me this example shows that non verbal communication is very important.

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  4. It's interesting topic. Non verbal communication's important in our live but I don't think that we should hide what we feel or think.

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  5. Non-verbal communication is very important
    i must completely agree with you on this.. Japanese are always smiling to everyone and you don't really know what they like to do next: say hi or do something nasty i won't even say :P

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  6. Just imagine how powerful one can be, if he or she is aware of how people react to certain gestures, sounds, etc. This is where neuro-linguistic programming comes in, also known as NLP. If you want to see how easily everyone can be tricked, just type 'Darren Brown' on YouTube. For example you can see him buying a necklace worth 4,000.00$ paying with paper.

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  7. Mastering nonverbal communication is a really potent skill, but it requires even more than just training. I believe you need a solid background like good social skills to be able to control your nonverbal mimics and gestures.

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  8. In my opinion people should be taught more about nonverbal communication. It should be a popular knowledge, so people would understand each other better. The other side of the coin is that the nonverbal communication (combined with verbal) can be used as a tool to affect unaware people’s behavior for bad purposes.

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  9. I agree with my colleagues that nonverbal communication is essential in our lives. It is quick, easy and effective way of passing basic information. Moreover it is still so useful for our genre. I suppose it will take hundreds or thousand of human generations to develop something new.

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  10. Lets take situation when someone is making presentation before big audience. When you are watching it, and in spite of the fact, that someone who is presenting says interesting things, you see that he is nervous he seems to be non-professional. I thing that in cases like presentation more important is how you present, not what you say..

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  11. This was very a interesting topic. I do agree with my fore speakers that nonverbal communication is crucial and it is worth to be aware of what your body does. However, not everything can be controlled- we have little power over our physiological reactions, which do displays themselves in our behavior. Those six main facial expression which you enumerated were proved, in numerous studies by Ekman, whom you cited, to be 6 basic facial expressions, universal for all humans over the world.

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  12. There's TV series called "Lie to Me" - it's about group of psychologists who solve third party cases (police etc) with technics like intercepting microexpressions, Facial Action Coding System and body language.

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