Body Language Basics
The honesty of body language.
"If language was given
to men to conceal their thoughts, then gesture’s purpose was
to disclose them." John Napier
For millions of years, our early
ancestors ambled on this planet, navigating a very dangerous world. They did so
by communicating effectively their needs, emotions, fears, and desires with
each other. Impressively, they achieved this through the use of nonverbal
communications such as physiological changes (flushed face), gestures (pointing
hand), noises (grunting is not a word) and facial or body reactions (quizzical
or frightened look). This has been part of our biological heritage for so long
that we still primarily communicate nonverbally, not verbally, and why we need
emotional icons in our written communication.
Fortunately for us we evolved a system
to immediately communicate to others how we feel and what we sense. If not for
this, a room might be dangerously hot - not just warm and a swim in a lake
might turn into hypothermia. If we had to think, even for a few seconds, at
every perilous encounter (imagine a coiled rattle snake by your leg) we would
have died out as a species. Instead we evolved to react to threats or anything
that might harm us and not to think (the "freeze, flight, fight
response" I talk about in Louder Than Words) are hard-wired.
Whether
in business, at home, or in relationships, we can always be assured that true
sentiments will be reflected in our body language through displays of comfort
and discomfort. This binary system of communicating how we feel has stood the
test of time and survived to help us through its elegant simplicity.
Obviously
this can be very effective in determining how others feel about us and in
evaluating how a relationship is evolving. Often when people sense that
something is wrong in a relationship, what they are sensing are changes in body
language displays. Couples who no longer touch or walk close together are easy
to spot but sometimes the more subtle behaviors are even more accurate. An
example of this is when couples touch each other with their fingertips rather
than their full hand (distancing behavior) indicative of psychological
discomfort. This behavior alone may portend serious problems in the
relationship that on the surface may not be so obvious.
And
so while there are many aspects of nonverbal communications and body
language, focusing on comfort and discomfort
can go a long way in helping us to see more clearly what others are truly
feeling, thinking, fearing or desiring. Having that extra insight gives us a
more honest appraisal of others and it will in the end assist us in
communicating more effectively and empathetically for a deeper understanding.
* * *
Joe
Navarro is a former FBI Special Agent and is the author of eleven books
including the international best seller, What Every Body
is Saying. You can find more on Joe at www.jnforensics.com including a free nonverbal communications bibliography or
follow him on twitter:@navarrotells. Copyright
© 2011, Joe Navarro.
Bibliography
Givens,
David (2005). Love signals: a
practical field guide to the body language of courtship. New York:
St. Martin's Press.
Knapp,
Mark L. and Judith A. Hall. (1997). Nonverbal
communication in human interaction, 3rd. Ed. New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich.
Ledoux,
Joseph. (1996). The emotional
brain: the mysterious underpinnings of emotional life. New York: Touchstone.
Morris,
Desmond. (1985). Body watching.
New York: Crown Publishers.
Morris,
Desmond. (1969). The human zoo.
New York: Dell Publishers.
Panksepp,
Jaak. (1998). Affective
neuroscience: the foundations of human and animal emotions. New
York: Oxford University Press, Inc.
Ratey,
John J. (2001). A user's guide
to the brain: perception, attention, and the four theaters of the brain.
New York: Pantheon Books
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