Body language is a powerful concept which successful people tend to understand well.
So can you.
The study and theory of body language has become popular in recent years because
psychologists have been able to understand what we 'say' through our bodily gestures and facial
expressions, so as to translate our body language, revealing its underlying feelings and
attitudes.
Body Language is also referred to as 'non-verbal communications', and less commonly 'non-
vocal communications'.
The term 'non-verbal communications' tends to be used in a wider sense, and all these terms
are somewhat vague.
For the purposes of this article, the terms 'body language' and 'non-verbal communications' are
broadly interchangeable. This guide also takes the view that body language/non-verbal
communications is the study of how people communicate face-to-face aside from the spoken
words themselves, and in this respect the treatment of the subject here is broader than typical
body language guides limited merely to body positions and gestures.
If you carry out any serious analysis or discussion you should clarify the terminology in your
own way to suit your purposes.
For example:
Does body language include facial expression and eye movement? - Usually, yes.
What about breathing and perspiration? - This depends on your definition of body language.
And while tone and pitch of voice are part of verbal signals, are these part of body language
too? - Not normally, but arguably so, especially as you could ignore them if considering only the
spoken words and physical gestures/expressions.
There are no absolute right/wrong answers to these questions. It's a matter of interpretation.
A good reason for broadening the scope of body language is to avoid missing important signals
which might not be considered within a narrow definition of body language.
Nevertheless confusion easily arises if definitions and context are not properly established, for
example:
It is commonly and carelessly quoted that 'non-verbal communications' and/or 'body language'
account for up to 93% of the meaning that people take from any human communication. This
statistic is actually a distortion based on Albert Mehrabian's research theory, which while itself is
something of a cornerstone of body language research, certainly did not make such a sweeping
claim.
Mehrabian's research findings in fact focused on communications with a strong emotional or
'feelings' element. Moreover the 93% non-verbal proportion included vocal intonation
(paralinguistics), which are regarded by many as falling outside of the body language definition.
Care must therefore be exercised when stating specific figures relating to percentages of
meaning conveyed, or in making any firm claims in relation to body language and non-verbal
communications.
It is safe to say that body language represents a very significant proportion of meaning that is
conveyed and interpreted between people. Many body language experts and sources seem to
agree that that between 50-80% of all human communications are non-verbal. So while body
language statistics vary according to situation, it is generally accepted that non-verbal
communications are very important in how we understand each other (or fail to), especially in
face-to-face and one-to-one communications, and most definitely when the communications
involve an emotional or attitudinal element.
Body language is especially crucial when we meet someone for the first time.
We form our opinions of someone we meet for the first time in just a few seconds, and this
initial instinctual assessment is based far more on what we see and feel about the other person
than on the words they speak. On many occasions we form a strong view about a new person
before they speak a single word.
Consequently body language is very influential in forming impressions on first meeting someone.
The effect happens both ways - to and from:
• When we meet someone for the first time, their body language, on conscious and
unconscious levels, largely determines our initial impression of them.
• In turn when someone meets us for the first time, they form their initial impression of us
largely from our body language and non-verbal signals.
And this two-way effect of body language continues throughout communications and
relationships between people.
Body language is constantly being exchanged and interpreted between people, even though
much of the time this is happening on an unconscious level.
Remember - while you are interpreting (consciously or unconsciously) the body language of
other people, so other people are constantly interpreting yours.
The people with the most conscious awareness of, and capabilities to read, body language tend
to have an advantage over those whose appreciation is limited largely to the unconscious.
You will shift your own awareness of body language from the unconscious into the conscious by
learning about the subject, and then by practising your reading of non-verbal communications in
your dealings with others.
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