Jonathan over at the Seduction Labs blog has frequently interesting and well-researched posts on the subjects of communication, manipulation and body language. We will discuss the seduction and pick up community and their relevance to communication at a later post.
Jonathan is a disbeliever when it comes to body language. I came across his blog when someone linked to me at the post above. Although I mostly buy into his way of thinking, I believe he is a skeptic in nature. While his posts are indeed smart and well written, his insistence on disproving body language in absolute terms makes him biased in a fashion I find distracting from his informative posts.
One of his main tenets is that so-called body language "experts" try and portray this occupation as a science. It isn't. He further states that these experts are there to sell body language as the fad of the month (my wording). I agree on that as well.
These "experts" speak of body language as a science. From my experience, while it can be researched scientifically it is not a science. There is quite a bit behind nonverbal communication, reading it and interpreting it. Not reading too much into it by over-analyzing is where things get tricky, but that's a discussion for another time.
The philosophy of science is an interesting and complex subject, but in short, according to Newton, Hume and Popper, based on repeatable experiments you deduce a rule which best fits the facts, until it is disproved with an example with doesn't fit, and then it is replaced/supplemented with a new, more accurate one.
Body language as portrayed by these experts simply does not meet that criterion. While claiming close to absolute rules, they very comfortably jump to quote Freud when things don't add up: "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar".
While some nonverbal cues and signals are universal, most are situation and person dependent. One must establish a baseline for a person and then use body language as an extra sense, adding taste and efficiency to communication rather than replacing it.
While I agree with the sentiment behind Freud's very astute quote, it is being abused.
Once you encounter a situation a rule does not cover, the rule can not be kept as-is. Ignoring the new information and using Freud as an excuse is basically asking for suspended disbelief, and we have enough of that from Hollywood.
Body language is real, but let's look at it with the right perspective:
1. People do give impressions of emotions. I rather look at it as gestures and tone, for example, rather than an aura or emphatic telepathy.
2. While not all gestures apply to everybody, people do communicate with their bodies.
3. If people did not communicate with their bodies, others still deduce about what they may be communicating based on their body language.
4. Body language does indicate, to a varying degree, our state of mind and feelings in a closed feedback loop (you smile when you are happy. You are happy when you smile).
In his post linked to above, he points to a paper "Decoding Women’s Sexual Intent" (Coreen Farris, Coreen Farris, Teresa A. Treat, Richard J. Viken, and Richard M. McFall, published April 2008 in Psychological Science). While he brings good ideas to the table, in my opinion he is misreading the paper which clearly states these signals are there, just not being interpreted well... But we can discuss that on another occasion. :)
I strongly recommend reading Jonathan's posts, but I'd really like to hear more of what he finds does work when it comes to body language.
One example which he shared, is on the difficult subject of lie detection. Lie detection is very intriguing and the history behind it alone can keep me alert for hours. In this post Jonathan doesn't cover much of how the methods he sees as inferior work and fail, but he does mention an interesting pscyhological alternative: Reality monitoring theory.
Among others, he bases himself on A. Vrij (Aldert Vrij, but he is an academic). This is very telling as to the quality of the research and his posts.
Pinky.
Showing posts with label sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Show all posts
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Sunday, May 18, 2008
When first becoming aware of body language
Reading body language is natural, "we all do it". As babies we liked smiling faces better and as adults we read an "aura" or "state of mind" from people we interact with. We are good at it.
In extreme opposite is interpreting body language and being aware of doing so. Most people are not good at it, in fact, they are very poor in this regard.
I used to be of the second type. Over time I collected references to body language, from "the smile didn't reach his eyes" in books I read, wondering what it meant, to hearing about "crossed arms means the person is closed to you". These references didn't mean much until at some point I accumulated so many it reached critical mass.
Suddenly I was aware of body language, and boy was I confused. I kept being self-conscious, as I didn't know what was right. Up to that point some invisible layer worked its black box magic in front of my cognitive system. I reacted to people and what I felt from them, but I didn't know much more.
This previous behaviour caused me to be polarizing. I would notice a person being cold or impatient and would read it as they not liking me or being snobs. I'd return the favour even if they were just busy or tired at the time. On the other extreme end I'd not be able to understand a certain someone doesn't like me if I was previously convinced they are my friends. People who were cool to me, I was cool to. As a personal disclaimer, this statement is over-simplifying and explained in extremes. I may be an extreme person, but I am a person.
Suddenly my "system", not polarizing for several years now, was gone. Becoming aware of body language made me continually self-conscious. Here is an example story.
I was in an informal meeting with a high level non-politician foreign government official when I caught myself leg over leg (in the so called "number 4" position), hands interlaced behind my head. I stopped dead--is this what I am supposed to project? What am I projecting anyway?
I immediately dropped to a reset position. Legs on the floor, hands on legs. But wait.... how am I supposed to sit down? Non of it made sense, I had zero knowledge to back my new-found awareness.
Then, of course... what of the person opposite me? I didn't even consider his body language.
I landed in the States and went to a Barnes & Noble to look for a body language book. I got to the self-help section and tried to find any book not promising endless sex or immediate success in business. Eventually I came across my first body language book, The Definitive Book of Body Language by Barbara and Allan Pease.
The book helped me in three significant fashions.
In its view, body language is indeed a language and requires content as well as context. For a sentence to make sense, one word such as "sofa" wouldn't help. "Sofa" and "living room", would help. Adding the word "new" would add context for us to make sense of the sentence. Like they teach in math lessons in school, two to three points for drawing a line.
In "professional" language these combinations of body language signals are called "clusters". A person just crossing their hands may mean nothing, or everything. Clusters of signals tell us what it is all about. Another consideration is watching for such signals and clusters chronologically, over time.
One signal or gesture could mean a person is cold or any other mundane reason. Freud was notorious for smoking Cigars. Cigars being clear Phallic (or sexual) symbols, his students mentioned it to him. His reply was "sometimes a Cigar is just a Cigar," hence the known quotation.
The second significant point that I learned from the book was how body language is a closed feedback loop of emotions. This is best demonstrated with smiles. If you feel good you often smile. When you smile you will feel good.
In this fashion I was able to literally catch myself with, say, crossed hands. Then ask: Am I somehow defensive or uncomfortable? The growth in personal awareness and being in touch with one's feelings is impressive.
The third point of significance hit me when I travelled. I hit up a conversation with an older business man in the airport lounge. He told me how he is not very aware of the body language issue, but he did notice how body language can be useful in negotiations.
If he wants to convey dismay, instead of verbalizing it and moving the negotiation to it, he simply crosses his hands, maybe leans back. The other side gets the idea.
An unrelated point I learned from the book changed my life, it taught me how to identify fake smiles. While I am not yet very good at it, it means I no longer just fall stupidly for any girl who smiles my way.
The book itself was easily readable, and interesting. It was disturbing how the authors just name-dropped researchers with no standard of academic quotation, continually. The contribution the book gave me was not in being able to read body language, as I wasn't.
The contribution was that while reading about it, I thought about it in a framed fashion and the automagical awareness module to read and respond to body language unconsciously, came back. I then started the long journey to learn and understand my surrounding and non-verbal communication, on which I will write another time.
Two weeks ago I spoke with an old friend and he disagreed with my being the second type of person, the unaware one. He reminded me of how in our phone conversations I cued on every pause and asked him about it. A girlfriend of mine also didn't agree. She suggested I was always aware, just didn't realize what it means.
Awareness followed by unsettled disquiet followed by understanding.
Pinky.
In extreme opposite is interpreting body language and being aware of doing so. Most people are not good at it, in fact, they are very poor in this regard.
I used to be of the second type. Over time I collected references to body language, from "the smile didn't reach his eyes" in books I read, wondering what it meant, to hearing about "crossed arms means the person is closed to you". These references didn't mean much until at some point I accumulated so many it reached critical mass.
Suddenly I was aware of body language, and boy was I confused. I kept being self-conscious, as I didn't know what was right. Up to that point some invisible layer worked its black box magic in front of my cognitive system. I reacted to people and what I felt from them, but I didn't know much more.
This previous behaviour caused me to be polarizing. I would notice a person being cold or impatient and would read it as they not liking me or being snobs. I'd return the favour even if they were just busy or tired at the time. On the other extreme end I'd not be able to understand a certain someone doesn't like me if I was previously convinced they are my friends. People who were cool to me, I was cool to. As a personal disclaimer, this statement is over-simplifying and explained in extremes. I may be an extreme person, but I am a person.
Suddenly my "system", not polarizing for several years now, was gone. Becoming aware of body language made me continually self-conscious. Here is an example story.
I was in an informal meeting with a high level non-politician foreign government official when I caught myself leg over leg (in the so called "number 4" position), hands interlaced behind my head. I stopped dead--is this what I am supposed to project? What am I projecting anyway?
I immediately dropped to a reset position. Legs on the floor, hands on legs. But wait.... how am I supposed to sit down? Non of it made sense, I had zero knowledge to back my new-found awareness.
Then, of course... what of the person opposite me? I didn't even consider his body language.
I landed in the States and went to a Barnes & Noble to look for a body language book. I got to the self-help section and tried to find any book not promising endless sex or immediate success in business. Eventually I came across my first body language book, The Definitive Book of Body Language by Barbara and Allan Pease.
The book helped me in three significant fashions.
In its view, body language is indeed a language and requires content as well as context. For a sentence to make sense, one word such as "sofa" wouldn't help. "Sofa" and "living room", would help. Adding the word "new" would add context for us to make sense of the sentence. Like they teach in math lessons in school, two to three points for drawing a line.
In "professional" language these combinations of body language signals are called "clusters". A person just crossing their hands may mean nothing, or everything. Clusters of signals tell us what it is all about. Another consideration is watching for such signals and clusters chronologically, over time.
One signal or gesture could mean a person is cold or any other mundane reason. Freud was notorious for smoking Cigars. Cigars being clear Phallic (or sexual) symbols, his students mentioned it to him. His reply was "sometimes a Cigar is just a Cigar," hence the known quotation.
The second significant point that I learned from the book was how body language is a closed feedback loop of emotions. This is best demonstrated with smiles. If you feel good you often smile. When you smile you will feel good.
In this fashion I was able to literally catch myself with, say, crossed hands. Then ask: Am I somehow defensive or uncomfortable? The growth in personal awareness and being in touch with one's feelings is impressive.
The third point of significance hit me when I travelled. I hit up a conversation with an older business man in the airport lounge. He told me how he is not very aware of the body language issue, but he did notice how body language can be useful in negotiations.
If he wants to convey dismay, instead of verbalizing it and moving the negotiation to it, he simply crosses his hands, maybe leans back. The other side gets the idea.
An unrelated point I learned from the book changed my life, it taught me how to identify fake smiles. While I am not yet very good at it, it means I no longer just fall stupidly for any girl who smiles my way.
The book itself was easily readable, and interesting. It was disturbing how the authors just name-dropped researchers with no standard of academic quotation, continually. The contribution the book gave me was not in being able to read body language, as I wasn't.
The contribution was that while reading about it, I thought about it in a framed fashion and the automagical awareness module to read and respond to body language unconsciously, came back. I then started the long journey to learn and understand my surrounding and non-verbal communication, on which I will write another time.
Two weeks ago I spoke with an old friend and he disagreed with my being the second type of person, the unaware one. He reminded me of how in our phone conversations I cued on every pause and asked him about it. A girlfriend of mine also didn't agree. She suggested I was always aware, just didn't realize what it means.
Awareness followed by unsettled disquiet followed by understanding.
Pinky.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Out with a girl showing closed body language
I was out with a girlfriend today who continually displayed closed body language--crossed hands and legs, somewhat stiff and closed in on herself. I assumed this means she is closed to me.
In my head, during awkward pauses, I went through what this body language projection may mean, from feeling unsure to pure hate. It impacted my normal social behavior by making me selfconscious and thus on occasion, socially awkward (which led to the pauses).
After spending the whole day and evening with her I decided to take the plunge and when I felt energetic and excited, I went with it--ignoring my concerns. This outgoing behavior resulted in her being a bit energetic herself and smiling more. She still kept the closed body language, though.
She is a great girl, but somewhat closed and private in general--which means a baseline for her behavior had to be created first, taking her closed tendencies into account. How far does that extend, though?
Frustrated, I realized that something is off, so I openly spoke with her on the subject of body language and asked what's up. Why would she spend so much time with me and enjoy herself yet remain closed?
I brought it into the conversation, and she said that she was cold. Weather cold (chilly) rather than behaviorally. Talk about ASSumptions!
Chatting with Lancelot, my valiant co-blogger, we realized that closed body language does not necessarily mean a closed attitude, environmental factors may come into play ranging from just being cold to having the flu. :)
Now that I know to look for it, I can try and ascertain if there are other reasons for such behavior, meaning. Is the person in front of me cold? As to other reasons, I don't know what they are yet. I do know that if someone is closed to me I am going to try and verify if they are indeed closed by being more friendly, leaning in, getting closer. Observing their response.
Then, if they are open to my approaches and attempts (and maintain their body language over time rather than open up), I will try to figure out what's wrong, perhaps by simply asking "are you cold?" or "isn't it chilly in here?" and see how that works. Like in Quantum mechanics, perhaps one needs to watch for a lot of factors--being cold being just one of them--but even just knowing one needs to further examine closeness signals before coming to final encounter conclusions is critical.
The reason for this approach as opposed to trying to open up people with closed body language is in application rather than method--they do respond to your attempts, but don't open up.
In other words:
if (language.situation==closed)
{
try_ping_approach;
}
Full disclosure note: she always kept her legs crossed in a closed position--away from me, but I did not figure that one out as of yet, except that indeed "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". Body language is a closed feedback loop, impacting feelings much like emotions impact it, so such patterns are negative for interactions regardless.
On another note, after speaking with her on body language I "pinged" her (probed, sent feelers, watching for a "pong") for her closeness by speaking of handshakes and how she can do better. I demonstrated, taking her hand quite a few times, to which she was very receptive. Thinking back it was a good way to test the situation.
I decided to study a couple of simple palm reading tricks, as it could be very useful in such situations, and be a neat party trick to chat up girls, to boot.
Misreading of body language can bring about negative results, so periodic generic pings of going with what you feel seems like a good idea.
Pinky.
In my head, during awkward pauses, I went through what this body language projection may mean, from feeling unsure to pure hate. It impacted my normal social behavior by making me selfconscious and thus on occasion, socially awkward (which led to the pauses).
After spending the whole day and evening with her I decided to take the plunge and when I felt energetic and excited, I went with it--ignoring my concerns. This outgoing behavior resulted in her being a bit energetic herself and smiling more. She still kept the closed body language, though.
She is a great girl, but somewhat closed and private in general--which means a baseline for her behavior had to be created first, taking her closed tendencies into account. How far does that extend, though?
Frustrated, I realized that something is off, so I openly spoke with her on the subject of body language and asked what's up. Why would she spend so much time with me and enjoy herself yet remain closed?
I brought it into the conversation, and she said that she was cold. Weather cold (chilly) rather than behaviorally. Talk about ASSumptions!
Chatting with Lancelot, my valiant co-blogger, we realized that closed body language does not necessarily mean a closed attitude, environmental factors may come into play ranging from just being cold to having the flu. :)
Now that I know to look for it, I can try and ascertain if there are other reasons for such behavior, meaning. Is the person in front of me cold? As to other reasons, I don't know what they are yet. I do know that if someone is closed to me I am going to try and verify if they are indeed closed by being more friendly, leaning in, getting closer. Observing their response.
Then, if they are open to my approaches and attempts (and maintain their body language over time rather than open up), I will try to figure out what's wrong, perhaps by simply asking "are you cold?" or "isn't it chilly in here?" and see how that works. Like in Quantum mechanics, perhaps one needs to watch for a lot of factors--being cold being just one of them--but even just knowing one needs to further examine closeness signals before coming to final encounter conclusions is critical.
The reason for this approach as opposed to trying to open up people with closed body language is in application rather than method--they do respond to your attempts, but don't open up.
In other words:
if (language.situation==closed)
{
try_ping_approach;
}
Full disclosure note: she always kept her legs crossed in a closed position--away from me, but I did not figure that one out as of yet, except that indeed "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". Body language is a closed feedback loop, impacting feelings much like emotions impact it, so such patterns are negative for interactions regardless.
On another note, after speaking with her on body language I "pinged" her (probed, sent feelers, watching for a "pong") for her closeness by speaking of handshakes and how she can do better. I demonstrated, taking her hand quite a few times, to which she was very receptive. Thinking back it was a good way to test the situation.
I decided to study a couple of simple palm reading tricks, as it could be very useful in such situations, and be a neat party trick to chat up girls, to boot.
Misreading of body language can bring about negative results, so periodic generic pings of going with what you feel seems like a good idea.
Pinky.
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