Body Gestures in Nonverbal Communication
- Oftentimes you wear your feelings on your face. Obvious emotions, as well as hidden thoughts and feelings, are displayed on the face. Some people are more readable than others. When you are attuned to a person, you are more sensitive to his feelings and can see emotions, such as happiness, sadness, confusion and deceit. Whether your personal relationships or your job requires you to "read" people, you will benefit from the ability to interpret facial expressions. Changes in facial muscles provide the most signals for interpretation.
- Body language can speak volumes. Studying a person's body movement is one way to detect whether he is lying. Different people respond to the stress created by lying differently. Some people will, according to Mark McClish, who taught interviewing techniques at the U.S. Marshals Service Training Academy, "touch lips with fingers, rub the back of the neck, run fingers through the hair, cross the arms or legs and not maintain eye contact."
- You communicate different messages through touch. Some people lay a hand on others during conversation as a show of friendliness when they want to connect personally. The nature of the relationship between two people often expresses the degree of touch. In some regions the gesture conveys kindness, while in other areas it is seen as patronizing or intrusive to be touched by someone whom you do not know. Be sensitive to the effect touching has on others.
- The level at which people feel comfortable about the distance between them when they are communicating varies with different cultures. People of Latin American descent, for example, generally are comfortable being closer together than people of Northern European descent. In any circumstance, however, the comfort level depends upon the personal relationship with the people in question. You tend to stand closer to friends or colleagues and, perhaps, farther away from strangers.