The Definitive Book of Body Language (4 page)

If you've ever visited a fortune-teller you probably came away amazed at the things they knew about you—things no one else could possibly have known—so it must be ESP, right? Research into the fortune-telling business shows that operators use a technique known as “cold reading,” which can produce an accuracy of around 80 percent when “reading” a person you've never met. While it can appear to be magical to naive and vulnerable people, it is simply a process based on the careful observation of body-language signals plus an understanding of human nature and a knowledge of probability statistics. It's a technique practiced by psychics, tarot-card readers, astrologists, and palm readers to gather information about a “client.” Many “cold readers” are largely unaware of their abilities to read nonverbal signals and so also become convinced that they really must have “psychic” abilities. This all adds to a convincing performance, bolstered by the fact that people who regularly visit “psychics” go with positive expectations of the outcome. Throw in a set of tarot cards, a crystal ball or two, and a bit of theater, and the stage is perfectly set for a body-language-reading session that can convince even the most hardened skeptic that strange, magical forces must be at work. It all boils down to the reader's ability to decode a person's reactions to statements made and to questions asked, and by information gathered from simple observation about a person's appearance. Most “psychics” are female because, as women, as discussed previously, they have the extra brain wiring to allow them to read the body signals of babies and to read others' emotional condition.

To demonstrate the point, here now is a psychic reading for you personally. Imagine you've come to a dimly lit, smoke-filled room where a jewel-encrusted psychic wearing a turban is seated at a low, moon-shaped table with a crystal ball:

So how did we do? Did we read you accurately? Studies show that the information in this “reading” is more than 80 percent accurate for any person reading it. Throw in an excellent ability to read body-language postures, facial expressions, and a person's other twitches and movements, plus dim lighting, weird music, and a stick of incense, and we guarantee you can even amaze the dog! We won't encourage you to become a fortune-teller,
but you'll soon be able to read others as accurately as they do.

When you cross your arms on your chest, do you cross left over right or right over left? Most people cannot confidently describe which way they do this until they try it. Cross your arms on your chest right now and then try to quickly reverse the position. Where one way feels comfortable, the other feels completely wrong. Evidence suggests that this may well be a genetic gesture that cannot be changed.

Much debate and research has been done to discover whether nonverbal signals are inborn, learned, genetically transferred, or acquired in some other way. Evidence has been collected from observation of blind people (who could not have learned nonverbal signals through a visual channel), from observing the gestural behavior of many different cultures around the world, and from studying the behavior of our nearest anthropological relatives, the apes and monkeys.

The conclusions of this research indicate that some gestures fall into each category. For example, most primate babies are born with the immediate ability to suck, showing that this is either inborn or genetic. The German scientist Eibl-Eibesfeldt found that the smiling expressions of children born deaf and blind occur independently of learning or copying, which means that these must also be inborn gestures. Ekman, Friesen, and Sorenson supported some of Darwin's original beliefs about inborn gestures when they studied the facial expressions of people from five widely different cultures. They found that each culture used the same basic facial gestures to show
emotion, which led them to the conclusion that these gestures must also be inborn.

Debate still exists as to whether some gestures are culturally learned and become habitual, or are genetic. For example, most men put on a coat right arm first; most women put it on left arm first. This shows that men use their left brain hemisphere for this action while women use the right hemisphere. When a man passes a woman in a crowded street, he usually turns his body toward her as he passes; she instinctively turns her body away from him to protect her breasts. Is this an inborn female reaction or has she learned to do this by unconsciously watching other females?

Most of the basic communication signals are the same all over the world. When people are happy, they smile; when they are sad or angry, they frown or scowl. Nodding the head is almost universally used to indicate “yes” or affirmation. It appears to be a form of head lowering and is probably an inborn gesture because it's also used by people born blind. Shaking the head from side to side to indicate “no” or negation is also universal and appears to be a gesture learned in infancy. When a baby has had enough milk, it turns its head from side to side to reject its mother's breast. When the young child has had enough to eat, he shakes his head from side to side to stop any attempt to spoon-feed him and, in this way, he quickly learns to use the Head-Shaking gesture to show disagreement or a negative attitude.

The evolutionary origin of some gestures can be traced to our primitive animal past. Smiling, for example, is a threat gesture for most carnivorous animals, but for primates it is done in conjunction with nonthreatening gestures to show submission.

Baring the teeth and nostril flaring are derived from the act of attacking and are primitive signals used by other primates. Sneering is used by animals to warn others that, if necessary, they'll use their teeth to attack or defend. For humans, this gesture still appears even though humans won't usually attack with their teeth.

Human and animal sneering—you wouldn't want to go on a date with either of these two

Nostril flaring allows more air to oxygenate the body in preparation for fight or flight and, in the primate world, it tells others that backup support is needed to deal with an imminent threat. In the human world, sneering is caused by anger, irritation, when a person feels under physical or emotional threat, or feels that something is not right.

The Shoulder Shrug is also a good example of a universal gesture that is used to show that a person doesn't know or doesn't understand what you are saying. It's a multiple gesture that has three main parts: exposed palms to show nothing is being concealed in the hands, hunched shoulders to protect the throat from attack, and raised brow, which is a universal, submissive greeting.

The Shoulder Shrug shows submission

Just as verbal language differs from culture to culture, so some body-language signals can also differ. Whereas one gesture may be common in a particular culture and have a clear interpretation, it may be meaningless in another culture or even have a completely different meaning. Cultural differences will be covered later, in Chapter 5.

What you see and hear in any situation does not necessarily reflect the real attitudes people may actually have. You need to follow three basic rules to get things right.

One of the most serious errors a novice in body language can make is to interpret a solitary gesture in isolation of other gestures or circumstances. For example, scratching the head can mean a number of things—sweating, uncertainty, dandruff, fleas, forgetfulness, or lying—depending on the other gestures that occur at the same time. Like any spoken language, body language has words, sentences, and punctuation. Each gesture is like a single word and one word may have several different meanings. For example, in English, the word “dressing” has at least ten meanings including the act of putting on clothing, a sauce for food, stuffing for a fowl, an application for a wound, fertilizer, and grooming for a horse.

It's only when you put a word into a sentence with other words that you can fully understand its meaning. Gestures come in “sentences” called “clusters” and invariably reveal the truth about a person's feelings or attitudes. A body-language cluster, just like a verbal sentence, needs at least three words in it before you can accurately define each of the words. The “perceptive” person is the one who can read the body-language sentences and accurately match them against the person's verbal sentences.

So always look at gesture clusters for a correct reading. Each of us has one or more repetitive gestures that simply reveal we are either bored or feeling under pressure. Continual hair touching or twirling is a common example of this, but in isolation of other gestures, it's likely to mean the person is feeling uncertain or anxious. People stroke their hair or head because that's how their mother comforted them when they were children.

To demonstrate the point about clusters, here's a common
Critical Evaluation gesture cluster someone might use when they are unimpressed with what they are hearing:

You're losing points with this man