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- With body language, one’s entire body participates in showing or hiding their mental state. Even the most seemingly insignificant bodily gestures can provide key signals of your emotions. Learning to control the cues you communicate to others can boost how you look and feel.
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Jun 30, 2012 · You can use bodily cues either to display or hide your inner state of mind. This tip-to-toe guide to body language will show you how to do both.
- Overview
- Facial Expressions
- The Eyes
- The Mouth
- Gestures
- The Arms and Legs
- Posture
- Personal Space
- Roles of Nonverbal Communication
- How to Improve Your Nonverbal Communication
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Body language refers to the nonverbal signals that we use to communicate. These nonverbal signals make up a huge part of daily communication. In fact, body language may account for between 60% to 65% of all communication.
Examples of body language include facial expressions, eye gaze, gestures, posture, and body movements. In many cases, the things we don't say can convey volumes of information.
So, why is body language important? Body language can help us understand others and ourselves. It provides us with information about how people may be feeling in a given situation. We can also use body language to express emotions or intentions.
Facial expressions, gestures, and eye gaze are often identified as the three major types of body language, but other aspects such as posture and personal distance can also be used to convey information. Understanding body language is important, but it is also essential to pay attention to other cues such as context. In many cases, you should look at signals as a group rather than focus on a single action.
This article discusses the roles played by body language in communication, as well as body language examples and the meaning behind them—so you know what to look for when you're trying to interpret nonverbal actions.
Think for a moment about how much a person is able to convey with just a facial expression. A smile can indicate approval or happiness. A frown can signal disapproval or unhappiness.
In some cases, our facial expressions may reveal our true feelings about a particular situation. While you say that you are feeling fine, the look on your face may tell people otherwise.
Just a few examples of emotions that can be expressed via facial expressions include:
•Happiness
•Sadness
•Anger
The eyes are frequently referred to as the "windows to the soul" since they are capable of revealing a great deal about what a person is feeling or thinking.
As you engage in conversation with another person, taking note of eye movements is a natural and important part of the communication process.
Some common things you may notice include whether people are making direct eye contact or averting their gaze, how much they are blinking, or if their pupils are dilated.
The best way to read someone's body language is to pay attention. Look out for any of the following eye signals.
Mouth expressions and movements can also be essential in reading body language. For example, chewing on the bottom lip may indicate that the individual is experiencing feelings of worry, fear, or insecurity.
Covering the mouth may be an effort to be polite if the person is yawning or coughing, but it may also be an attempt to cover up a frown of disapproval.
Smiling is perhaps one of the greatest body language signals, but smiles can also be interpreted in many ways.
A smile may be genuine, or it may be used to express false happiness, sarcasm, or even cynicism.
When evaluating body language, pay attention to the following mouth and lip signals:
•Pursed lips. Tightening the lips might be an indicator of distaste, disapproval, or distrust.
Gestures can be some of the most direct and obvious body language signals. Waving, pointing, and using the fingers to indicate numerical amounts are all very common and easy to understand gestures.
Some gestures may be cultural, however, so giving a thumbs-up or a peace sign in another country might have a completely different meaning than it does in the United States.
The following examples are just a few common gestures and their possible meanings:
•A clenched fist can indicate anger in some situations or solidarity in others.
•A thumbs up and thumbs down are often used as gestures of approval and disapproval.
•The "okay" gesture, made by touching together the thumb and index finger in a circle while extending the other three fingers can be used to mean "okay" or "all right." In some parts of Europe, however, the same signal is used to imply you are nothing. In some South American countries, the symbol is actually a vulgar gesture.
The arms and legs can also be useful in conveying nonverbal information. Crossing the arms can indicate defensiveness. Crossing legs away from another person may indicate dislike or discomfort with that individual.
Other subtle signals such as expanding the arms widely may be an attempt to seem larger or more commanding, while keeping the arms close to the body may be an effort to minimize oneself or withdraw from attention.
When you are evaluating body language, pay attention to some of the following signals that the arms and legs may convey:
•Crossed arms might indicate that a person feels defensive, self-protective, or closed-off.
•Standing with hands placed on the hips can be an indication that a person is ready and in control, or it can also possibly be a sign of aggressiveness.
•Clasping the hands behind the back might indicate that a person is feeling bored, anxious, or even angry.
How we hold our bodies can also serve as an important part of body language.
The term posture refers to how we hold our bodies as well as the overall physical form of an individual.
Posture can convey a wealth of information about how a person is feeling as well as hints about personality characteristics, such as whether a person is confident, open, or submissive.
Sitting up straight, for example, may indicate that a person is focused and paying attention to what's going on. Sitting with the body hunched forward, on the other hand, can imply that the person is bored or indifferent.
When you are trying to read body language, try to notice some of the signals that a person's posture can send.
•Open posture involves keeping the trunk of the body open and exposed. This type of posture indicates friendliness, openness, and willingness.
Have you ever heard someone refer to their need for personal space? Have you ever started to feel uncomfortable when someone stands just a little too close to you?
The term proxemics, coined by anthropologist Edward T. Hall, refers to the distance between people as they interact. Just as body movements and facial expressions can communicate a great deal of nonverbal information, so can the physical space between individuals.
Body language plays many roles in social interactions. It can help facilitate the following:
•Earning trust: Engaging in eye contact, nodding your head while listening, and even unconsciously mirroring another person's body language are all signals that you and someone else are bonding.
•Emphasizing a point: The tone of voice you use and the way you engage listeners with your hand and arm gestures, or by how you take up space, are all ways that affect how your message comes across.
•Revealing truths: When someone's body language doesn't match what they're saying, we might intuitively pick up on the fact that they are withholding information, or perhaps not being honest about how they feel.
•Tuning in to your own needs: Our own body language can reveal a lot about how we're feeling. For instance, are you in a slumped posture, clenching your jaw and/or pursing your lips? This may be a signal that the environment you're currently in is triggering you in some way. Your body might be telling you that you're feeling unsafe, stressed, or any number of emotions.
Remember, though, that your assumptions about what someone else's body language means may not always be accurate.
The first step in improving your nonverbal communication is to pay attention. Try to see if you can pick up on other people's physical cues as well as your own.
Maybe when someone is telling you a story, you tend to look at the floor. In order to show them you're paying attention, you might try making eye contact instead, and even showing a slight smile, to show you're open and engaged.
Body language is a range of nonverbal signals that you can use to communicate your feelings and intentions. These include your posture, facial expressions, and hand gestures. Your ability to understand and interpret other people's body language can help you to pick up on unspoken issues or feelings.
- Crystal Raypole
- First, a few things to keep in mind. According to Dr. Emily Cook, a marriage and family therapist in Bethesda, MD, body language plays an essential role in how we share information with others.
- Decoding the mouth. Share on Pinterest. If someone’s smiling, that’s a good sign, right? Not necessarily. Different smiles mean different things. The same goes for the position of someone’s lips.
- The eyes can say a lot. Eyes can convey a lot of information about someone’s mood and level of interest. Blinking. People tend to blink rapidly when under some sort of stress.
- Watching the arms and legs. Share on Pinterest. Although people usually use their arms and legs to make purposeful gestures, movements that happen more instinctively can also reveal a lot about emotions.
- Guilt for something you did. The most obvious reason to feel guilty is that you actually did something wrong. This type of guilt may involve harm to others, such as causing someone physical or psychological pain.
- Guilt for something you didn’t do, but want to. You’re thinking about committing an act in which you deviate from your own moral code or engage in behavior that is dishonest, unfaithful, or illegal.
- Guilt for something you think you did. As cognitive theories of emotions tell us, much of the unhappiness we experience is due to our own irrational thoughts about situations.
- Guilt that you didn’t do enough to help someone. Perhaps you have a friend who is very ill or who is caring for an ill relative. You’ve given hours of your free time to help that person, but now you have other obligations that you absolutely must fulfill.
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