What Does Your Body Language SAY
Your body language is constantly communicating messages about you, messages that relate to your thoughts, feelings, emotions, attitudes, self confidence, and more. But what exactly are those messages? What nonverbal information are you sending, and how is the information received and interpreted by others?
This chapter focuses on six main categories of what your body language communicates about you:
1. Status
2. Dominance
3. Submission
4. Uncertainty
5. Confidence
6. Personal identity
These categories each describe an overall impression others might form about you based on your nonverbal cues. You will probably recognize something about yourself in each section because everybody cycles through these categories to one degree or another. As you read through the details of each one, take some mental notes about situations where you think you might come across in that particular way. Is it a common occurrence? Is it something you have to consciously choose? Is is something that just seems to happen before you know it?
Once you have greater awareness of what your body language says about you in a variety of circumstances you can begin making deliberate choices about when, where, and how to use different nonverbal behaviors. Think about which behaviors serve you well and choose how to use them more often. Think also about which behaviors are not serving you so well or are even holding you back from your goals, then choose how to change or use them less often.
Are you ready? Let's get going and see where it all leads.
Status
Human beings communicate status through a variety of actions. The first and arguably most important is increasing height to convey a higher status. Of course you can't simply will yourself in ways that make you appear taller. Other nonverbal cues of status include touch and location.
Posture. This is the foundation of the appearance of height. When you hold yourself with back straight, shoulders back, and head up, your body becomes taller, in some cases as much as a couple of inches or more. You can measure this for yourself with the help of a wall, allowing yourself to slump over, slouch your shoulders forward, and lower your head. Ask your helper to place a pencil mark on the wall to show your height. Now repeat the process, but this time stand up straight with your shoulders back and your head up. Look at the difference between the two marks and you'll see concrete proof of how much posture affects height.
But wait a minute. What about people who are just plain shorter than most everyone else? Their posture won't increase their height a huge amount, so does this mean they are destined to always have a lower status? The answer is no. Even an extremely short person ca convey a higher status with a combination of good posture and other nonverbal cues I'll discuss a bit later. He may have to work at it a bit harder to overcome stereotyping by other people, but there is no reason a person of small stature cannot convey status using good posture.
Touch. Most body language experts agree that touch can be used and interpreted as a sign of status. In general, the person with the higher status will initiate touch, whether it's shaking hands, a pat on the back, or a hand on the arm. What's more, when other people observe an interaction like this, they perceive the initiator as having higher status. Think about this for a moment. When you look around a room full of people you'll likely see many different interactions occurring all at once, an you start to form perceptions about the relative status of the people participating in those interactions.
That man you see circulating around the room, shaking hands and patting others on the back? He appears to be someone important or of higher status. Or what about the woman who walks up to that man and reaches out to shake hands? By initiating touch she is conveying to him and to the rest of the world that she views her status as at least equal to and possibly even greater than his.
Location. What happens when a group of people walk into a room and sit down at a table? The person with the highest status will generally choose a seat at the head of the table while the others find seats further down along the sides of the table. The head location is perceived and accepted as being reserved for the person of highest status.
The concept of seating location as a sign of status occurs in many different circumstances. At a concert, the best and most expensive seats are right up front. In a parking lot, the CEO's reserved space is located right next to the building instead of down past a long line of other cars. In royal circles, both modern and historic, the monarch sits at the head of the table or the front of the room, with other people seated or lined up at varying distances. The closer a person is located to the monarch, the higher that person's status.
Children are especially attuned to the status that goes with physical location. When grandparents come to visit they may jostle with each other a bit for the privilege of sitting next to Grandma or Grandpa. The child who sits closest wins and achieves a higher status. Of course, Grandma and Grandpa understand the importance of status, and that's why they make sure each child gets a turn to sit closest and feel that sense of privilege and status.
Dominance
Dominance is closely related to status, and in some circumstances they are practically interchangeable, but there is a slightly different nuance to dominance that I think is worth exploring. Status is generally used to describe differences in title, heritage, or perceived hierarchy in a larger context, often related to groups. Dominance, on the other hand, is generally used to describe relative power and control within specific interactions or relationships. It is demonstrated in a number of ways, most of which involve some difference in relative position. I'm going to focus on relative position in terms of elevation, hand position, and body movement.
Elevation. I use the word elevation to describe the relative physical position of two people when one person is higher than the other. The higher you are compared with someone else, the more dominant you appear. For instance, when you go to a conference or presentation, the speaking platform is almost always raised or elevated above the floor level. Why? It allows the audience to see the speaker more easily, of course, but it also puts the speaker in a dominant position. He is in charge, in control, and perceived as important.
Dominance in a relationship might show up as a conversation with one person sitting and one person standing, or sitting on a couch watching TV with one person sitting upright and the other slouched down and leaning on the first person. In a casual interaction, dominance might appear as one person perching on the edge of a table while the other person is seated, or one person standing on the high side of an incline and the other standing side by side.
The relationship between elevation and dominance appears throughout our media culture as well. The dashing hero of a movie is almost always portrayed as taller than the other characters, giving him an elevated position. Sometimes this requires clever camera angles or set adjustments to boost one person higher or move another person down lower, all to created the appearance of a difference in elevation and therefore a sense of dominance.
Here's another example. The next time you watch a news program where several panelists are sitting arrayed around a large desk or table, take note of how little difference there is between the height of people in the group. Chances are that the producers have done some adjusting to the height of chairs to create the illusion that all are equal and nobody is dominant.
Hand position. The relative position of hands is another indicator of dominance. In ancient times when two rivals met face to face they would posture and push during the greeting, each attempting to end up with his hands in a higher position than the other person. The person with the upper hand was perceived as dominant, and the phrase "have the upper hand" can be traced directly back to this pattern.
Palm position is important, too, as the person whose hand is positioned palm down is perceived as more dominant than the person whose hand is positioned palm up. observe closely the next time you see two people shake hands; the person whose hand is extended with the palm facing more downward is sending a message of dominance over the person whose hand is extended with the palm facing more upward.
The dominance of hand position even shows up when two people are walking together and holding hands. The dominant person will clasp the other's hand with palm facing backward and slightly on top; the other person will clasp hands palm facing forward and slightly on the bottom. For instance, a parent holds a child's hand when crossing the street, and guess whose hand is in the upper position? The parent's, of course.
Body movement. Dominance is also expressed through general body movement. Moving toward another person or stepping in front of another person can both be perceived as dominant behaviors. Why? Because the dominant person is moving into a relative position that is higher, closer, in front of, or otherwise stronger than the other person's.
Here's an example from the real world. In an elementary school classroom, kids usually line up to go just about anywhere. The front of the line is most desirable because it is dominant, so you will see kids actively maneuvering their bodies to get as close to the front as possible. That's one reason whey teachers select a daily or weekly line leader to avoid conflict over who gets to be all the way in front and to give every child an opportunity to take the lead in the dominant position.
Another example can be seen when two people are arguing with each other. If the argument becomes heated you'll likely see one or both of them making body movements forward and toward each other rather than backward and away from each other. Controlling distance and controlling movement are both behaviors that show dominance, so when two people are both vying for that control and end up bumping up against each other the situation often escalates even further because neither one is willing to back down.
Submission
At the opposite end of the spectrum from dominance is submission, or body language that sends the message you perceive and/or allow the other person to have control. In the animal kingdom you can see all sorts of submissive behaviors, from the wolf that rolls over and exposes his belly to show submission to the pack leader to the wild stallion that turns and runs when a more powerful stallion takes over the herd of mares.
In the human world, the same types of behaviors are used to signal submission. Lowering the body, averting the eyes, and moving away are all powerful, nonverbal cues that send a submissive message.
Body lowering. When a person uses a body lowering behavior, it places that person in a lower relative position to another person. And because elevation indicates dominance, making a conscious choice to take a lower position sends a message of willingness to submit to the dominance of another person.
For example, in Japan it is a traditional greeting for two people to bow to one another. The depth of the bow, however, indicates an employee might dominance or submission. In a work environment an employee might bow halfway for an immediate supervisor or manager, but bow all the way toward the floor for the CEO or company president. The bow was used as a signal between samurai rivals in ancient Japan, with many a conflict erupting due to the perceived insult of a bow that was NOT LOW ENOUGH OR RESPECTFUL ENOUGH.
In the Western world, body lowering appears in the form of kneeling down, performing a curtsy, bowing the head, or sitting down. Remember how it used to be considered polite for a man to tip his hat to a woman or to a person of higher status? This was a form of body lowering, making the person appear to lower himself by removing his hat and reducing his height. The military salute is rooted in the tipping of hats, where the hand movement to the forehead symbolizes removing a hat before a higher ranking person.
You will often see children using body lowering behavior when being disciplined or lectured by an adult. The child will sink down into a chair or maybe even sit on the floor as a signal of submission to the adult. Most adults even do this from time to time as well, whether in the workplace, during a group activity, or when faced with their own parents.
Averting eyes. Direct eye contact is a sign of confidence, but too much direct eye contact is perceived as a challenge or as aggression. Going back to the animal world for a moment, when two rival bobcats confront each other their eyes lock together and neither one wants to look away because looking away is a submissive signal.
In humans, averting the eyes often shows up during courtship behavior. A woman will make brief eye contact with a man and then avert her eyes and look away, sending the signal that she is open to him initiating contact with her. Or, if you are sitting in a meeting and the boss begins to criticize or chastise someone, that person might avert his or her eyes in submission to what the boss is saying. Most of the other people in the room will probably avert their eyes as well, showing their submission and desire not to become an object of criticism.
Children who have a staring contest are effectively challenging each other for dominance and submission. The one who looks away first is dubbed the loser, with the winner taking on more control and dominance. This is especially common between siblings, where the older child wants to maintain dominance and the younger child wants to gain some dominance. The two of them will have a staring contest to see who will end up in the submissive position.
Moving away. You've probably had someone, maybe a teacher or a parent, at some point in your life tell you to just walk away when someone tried to start an argument or pick a fight with you. Why? Because moving away is a signal of submission, clearly communicating you are not willing to engage in conflict.
When you move away from another person,k either backing away or stepping aside to let someone pass, you're essentially giving up your space or position and allowing the other person to claim that space or position. Even if it's only for a moment, the movement to create more distance is a sign of submission.
Once again, children provide an excellent real-world example of this. When two children are arguing, wrestling, or otherwise challenging each other, eventually one of them will try to get away from the other one. The child may run across the playground, go into the bedroom and close the door, or just slowly back away.
Adults do this same thing when driving a car. What happens when you are driving along and another person tries to merge into your lane? If that person appears to be evaluating your speed and slowing enough to merge in behind you, there's generally not a problem. However, if that person appears to be trying to match or exceed your speed to cut in front of you, that creates a choice for you. Do you speed up even more to keep the other car from beating you and getting in front? Or do you consciously slow down and create more space in front of you, letting the other person have their little victory because it's not worth a larger confrontations?
Uncertainty
The body language of uncertainty is generally pretty obvious. There is a tentativeness and a hesitancy that emanate from someone who is uncertain about something. The classic nonverbal signals of uncertainty are darting eyes and hesitant movements.
Darting eyes. You've probably done this hundreds if not thousands of times in your life. You're not sure which road to follow, so your eyes dart back and forth looking from a street sign or some indication of the correct place to turn. Or, you and a friend are meeting for coffee and you find yourself at the coffee shop but your friend isn't there. Are you at the wrong place? You begin looking around, checking faces and watching the door, hoping your friend will appear and relieve your uncertainty.
This nonverbal behavior is easy to see in narly any aiport you might visit. As passengers disembark from a plane, the ones who are not familiar with the airport start moving their eyes around, searching for something to guide them in the right direction. It might be a sign pointing toward the baggage claim or a display screen showing the gate number for their connecting flight. You'll know right away when they find something to reassure them and point them in the right direction, because their eyes will stop moving around and they'll focus in a particular direction.
Hesitant movements. This is sort of a catch-all term to describe movements that are not smooth or steady. When you feel uncertainty, chances are you will not just charge forward and take action. Instead, you proceed cautiously and carefully, trying to figure things out along the way. This may show up as small, irregular steps in one or more directions; fidgeting in your seat or chair; a shaky tone of voice; or even shaking or sweating hands.
Let's go back to the airport example for a moment. You're already seen people darting their eyes around looking for information, but they're probably showing hesitant movements as well. They take a step or two in one direction, stop, then a step or two another direction, with these careful steps slowly evolving into a steady stride as certainty grows.
Here's another example. Have you ever watched someone jump off the high dive at a swimming pool for the first time? There are usually lots of hesitant movements to see in that situation, perhaps starting with several starts and stops on the way over to the ladder. Climbing the ladder might occur slowly, and once up on top, the person will probably grasp the hand rail and carefully inch his way out to the edge. If the person is especially uncertain about making the jump, he might go back and forth a few times, mentally working up the certainty and confidence to jump in.
Confidence
Confident body language is also relatively easy to observer; it is also one of the easiest nonverbal behaviors to fake when you really don't feel very confident at all. A confident person generally walks with a smooth, steady stride, not hesitating or pausing along the way. The body posture is upright, with shoulders back, head up, and eyes focused ahead. The hands are steady and the tone of voice is steady as well.
Think about the last time you felt especially confident about something, perhaps your work performance or your knowledge going into a classroom quiz. What kind of body language did you show? If you're not sure, ask someone who observed you in that situation to describe the way you looked and acted. In some cases, the other person might describe you as appearing not at all confident, in which case you need to do a bit more thinking about the mismatch between your inner thoughts and your external nonverbal cues.
I said earlier that confidence can be faked, which you have probably done at some point in your life as well. For instance, think about the first day on a new job. You were scared, excited, nervous, and anxious all at the same time, but since you wanted to make a really great first impression you consciously assumed an upright posture, kept your head up, and did your best to walk smoothly down the hallway.
Have you ever heard the phrase "Fake it until you make it"? It means you should deliberately choose the necessary behaviors to show confidence in yourself, and if you do that often enough and long enough that confidence will eventually develop for real. Sales training programs often use a variation of this, teaching salespeople to approach every client interaction as if their product or service is the best possible solution for the client. Whether that confidence is warranted or not, just using those confident behaviors will help convince the client you're right and help the client move along toward making a purchase.
Personal Identity
This last category, personal identity, brings together elements from several categories to create an overall impression. Your internal definition of your personal identity comes through in your body language, either consciously or unconsciously. It becomes your signature of sorts, kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
For instance, let's say your personal identity is all about being an athlete. You see yourself as an athlete and you enjoy athletic activities, so those elements start appearing in your body language. You might stretch and flex your muscles every so often, or turn toward the sound of a sporting event on TV. Perhaps you walk with confidence or sometimes jog slightly on the way out to your car in the parking lot. When you are around other athletic people you probably start to match their nonverbal behaviors, too, so that all of you are sending body language messages about your personal identities as athletes.
Another case of personal identity affecting body language is the example of the schoolyard bully. Deep inside, he lacks confidence in some way, so to avoid letting that show he chooses an aggressive, bullying personal identity. You'll see dominant behavior and attempts to increase status, as well as all of the nonverbal cues that go along with them. The bully creates this identity of a tough person and communicates it through body language rather than run the risk of letting others see inside his deeper fears.
Remember, your body language is constantly communicating information about you -attitudes, feeling, thoughts, emotions, and so forth. At various times of the day you may cycle through all of the categories I've covered in this chapter, depending on situations and circumstances you encounter. When you are aware of what your body language says about you, it's much easier to make conscious choices about keeping, altering, or abandoning nonverbal behaviors to help you achieve whatever it is you want to achieve.
Chapter 6 TAKEAWAYS
1. Your body language is constantly communicating information about you such as thoughts, feelings, emotions, attitude, self-confidence, and so on.
2. The nonverbal messages you send generally fall into one or more of six main categories:
Status
Dominance
Submission
Uncertainty
Confidence
Personal identity
3. Status is characterized by messages related to height. This shows up in nonverbal cues such as posture, touch, and location.
4. Dominance is similar to status but relates more to power and control within individual interactions and relationships. It shows up in nonverbal cues such as elevation, hand position, and body movement.
5. submission is on the opposite end of the spectrum from dominance, relating to allowing someone else to assume the dominant role. It shows up in nonverbal cues such as body lowering, averting the eyes, and moving away.
6. Uncertainty is generally fairly easy to see in terms of body language; it is a message of being hesitant, tentative, or unsettled about something. It shows up in nonverbal cues such as darting eyes and hesitant movements.
7. Body language demonstrating confidence is also generally easy to observe; it is also the kind of body language that can be faked when necessary. It shows up in nonverbal cues such as steady walking strides, upright posture, head up, and eyes focused ahead.
8. Personal identity brings together several elements from other categories to create an overall impression. You have an internal definition of your personal identity that affects your body language. Your body language becomes much like a signature of your personal identity and/or a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts.
Chapter 6 WORKSHEET
1. Review the Chapter 6 Takeaways and answer the following:
Which key point(s) did you find most interesting? Why?
Which key point(s) did you find most surprising? Why?
2. Think about situations where you have exhibited body language and nonverbal cues for each of the six main categories.
Describe your actions and the effect of those actions on the perceptions others have of you.
Status
Dominance
Submission
Uncertainty
Confidence
Personal identity
This chapter focuses on six main categories of what your body language communicates about you:
1. Status
2. Dominance
3. Submission
4. Uncertainty
5. Confidence
6. Personal identity
These categories each describe an overall impression others might form about you based on your nonverbal cues. You will probably recognize something about yourself in each section because everybody cycles through these categories to one degree or another. As you read through the details of each one, take some mental notes about situations where you think you might come across in that particular way. Is it a common occurrence? Is it something you have to consciously choose? Is is something that just seems to happen before you know it?
Once you have greater awareness of what your body language says about you in a variety of circumstances you can begin making deliberate choices about when, where, and how to use different nonverbal behaviors. Think about which behaviors serve you well and choose how to use them more often. Think also about which behaviors are not serving you so well or are even holding you back from your goals, then choose how to change or use them less often.
Are you ready? Let's get going and see where it all leads.
Status
Human beings communicate status through a variety of actions. The first and arguably most important is increasing height to convey a higher status. Of course you can't simply will yourself in ways that make you appear taller. Other nonverbal cues of status include touch and location.
Posture. This is the foundation of the appearance of height. When you hold yourself with back straight, shoulders back, and head up, your body becomes taller, in some cases as much as a couple of inches or more. You can measure this for yourself with the help of a wall, allowing yourself to slump over, slouch your shoulders forward, and lower your head. Ask your helper to place a pencil mark on the wall to show your height. Now repeat the process, but this time stand up straight with your shoulders back and your head up. Look at the difference between the two marks and you'll see concrete proof of how much posture affects height.
But wait a minute. What about people who are just plain shorter than most everyone else? Their posture won't increase their height a huge amount, so does this mean they are destined to always have a lower status? The answer is no. Even an extremely short person ca convey a higher status with a combination of good posture and other nonverbal cues I'll discuss a bit later. He may have to work at it a bit harder to overcome stereotyping by other people, but there is no reason a person of small stature cannot convey status using good posture.
Touch. Most body language experts agree that touch can be used and interpreted as a sign of status. In general, the person with the higher status will initiate touch, whether it's shaking hands, a pat on the back, or a hand on the arm. What's more, when other people observe an interaction like this, they perceive the initiator as having higher status. Think about this for a moment. When you look around a room full of people you'll likely see many different interactions occurring all at once, an you start to form perceptions about the relative status of the people participating in those interactions.
That man you see circulating around the room, shaking hands and patting others on the back? He appears to be someone important or of higher status. Or what about the woman who walks up to that man and reaches out to shake hands? By initiating touch she is conveying to him and to the rest of the world that she views her status as at least equal to and possibly even greater than his.
Location. What happens when a group of people walk into a room and sit down at a table? The person with the highest status will generally choose a seat at the head of the table while the others find seats further down along the sides of the table. The head location is perceived and accepted as being reserved for the person of highest status.
The concept of seating location as a sign of status occurs in many different circumstances. At a concert, the best and most expensive seats are right up front. In a parking lot, the CEO's reserved space is located right next to the building instead of down past a long line of other cars. In royal circles, both modern and historic, the monarch sits at the head of the table or the front of the room, with other people seated or lined up at varying distances. The closer a person is located to the monarch, the higher that person's status.
Children are especially attuned to the status that goes with physical location. When grandparents come to visit they may jostle with each other a bit for the privilege of sitting next to Grandma or Grandpa. The child who sits closest wins and achieves a higher status. Of course, Grandma and Grandpa understand the importance of status, and that's why they make sure each child gets a turn to sit closest and feel that sense of privilege and status.
Dominance
Dominance is closely related to status, and in some circumstances they are practically interchangeable, but there is a slightly different nuance to dominance that I think is worth exploring. Status is generally used to describe differences in title, heritage, or perceived hierarchy in a larger context, often related to groups. Dominance, on the other hand, is generally used to describe relative power and control within specific interactions or relationships. It is demonstrated in a number of ways, most of which involve some difference in relative position. I'm going to focus on relative position in terms of elevation, hand position, and body movement.
Elevation. I use the word elevation to describe the relative physical position of two people when one person is higher than the other. The higher you are compared with someone else, the more dominant you appear. For instance, when you go to a conference or presentation, the speaking platform is almost always raised or elevated above the floor level. Why? It allows the audience to see the speaker more easily, of course, but it also puts the speaker in a dominant position. He is in charge, in control, and perceived as important.
Dominance in a relationship might show up as a conversation with one person sitting and one person standing, or sitting on a couch watching TV with one person sitting upright and the other slouched down and leaning on the first person. In a casual interaction, dominance might appear as one person perching on the edge of a table while the other person is seated, or one person standing on the high side of an incline and the other standing side by side.
The relationship between elevation and dominance appears throughout our media culture as well. The dashing hero of a movie is almost always portrayed as taller than the other characters, giving him an elevated position. Sometimes this requires clever camera angles or set adjustments to boost one person higher or move another person down lower, all to created the appearance of a difference in elevation and therefore a sense of dominance.
Here's another example. The next time you watch a news program where several panelists are sitting arrayed around a large desk or table, take note of how little difference there is between the height of people in the group. Chances are that the producers have done some adjusting to the height of chairs to create the illusion that all are equal and nobody is dominant.
Hand position. The relative position of hands is another indicator of dominance. In ancient times when two rivals met face to face they would posture and push during the greeting, each attempting to end up with his hands in a higher position than the other person. The person with the upper hand was perceived as dominant, and the phrase "have the upper hand" can be traced directly back to this pattern.
Palm position is important, too, as the person whose hand is positioned palm down is perceived as more dominant than the person whose hand is positioned palm up. observe closely the next time you see two people shake hands; the person whose hand is extended with the palm facing more downward is sending a message of dominance over the person whose hand is extended with the palm facing more upward.
The dominance of hand position even shows up when two people are walking together and holding hands. The dominant person will clasp the other's hand with palm facing backward and slightly on top; the other person will clasp hands palm facing forward and slightly on the bottom. For instance, a parent holds a child's hand when crossing the street, and guess whose hand is in the upper position? The parent's, of course.
Body movement. Dominance is also expressed through general body movement. Moving toward another person or stepping in front of another person can both be perceived as dominant behaviors. Why? Because the dominant person is moving into a relative position that is higher, closer, in front of, or otherwise stronger than the other person's.
Here's an example from the real world. In an elementary school classroom, kids usually line up to go just about anywhere. The front of the line is most desirable because it is dominant, so you will see kids actively maneuvering their bodies to get as close to the front as possible. That's one reason whey teachers select a daily or weekly line leader to avoid conflict over who gets to be all the way in front and to give every child an opportunity to take the lead in the dominant position.
Another example can be seen when two people are arguing with each other. If the argument becomes heated you'll likely see one or both of them making body movements forward and toward each other rather than backward and away from each other. Controlling distance and controlling movement are both behaviors that show dominance, so when two people are both vying for that control and end up bumping up against each other the situation often escalates even further because neither one is willing to back down.
Submission
At the opposite end of the spectrum from dominance is submission, or body language that sends the message you perceive and/or allow the other person to have control. In the animal kingdom you can see all sorts of submissive behaviors, from the wolf that rolls over and exposes his belly to show submission to the pack leader to the wild stallion that turns and runs when a more powerful stallion takes over the herd of mares.
In the human world, the same types of behaviors are used to signal submission. Lowering the body, averting the eyes, and moving away are all powerful, nonverbal cues that send a submissive message.
Body lowering. When a person uses a body lowering behavior, it places that person in a lower relative position to another person. And because elevation indicates dominance, making a conscious choice to take a lower position sends a message of willingness to submit to the dominance of another person.
For example, in Japan it is a traditional greeting for two people to bow to one another. The depth of the bow, however, indicates an employee might dominance or submission. In a work environment an employee might bow halfway for an immediate supervisor or manager, but bow all the way toward the floor for the CEO or company president. The bow was used as a signal between samurai rivals in ancient Japan, with many a conflict erupting due to the perceived insult of a bow that was NOT LOW ENOUGH OR RESPECTFUL ENOUGH.
In the Western world, body lowering appears in the form of kneeling down, performing a curtsy, bowing the head, or sitting down. Remember how it used to be considered polite for a man to tip his hat to a woman or to a person of higher status? This was a form of body lowering, making the person appear to lower himself by removing his hat and reducing his height. The military salute is rooted in the tipping of hats, where the hand movement to the forehead symbolizes removing a hat before a higher ranking person.
You will often see children using body lowering behavior when being disciplined or lectured by an adult. The child will sink down into a chair or maybe even sit on the floor as a signal of submission to the adult. Most adults even do this from time to time as well, whether in the workplace, during a group activity, or when faced with their own parents.
Averting eyes. Direct eye contact is a sign of confidence, but too much direct eye contact is perceived as a challenge or as aggression. Going back to the animal world for a moment, when two rival bobcats confront each other their eyes lock together and neither one wants to look away because looking away is a submissive signal.
In humans, averting the eyes often shows up during courtship behavior. A woman will make brief eye contact with a man and then avert her eyes and look away, sending the signal that she is open to him initiating contact with her. Or, if you are sitting in a meeting and the boss begins to criticize or chastise someone, that person might avert his or her eyes in submission to what the boss is saying. Most of the other people in the room will probably avert their eyes as well, showing their submission and desire not to become an object of criticism.
Children who have a staring contest are effectively challenging each other for dominance and submission. The one who looks away first is dubbed the loser, with the winner taking on more control and dominance. This is especially common between siblings, where the older child wants to maintain dominance and the younger child wants to gain some dominance. The two of them will have a staring contest to see who will end up in the submissive position.
Moving away. You've probably had someone, maybe a teacher or a parent, at some point in your life tell you to just walk away when someone tried to start an argument or pick a fight with you. Why? Because moving away is a signal of submission, clearly communicating you are not willing to engage in conflict.
When you move away from another person,k either backing away or stepping aside to let someone pass, you're essentially giving up your space or position and allowing the other person to claim that space or position. Even if it's only for a moment, the movement to create more distance is a sign of submission.
Once again, children provide an excellent real-world example of this. When two children are arguing, wrestling, or otherwise challenging each other, eventually one of them will try to get away from the other one. The child may run across the playground, go into the bedroom and close the door, or just slowly back away.
Adults do this same thing when driving a car. What happens when you are driving along and another person tries to merge into your lane? If that person appears to be evaluating your speed and slowing enough to merge in behind you, there's generally not a problem. However, if that person appears to be trying to match or exceed your speed to cut in front of you, that creates a choice for you. Do you speed up even more to keep the other car from beating you and getting in front? Or do you consciously slow down and create more space in front of you, letting the other person have their little victory because it's not worth a larger confrontations?
Uncertainty
The body language of uncertainty is generally pretty obvious. There is a tentativeness and a hesitancy that emanate from someone who is uncertain about something. The classic nonverbal signals of uncertainty are darting eyes and hesitant movements.
Darting eyes. You've probably done this hundreds if not thousands of times in your life. You're not sure which road to follow, so your eyes dart back and forth looking from a street sign or some indication of the correct place to turn. Or, you and a friend are meeting for coffee and you find yourself at the coffee shop but your friend isn't there. Are you at the wrong place? You begin looking around, checking faces and watching the door, hoping your friend will appear and relieve your uncertainty.
This nonverbal behavior is easy to see in narly any aiport you might visit. As passengers disembark from a plane, the ones who are not familiar with the airport start moving their eyes around, searching for something to guide them in the right direction. It might be a sign pointing toward the baggage claim or a display screen showing the gate number for their connecting flight. You'll know right away when they find something to reassure them and point them in the right direction, because their eyes will stop moving around and they'll focus in a particular direction.
Hesitant movements. This is sort of a catch-all term to describe movements that are not smooth or steady. When you feel uncertainty, chances are you will not just charge forward and take action. Instead, you proceed cautiously and carefully, trying to figure things out along the way. This may show up as small, irregular steps in one or more directions; fidgeting in your seat or chair; a shaky tone of voice; or even shaking or sweating hands.
Let's go back to the airport example for a moment. You're already seen people darting their eyes around looking for information, but they're probably showing hesitant movements as well. They take a step or two in one direction, stop, then a step or two another direction, with these careful steps slowly evolving into a steady stride as certainty grows.
Here's another example. Have you ever watched someone jump off the high dive at a swimming pool for the first time? There are usually lots of hesitant movements to see in that situation, perhaps starting with several starts and stops on the way over to the ladder. Climbing the ladder might occur slowly, and once up on top, the person will probably grasp the hand rail and carefully inch his way out to the edge. If the person is especially uncertain about making the jump, he might go back and forth a few times, mentally working up the certainty and confidence to jump in.
Confidence
Confident body language is also relatively easy to observer; it is also one of the easiest nonverbal behaviors to fake when you really don't feel very confident at all. A confident person generally walks with a smooth, steady stride, not hesitating or pausing along the way. The body posture is upright, with shoulders back, head up, and eyes focused ahead. The hands are steady and the tone of voice is steady as well.
Think about the last time you felt especially confident about something, perhaps your work performance or your knowledge going into a classroom quiz. What kind of body language did you show? If you're not sure, ask someone who observed you in that situation to describe the way you looked and acted. In some cases, the other person might describe you as appearing not at all confident, in which case you need to do a bit more thinking about the mismatch between your inner thoughts and your external nonverbal cues.
I said earlier that confidence can be faked, which you have probably done at some point in your life as well. For instance, think about the first day on a new job. You were scared, excited, nervous, and anxious all at the same time, but since you wanted to make a really great first impression you consciously assumed an upright posture, kept your head up, and did your best to walk smoothly down the hallway.
Have you ever heard the phrase "Fake it until you make it"? It means you should deliberately choose the necessary behaviors to show confidence in yourself, and if you do that often enough and long enough that confidence will eventually develop for real. Sales training programs often use a variation of this, teaching salespeople to approach every client interaction as if their product or service is the best possible solution for the client. Whether that confidence is warranted or not, just using those confident behaviors will help convince the client you're right and help the client move along toward making a purchase.
Personal Identity
This last category, personal identity, brings together elements from several categories to create an overall impression. Your internal definition of your personal identity comes through in your body language, either consciously or unconsciously. It becomes your signature of sorts, kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
For instance, let's say your personal identity is all about being an athlete. You see yourself as an athlete and you enjoy athletic activities, so those elements start appearing in your body language. You might stretch and flex your muscles every so often, or turn toward the sound of a sporting event on TV. Perhaps you walk with confidence or sometimes jog slightly on the way out to your car in the parking lot. When you are around other athletic people you probably start to match their nonverbal behaviors, too, so that all of you are sending body language messages about your personal identities as athletes.
Another case of personal identity affecting body language is the example of the schoolyard bully. Deep inside, he lacks confidence in some way, so to avoid letting that show he chooses an aggressive, bullying personal identity. You'll see dominant behavior and attempts to increase status, as well as all of the nonverbal cues that go along with them. The bully creates this identity of a tough person and communicates it through body language rather than run the risk of letting others see inside his deeper fears.
Remember, your body language is constantly communicating information about you -attitudes, feeling, thoughts, emotions, and so forth. At various times of the day you may cycle through all of the categories I've covered in this chapter, depending on situations and circumstances you encounter. When you are aware of what your body language says about you, it's much easier to make conscious choices about keeping, altering, or abandoning nonverbal behaviors to help you achieve whatever it is you want to achieve.
Chapter 6 TAKEAWAYS
1. Your body language is constantly communicating information about you such as thoughts, feelings, emotions, attitude, self-confidence, and so on.
2. The nonverbal messages you send generally fall into one or more of six main categories:
Status
Dominance
Submission
Uncertainty
Confidence
Personal identity
3. Status is characterized by messages related to height. This shows up in nonverbal cues such as posture, touch, and location.
4. Dominance is similar to status but relates more to power and control within individual interactions and relationships. It shows up in nonverbal cues such as elevation, hand position, and body movement.
5. submission is on the opposite end of the spectrum from dominance, relating to allowing someone else to assume the dominant role. It shows up in nonverbal cues such as body lowering, averting the eyes, and moving away.
6. Uncertainty is generally fairly easy to see in terms of body language; it is a message of being hesitant, tentative, or unsettled about something. It shows up in nonverbal cues such as darting eyes and hesitant movements.
7. Body language demonstrating confidence is also generally easy to observe; it is also the kind of body language that can be faked when necessary. It shows up in nonverbal cues such as steady walking strides, upright posture, head up, and eyes focused ahead.
8. Personal identity brings together several elements from other categories to create an overall impression. You have an internal definition of your personal identity that affects your body language. Your body language becomes much like a signature of your personal identity and/or a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts.
Chapter 6 WORKSHEET
1. Review the Chapter 6 Takeaways and answer the following:
Which key point(s) did you find most interesting? Why?
Which key point(s) did you find most surprising? Why?
2. Think about situations where you have exhibited body language and nonverbal cues for each of the six main categories.
Describe your actions and the effect of those actions on the perceptions others have of you.
Status
Dominance
Submission
Uncertainty
Confidence
Personal identity
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