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Posts Tagged ‘Nonverbal’

Your non-verbal communication which is more frequently but narrowly referred to as body language, is a universally overlooked area to improve your confidence in communication and general self-perception. The majority of people aim to build their confidence but rarely consider the power of communicating confidence non-verbally.

If you’d like to improve your confidence around women then you have even more reason to read this article. Women love a confident man and they are extremely adept in picking up non-verbal signals. They will pick-up your non-verbal signals that you wouldn’t even have a clue about.

You need to have high self-awareness in order to be aware of your body language. It’s a matter of knowing what you do in certain situations. When you have poor body language others can see fear in you.

Here are four examples of body language that is counter-productive in developing confidence and how you can solve them to not only communicate more powerfully but to internalize the confidence:

1. Moving eye contact – people with low confidence levels rarely make eye contact and when they do, as soon as the other person returns that eye contact the person looks away. You do not look silly looking the other person in the eyes. In fact, you look weirder and would be annoying the other person more so when you do not make eye contact.

Good eye contact will show the person you are listening and that you are interested in what they have to say. However, you can have too much of a good thing. Excessive eye contact is non-verbal aggression. Dr. Peter Andersen, author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Body Language, says you will make the other person feel comfortable with about 60% eye contact.

With practice I found that you will develop an intuition or ‘gut-feeling’ when you make the other person uncomfortable. As an example when you make to much eye contact, they’ll begin to not make eye contact with you or maybe fidget. At the moment, too much eye contact probably isn’t your concern as you’re trying to develop confident body language but you still should be aware of the problems with excessive eye contact.

2. Weak touch – otherwise known as haptics, touch involves bodily contact. What haptics we are interested in to develop confident non-verbal communication is mostly the handshake. You will rarely use any other haptics other then a handshake in a normal social situation. It’s not as if you normally go around patting people on the back or stroking their arm. That’s just strange!

What did you feel when someone shook you’re hand with a soft handshake? I bet you wondered if they cared about you at all or if they lacked confidence to show this concern. This is a ‘girly touch’. A good handshake depends on the receiving person. Most of the time you want a firm handshake but occasionally with say the elderly you don’t want to be crushing their hand! When greeting ladies be aware that they don’t have gigantic and hard hands like many men so just go a little less firm. A firm handshake shows you care and is an initial way of communicating confidence when meeting someone.

3. Stay away – looking at body positions relative to one another now otherwise known as proxemics. What I mean by “relative to one another” is the distance between you and the other person. You are most comfortable with an intimate or well known person being close to you as opposed to someone you just met. However, people with low confidence will have a much wider radius of comfort. A more confident person will not show fear when someone “breaks” their comfortable proxemics. This doesn’t mean they are comfortable with the closeness, it just means they don’t show the uncomfortably. They desire the other person to stay away but they cope with the situation.

An excellent example of this that I can remember is two Australian Politicians on October 8 the eve of the 2004 federal election. John Howard was greeted by opposition leader Mark Latham aggressively. While Mark Latham did pull John Howard towards him when shaking hands (aggressive haptics), Latham made his body position aggressive by being extremely close and towering over the shorter John Howard. Despite this, Mr. Howard non-verbally stood his ground in confidence by continuing the handshake and smiling towards the cameras. I’m sure John Howard would have felt uncomfortable but he still gave out signs of confidence.

It was said Latham attempted to get revenge for Howard squeezing his wife’s hand too hard at a press function which I found to be funny! If only they were both able to read this!

4. Carry yourself – the last non-verbal communication technique I feel is valuable in developing confidence is kinesics. It involves body movement. Possibly the most important kinesics in confidence is posture. A slouched posture not only screams an unconfident person, but it has a physical and psychological effect on the person with the poor posture. The physical effect of slouching your shoulders forward is it causes your chest to compress inwards. Your chest compressing simulates expelling air causing you to breathe shallowly. This means if you have poor posture you will have poor breathing.

The psychological effect of poor posture is poorer confidence. Using arguably the world’s best golfer Tiger Woods as an example, he’s taught to maintain good posture as he approaches each shot. By having good posture he is able to breathe correctly and physically get his body into the right state of confidence. From this his mind is able to focus on the shot ahead.

I know once golfer’s lose this state of confidence through poor posture, the affects are surprisingly strong. The golfer’s chest begins to tighten and everything heightens. They then lose their state of control, calmness, and confidence causing poor performance.

The same relates to everyday life. To practice a confident posture, roll your shoulders forward, upwards, and then back down to almost complete a circle. Watch your shoulders as you rotate them and if they are behind to what they were prior to doing the activity and you are comfortable, you’ve done the activity correctly.

Having learnt about these areas of non-verbal communication, all that’s left to do is practice your new skills. Do not make the mistake of no action. Your self development will not progress forward until you move forward. Go out and practice your confident non-verbal communication skills.

Product Description
Taking as its central problem the nature of what is acquired in first language acquisition, this study critically examines what might be called “standard” theories of meaning and their accompanying theories of first language aquisition. It identifies various psycho-linguistic theories…. More >>

Meaning Without Words: Philosophy and Non-Verbal Communication

Product Description
Taking as its central problem the nature of what is acquired in first language acquisition, this study critically examines what might be called “standard” theories of meaning and their accompanying theories of first language aquisition. It identifies various psycho-linguistic theories…. More >>

Meaning Without Words: Philosophy and Non-Verbal Communication

We all use non-verbal communication, sometimes without realizing that we are doing so, for example the way we stand or sit our posture, our facial expression, our mannerisms; we may nod or wink etc all forms of non-verbal communication.

As typically developing individuals we learn naturally how to detect and read other peoples non-verbal communication.

A baby learns that its mother will come when they cry. A toddler learns that by putting their arms up they will get picked up. A child learns how to get their parents attention or their own way! A teenager realizes how another person may feel about them from their body language…and so on as we grow our ability to read non-verbal communication increases.

However with autism non-verbal communication skills are not naturally learnt and therefore they will need to be taught these skills directly.

One of the most significant non-verbal communication skills is that of reading faces in autism this skill is missing and where as a typically developing youngster may interpret a knowing wink or frown, an autistic child will not.

Social and communication deficits are very common with autism and this is where many social blunders are made, un-knowingly an autistic child can land themselves in some pretty hot water without even realizing they have, especially in the teenage years this can lead to social isolations and anxieties.

Parents know and trust autism resources like social skills stories for helping with issues like reading faces in autism as well as teaching autism non-verbal communication skills.

Social skills stories were first introduced as a means of teaching autism non-verbal communication skills around twenty years ago by therapist Carol Gray.

Gray realized that autistic kids tend to be visual learners and therefore developed a system where social and communication skills could be honed and taught through the use of images and appropriate language.

Social skills stories have developed over the years and are now widely used by parents, teachers and professionals as a means of teaching autism non-verbal communication skills as well as social skills and behaviors, with tremendous successes. So much so that social skills stories are one of the main resources available for helping and teaching autistic kids to learn and remember social and communication skills.

Autism non-verbal communication skills greatly improve with the use of social skills stories, written by experts using first person language, appropriate text and visually rich social skills stories can be downloaded from expert run sites such as www.autismsocialstories.com and implemented quickly and efficiently. This site offers great customer support and advice as well as immediate download of 100 social skills stories which help with issues such as autism non-verbal communication skills as well as teaching social and communication skills like reading faces in autism.

Visit and gain immediate download of social skills stories

www.autismsocialstories.com

Product Description
Human communication is an involvement of vocalizations and movement. This book explores some aspects of human interaction, which may be known as nonverbal behavior or communication. Authors from three continents have contributed articles, which describe research in language and nonverbal communication in cross-cultural ways. Speech acts and nonverbal acts, as two modes of communication, are inextricably related. These behaviors are seen as organizers of socia… More >>

Relationship of Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication

Non-verbal communication can be defined as a kind of communication that does not involve words. It includes dressing, spatial distance, tone of speaking and body language.

What Is Body Language In Communication?

Facial expressions, postures and eyes are a part of body language itself. It is believed that body language is learnt during the childhood itself but with the development of verbal skills, body language gets entwined in our communication process. Humans use body language in communication for the following reasons:

Words Are Not Enough: There are instances in which body language is found to be more effective as compared to verbal communication, such as in the cases of directions, shapes, inclination towards someone and personalities.

Increased Authenticity: As body language cannot be easily controlled when compared to spoken words, they can be considered to be more genuine. Body language is infact extremely powerful in expressing a person’s inner feelings.

It has been found that when people communicate with each other, 55% of the message is transmitted as body language, 38% by the manner of speaking which includes accent, voice quality, emphasis, voice projection, pace, expression, pitch and volume, and the remaining 7% is conveyed through the spoken words.

Understanding Body Language in Communication

1. The manner of shaking hands conveys a lot of things about someone’s personality. A palm-to-palm handshake suggests the honesty and confidence of the person.

2. Maintaining eye contact while speaking to someone conveys confidence, interest and honesty. But, it is to be understood that there is a difference between eye contact and staring.

3. Depending on the society that a person lives in, people’s personal space of comfort and interpretation of gestures tend to vary. Hence, one should always consider the society factor before drawing conclusions about others through their body language.

4. Leaning forward while listening to someone, standing erect and avoiding the slouching posture are indicators of your confidence, honesty and interest.

5. Avoid crossing your arms while conversing with someone as it creates a conversation barrier between two people and conveys negativity, close mindedness and defensiveness. Crossing the legs while conversing should also be avoided for the same reasons.

6. Nodding your head while listening to someone, tilting your head and displaying open palms are considered to be cues for interest and honesty while listening.

7. Avoid continuous shaking of your ankles or legs, rubbing your palms or drumming the table with your fingers while talking or listening to someone as it displays your nervousness and frustration about something.

8. Body language plays a fascinating role in courtship. Stroking of hair, pointing of the foot towards the other sex and playing with body accessories like ring, watches and so on are signs of interest towards the other person.

Reading the body language of other people is an extremely interesting and fun-filled activity if one is able to understand all the factors involved in it. It helps a great deal in knowing the other person’s unspoken characteristics which is equally important in personal as well as professional affairs. It should also be understood that men and women use body language differently with women using it more as compared to men.

Product Description
Human communication is an involvement of vocalizations and movement. This book explores some aspects of human interaction, which may be known as nonverbal behavior or communication. Authors from three continents have contributed articles, which describe research in language and nonverbal communication in cross-cultural ways. Speech acts and nonverbal acts, as two modes of communication, are inextricably related. These behaviors are seen as organizers of socia… More >>

Relationship of Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication

Product Description
Human communication is an involvement of vocalizations and movement. This book explores some aspects of human interaction, which may be known as nonverbal behavior or communication. Authors from three continents have contributed articles, which describe research in language and nonverbal communication in cross-cultural ways. Speech acts and nonverbal acts, as two modes of communication, are inextricably related. These behaviors are seen as organizers of socia… More >>

Relationship of Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication

Product Description
The way we say the words we say helps us convey our intended meanings. Indeed, the tone of voice we use, the facial expressions and bodily gestures we adopt while we are talking, often add entirely new layers of meaning to those words. How the natural non-verbal properties of utterances interact with linguistic ones is a question that is often largely ignored. This book redresses the balance, providing a unique examination of non-verbal behaviours from a pragmatic p… More >>

Pragmatics and Non-Verbal Communication

Product Description
How does mood affect non-verbal communication, the gazes, gestures and facial expressions which accompany dialogue? This important monograph, based on a longitudinal study of five hundred interviews with depressed patients and normal subjects, systematically examines the ways in which mental illness may affect non-verbal interaction patterns. A number of specific patterns of non-verbal behaviour are identified which relate directly to psychological state and also de… More >>

Non-verbal Communication in Depression