GETTING TO LEARN ABOUT OTHERS AND THEIR THOUGHTS.
It is common to look at a person the first time you meet and you can tell exactly what they are. Their body language and facial expressions can tell it all. It is claimed that non verbal cues communicate as much as the other forms of communication or in other cases it may carry more message than the written or spoken forms of communication. Think of it this way, you went to a person to negotiate perhaps in town over an item you want to sell them. One of the individuals looks at you and says he is not interested; you might want to pursue them a little by sparking a talk about the recent happenings in town to make them interested. Another person just looks at you sharply and doesn’t speak a word, you might run away very first because the facial message portrayed is not welcoming at all. There is a whole science about all these behaviors.
Faces
People who have circular faces are more likely to be warm toward a visitor as opposed to a person with a wedge shaped face. Wedge shaped people tend to look serious and are not easy to grin even if it was necessary; they in fact make the best bouncers and policemen and women. Approaching such a person and talking to them while they are not speaking back, means trouble and you better run for your safety. The next time you want to know the direction in town, approach the person with a round face and someone who has big eyes. People with big eyes tend to be warm and very welcoming. A person with small eyes is thought to be reserve and hostile especially when the pupil of their eyes tends to dim further as they speak to you. A combination of big eyes, a round face and a gap between the lower teeth for women tends to make the best type of wives, they are jovial, lovely and warm towards other people but then marriage is not about this attributes only.
People on the other hand who have sharp noses are said to be the best accountants and managers, they love managing businesses and cash. They are highly disciplined and more often feel contented when put in charge of businesses; they are result and goal oriented which is good for businesses.
Hands and palms
Get to think of it this way; you are talking to a friend and then they open wide their arms while trying to tell you something, what could you think? Some of us, of course wrongly, would choose to interpret it as a calling for a hug even if it were not a case of hugging. Another person could interpret it as a, “I don’t care,” kind of communication and very few people would interpret it rightly. Simply the person is trying to tell you that all he/she is telling you honestly and truthfully. That is what it means to speak with open arms.
Just like a normal writing, non verbal cues have punctuation too as Allan Pease writes in “Body Language-How to read others’ thoughts by their gestures.” One of the most serious mistakes a novice in body language can make is to interpret a solitary gesture in isolation of other gestures or other circumstances. For example, scratching the head can mean a number of things -dandruff, fleas, sweating, uncertainty, forgetfulness or lying, depending on the other gestures that occur at the same time, so we must always look at gesture clusters for a correct reading.
Like any other language, body language consists of words, sentences and punctuation. Each gesture is like a single word and a word may have several different meanings. It is only when you put the word into a sentence with other words that you can fully understand its meaning. Gestures come in ‘sentences’ and invariably tell the truth about a person’s feelings or attitudes. The ‘perceptive’ person is one who can read the non-verbal sentences and accurately match them against the person’s verbal sentences.
Gaze Behaviour
An old cliché says, ‘Look a person in the eye when you talk to him.’ When you are communicating or negotiating with others, practice ‘looking them in the pupil’ and let the pupils tell you their real feelings. It is only when you see ‘eye to eye’ with another person that a real basis for communication can be established. While some people can make us feel quite comfortable when they converse with us, others can make us feel ill-at-ease and some seem untrustworthy. This has to do primarily with the length of time that they look at us or hold our gaze as they speak. When a person is being dishonest or holding back information, his eyes meet ours less than one-third of the time. When a person’s gaze meets yours for more than two thirds of the time, it can mean one of two things; first, he or she finds you very interesting or appealing, in which case the gaze will be associated with dilated pupils; secondly, he or she is hostile towards you and may be issuing a non-verbal challenge, in which case the pupils will become constricted. Argyle reported that he found that when person A likes person B, he will look at him a lot. This causes B to think that A likes him, so B will like A in return. In other words, to build a good rapport with another person, your gaze should meet his about 60 to 70 per cent of the time. This will also make him begin to like you. It is not surprising, therefore, that the nervous, timid person who meets your gaze less than one-third of the time is rarely trusted.
Some adaptations made from Allan Pease’s Body Language-How to read others’ thoughts by their gestures.
END. COPYRIGHT @ 2015
