335 - Nonverbal Communication
What is nonverbal communication?
[Nonverbal communication] is the transfer of information through the use of body language including eye contact, facial expressions, gestures, and more.
Professor and body language researcher Albert Mehrabian first broke down the components of face-to-face conversation in 1967, discovering that:
Communication was found to be 55% nonverbal, 38% vocal, and 7% words only.
In face to face conversations, nonverbal cues have a much more significant impact on how others interpret the words and whether or not they respond positively to what the speaker is saying.
The 3 elements of communication (verbal, nonverbal, and vocal) have to be congruent in order for the listener to respond well.
According to an article on helpguide.org, Some common nonverbal cues are:
Facial expressions.
Gestures.
Body movement and posture.
Eye contact.
Touch.
Space.
Voice.
On the other side, nonverbal communication gone awry may look like:
Intense eye contact, hand shake that is too firm.
Raised eyebrows, tense shoulders, stiff body.
Interrupting, lack of eye contact, hands in pockets, staring out the window.
Getting better at nonverbal communication
To get better at nonverbal communication, try:
Improving your emotional intelligence skills.
Improving your listening skills.
Matching your nonverbal communication to the situation you’re in.
To better understand others’ nonverbal communication:
Pay attention to inconsistencies.
Look at nonverbal communication signals as a group.
Trust your instincts.
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of Multiamory podcast, we're talking about nonverbal communication. How much of a factor are the nonverbal cues that we give to our partners and friends when we communicate? Does the raise of an eyebrow, the clench of a fist, or glazed-over look really affect our communication? How many of us are even truly aware of the kinds of nonverbal cues that we send out into the world?
This week, we're going to be talking about nonverbal communication, how to become more aware of the cues we're giving, and what actionable tools there are out there to improve our nonverbal communication skills.
Emily: First off, what the heck do we even mean when we're talking about nonverbal communication? I think probably things come to people's mind, but we'll just give you all a definition. This one is from indeed.com. It says that nonverbal communication is the transfer of information through the use of body language, including eye contact, facial expressions, gestures, and more.
Dedeker: I think that nonverbal communication as a concept has definitely been in the pop psychology Zeitguys for a while. We probably have Albert Mehrabian to thank for that, a researcher of body language and a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at UCLA. He first broke down the components of a face-to-face conversation back in 1967. In studying that, he found that communication is about 55% nonverbal, 38% vocal, and 7% words only.
Mehrabian studies were meant to compare facial and vocal components in order to decipher a person's attitude. That wasn't even initially what he was trying to study. People will often misinterpret the findings by-- I think we've all heard the statement that, "90% of all communication is nonverbal." His findings actually demonstrated that in face-to-face conversations, nonverbal cues such as body language and tone of voice have just a much more significant impact on how others interpret your words and whether or not a listener responds well to what the speaker is saying.
Jase: I've also heard that phrased as that there's a lot of importance in how you say a thing, not just what you're saying. His studies are also important because they posit that in order for people to respond well to what you say, these three elements of communication, so the verbal, the words you're using, the nonverbal, your body language, and facial expressions, and then the vocal, in terms of what your intonation is and your tone of voice, that all of those need to be congruent.
I haven't used this word in a while, but I went through a phase where I was talking about congruency all the time.
Emily: Relaying?
Jase: Essentially, it means--
Dedeker: Yes, he loves congruency.
Jase: Years ago on this podcast, I talked about congruency all the time. Basically--
Emily: It sounds like something you do.
Jase: Yes, it does. Basically, it just means that they are in line with each other, that they agree with each other that the words you're saying match the tone of voice that you're saying, and that matches your body language at the same time. If these are not congruent with each other, the listener is more likely to dislike the speaker. I think this is important to note because it goes against that idea of- that most of the communication is nonverbal.
It's like, "Well, it's not just like-- Oh, if you have a nice expression, people are going to like you." That has to line up, that you could even--
Emily: If you have a nice expression and we're saying something shitty, then that's not going to fly really.
Jase: Right. They didn't say this specifically, but what I think is probably the case, is that even if you were to say something a little less nice, but all of your body language and your tone of voice all lined up, that the person would still react more positively or at least more appropriately to that, then this weird and congruency of like, "They said it in this really sweet tone of voice but they said a horrible thing." or they said something that sounds critical, but they were smiling while they did it and that makes it feel like nasty serial killer, kind of stuff, right?
Emily: Dolores Umbridge?
Dedeker: I wasn't going to take it to a serial killer, but I was going to suppose that maybe that's why passive-aggressiveness is such a bummer.
Jase: Yes, well put. It is such a bummer.
Emily: What do you mean by passive-aggressiveness? What congruency has to occur in order for that to feel bummery?
Dedeker: Incongruency, like the example that Jase gave of someone saying something really mean or really critical to you but in a very sweet, kind, maybe even smiley way, that that immediately raises passive-aggressive, right?
Jase: Yes.
Emily: Yes.
Emily: I see what you mean yes.
Dedeker: Immediately, raises disingenuine not necessarily that their words are disingenuine but that their whole being is disingenuine in that.
Emily: Yes. People laugh at me a lot because I feel like my tone of voice is so deadpan that I'll say something and people will just like crack up, even though it's not meant to be funny because they're like, "Wow, you just sound like so deadpan." I don't know. It's like the Aubrey Plaza factor something. I'm not sure. If I could compare myself to her, she's amazing. That's an interesting thing to think about is that all of those things need to be congruent.
I feel like I have to work really hard in social situations to try to up my sweetness game honestly because otherwise, people will be like, "She's a bitch." or something.
Dedeker: Well, okay. Well, this is starting to get into many, many-- First of all, on the one hand, this starts to get into what makes for comedy, which is another factor of, actually, comedy often comes from something unexpected. You see a particular effect or a particular appearance and we expect your tone of voice to be something, and then it's different and then that's funny.
Emily: That's definitely.
Dedeker: That's slightly different. Then there's also the fact that you're a woman, that also influences that as well were you being deadpan or maybe less sweet than people would like you to be is more likely to make people think that you're not a nice person, perhaps more so than a man.
Emily: Yes, that makes sense. All right.
Jase: There's a lot of factors. The next heading we have written here on our notes is, why is it important to talk about nonverbal communication? I feel like we've just unintentionally illustrated several of that things. We're going to start here by looking at a study called The Effect of Nonverbal Cues on Relationship Formation by Igor Kotlyar. I don't know if that's how you say his name but I think it sounds cool. This study was published in Computers in Human Behavior in May 2013.
The study essentially asks a question that many of us probably worry about when we're on dates or dating apps, or when we communicate online and social media groups, Slack, Discord, whatever and it asks, does the lack of nonverbal cues on dating apps or online communication hinder communication and relationship development?
Emily: I love this study. It's so funny and amazing. Let's talk about it. Essentially, this study created four different versions of a chat system. Certain chats have a higher availability of nonverbal cues. There were 847 participants that did this study and they were randomly assigned to a different version of the chat system to talk to one another. It's basically in what ascending order of the ability to have more nonverbal cues versus less nonverbal cues.
The first basic type that you could get assigned to was just a simple text-based chat that also accompanied a profile picture of each person, which is exactly what like Tinder or whatever has right now, right?
Jase: Yes.
Dedeker: Yes. It's like you get pictures and then just text and that's about it.
Emily: Yes. Then the next version is a static avatar chat, so a text-based chat accompanied by a still image of two photorealistic characters sitting in close proximity to one another and they mimic this date setting and the characters were positioned in such a way that they were looking at each other in conversation.
Jase: Now, hang on. Let me just wrap my head around this. While you're chatting, you have this image of two 3D-rendered avatars "photo-realistic" which we've seen some pictures about--
Emily: Are they photo-realistic like
Dedeker: That's really giving it life in 2013 photo-realistic
Emily: It feels very second life, even for 2013 this looks whatever.
Dedeker: Yes, it looks all right.
Emily: Studies don't always get the most funding, so-
Jase: Right, that's true.
Emily: -I'm not going criticize them too hard for it.
Jase: Basically while you're chatting, you're seeing this image of these two avatars on screen, you're over the shoulder of one of them, and the two of them are looking at each other, but they don't move, they don't emote, nothing, right? That's
Emily: Yes, it's just static, exactly. The next one is responsive avatar chat. You have those same characters just sitting there, but they're acting out some of the words in the text chat including laughing, or smiling, or nodding. The characters acted out user-triggered emoticon messages like a smile, or a wink, or a laugh, sad, shocked, eye roll, whatever. Things like that, which were controllable by either entering common text inputs, or lol, or clicking the emoticon buttons on the menu.
This is funny, but background items such as cars or passersbys moved in order to mimic reality
Dedeker: Good render detail.
Emily: it's something so funny.
Dedeker: I know.
Emily: Okay. As I'm chatting to this other real-life human that I can't actually see--
Dedeker: But you see emoticons?
Emily: Yes, little avatars as I hit an emoji, or I say, "Lol," then our avatars in this little fake scene will act that out a little bit-
Jase: Right.
Dedeker: Yes, exactly.
Emily: -with each other, and there's cars in the background.
Dedeker: There's cars and other people walking by, and they're 3D-rendered like, "" thing, okay.
Emily: Yes
Dedeker: Then the final one is the active avatar chat. This version was identical to the responsive avatar chat with one exception. The users had the ability to communicate their romantic interests in the other person by sending clear nonverbal signals through the following avatar actions. They were flirt, touch hand, blow kiss, touch face, and kiss. Wow.
Emily: It's like The Sims.
Jase: Yes
Dedeker: It is, it totally is. I love it so much. These five actions were designed to indicate various levels of interest in the other person, and users could activate these actions by a click of a button on a menu, and their avatar instantly acted out that particular gesture. I love this so much.
Emily: Oh my gosh, to be a fly on the wall for some of these interactions.
Dedeker: Yes, I know. That's the thing.
Emily: To be a digital fly in that space where I could choose to buzz around someone's head-
Dedeker: Exactly it would make it more authentic.
Emily: -and what how it's all going down.
Emily: Okay. After all of this was done, after the interactions, participants were given a survey in order to assess the level of interest and desire to pursue a romantic relationship with the person they'd chatted with, as well as their perceptions of the other person, and the amount or quality of information sharing.
Dedeker: As funny as this is, it's also super fascinating I think at the same time. I'm actually really excited about the stuff that they found. First, they found that the tools that provided a greater variety of nonverbal cues correlated with better perceptions of the other person, with greater information disclosure, and also a higher level of interest in developing a relationship.
The type of the chat, specifically, didn't impact participant's confidence in the accuracy of their responses. As we get more nonverbal cues, it seems like people are just more interested in engaging, and in connecting. The users of the static avatar chat had the still images that's that. The dating scene, it conveys physical proximity, it conveys that the two people are looking at each other, but they don't get much other than that.
The people who got that reported substantially better perceptions of each other, as well as greater information disclosure, and an enhanced desire to meet in real life, as compared to the users of the super simple chat, just text-based chat, and the profile picture. The people who had the active avatar chats, like The Sims style, I can choose to touch your face if I want.
Emily: Kiss you and . Somebody just blow kiss your face.
Dedeker: Those users reported even better perceptions, and disclosure, and desires to form a relationship than users of the static avatar chat.
Jase: Even better perceptions? Okay, and even more so.
Emily: More, and more better.
Jase: The most significant jump was from the text-only
Dedeker: The weirder it got, the better people connected.
Jase: The more like The Sims it became, the more people were into it?
Dedeker: Yes.
Jase: Really, this study showed that everyone loves The Sims. Yes, what they found was that the availability of nonverbal cues enhanced the experience for both men and women. This was almost certainly a heterosexual-only study like so many are. According to this study, the men and women had an enhanced experience but for different reasons. They found that men's perceptions were positively affected by the presence of still images, while women's perceptions were not.
Women's perceptions were positively affected by the presence of avatar movements, gestures, and facial expressions that accompanied text messages. Of course, as we said before, this runs into the problem of being heteronormative and lacking nuance for anyone who's not alloromantic cisgender or heterosexual.
Dedeker: Who knows what their findings may have been if they--
Emily: Right. Everybody loves The Sims, so it's similar maybe in that regard, but, yes.
Jase: It is interesting though because in hearing the setup of this study, I wasn't even sure how significant that finding would be, but the fact that even just that little bit of fake nonverbal cues made a difference in, I guess the realness that you perceive in that other person.
Dedeker: It makes sense though because there are these weird parts of our brain that just can't tell the difference between looking at an image, and experiencing it in reality, and so it does make sense that we're just seeing a picture of two people looking at each other, and that trips something in your brain to have that synopsis of okay, looking at each other, that sensation of looking at another person.
Emily: Isn't that why you would send selfies to your partners when you're on other sides of the world?
Dedeker: Yes. It tips that need somewhere in your subconscious to feel more likely perhaps the way that you would feel if you were looking at someone in the eyes, or if maybe I'm more likely to open up, or be interested, or to lean in, or to disclose information that I wouldn't otherwise. It's super fascinating.
Jase: Yes.
Emily: Absolutely. I just had a question for the group, back when we were actually dating people out there. When it came to online dating, do we recall any difficulty not being able to actually see a new person engage what they were thinking or feel going through online messaging? I know personally, I definitely did, and it was very frustrating at times not really knowing, what do they actually think of me? Am I going to get to go on a date with them? Then feeling really frustrated if I was ghosted or something along those lines.
Jase: Yes, it's funny. I'm going to answer a slightly different questions than you asked, but this is something that really jumps out to me as being a huge cultural shift, I think in the way that we communicate through text chat. This is that, I remember when I was a freshman in college in 2001.
Emily: What?
Jase: Yes.
Emily: Sorry.
Jase: That I remember having a lot of conflicts with my girlfriend in my freshman year. This was not an uncommon thing just in general over misreading tone in AOL instant messenger messages, specifically.
Dedeker: Oh, yes.
Emily: Yes, that happens now.
Jase: It does happen but I think it happens way less. I think it can still happen, but I think it happens a lot less. I think that part of that is how common emoji are-
Emily: Emojis?
Jase: -in our communications. Even before that, using emoticons, you'd construct with colons, and dashes, and parentheses, and stuff. Even that was a step in that direction, and I feel like emoji, and I would even argue adding gifs to communication, and images and stickers. It's like our chat apps keep adding more ways for us to communicate outside of just the words. I think that is really important because you're helping get more of that tone.
Dedeker: I remember there was a study that, oh my gosh, it was published a couple of years ago from the Kinsey Institute, that found that people who use more emojis are more likely to go on dates and also have more sex.
Emily: Wait.
Jase: How? I'm sorry, using them in their dating apps or just using them, period?
Dedeker: It just says here that "Participants completed a survey inquiring about whether they use emojis, and if so, why? They were also asked several questions about their current sex and dating life." I don't think they necessarily made the connection of specifically using emoji on a dating app, or to get dates.
Jase: Okay, just in general.
Dedeker: It's just they seem to have found a correlation between use more emojis, you get more sex.
Emily: You get laid more, cool.
Jase: Maybe that ties back to this study we were just talking about, of you're adding in more nonverbal cues, even that little bit, right? The fact that static avatars increase people's interest maybe emoji does a similar thing.
Emily: Yes. It's really fascinating. Well, I know personally, I would like to see more what other people are doing and feeling because I think online and Facebook groups or whatever there is that really challenging thing of tonality or the way in which you say something or what you mean behind it, that's a lost and so when you have a little bit more of an idea of what a person's non-verbal cues are, where they're at in that particular moment then you can better assume what they mean fully.
Dedeker: That leads me to wonder. I start to think outside of the dating sphere would something like this help with online communication and conflict in general, if we're on a Facebook thread and instead of us just looking at texts and profile pictures, it was like, we're looking at maybe a fake image of all of us in a room, looking at each other.
Emily: That's cute. I like that.
Dedeker: Would that influence how nasty you were or not.
Emily: I Think it might. It personalizes it to a degree.
Dedeker: Right again like that little bit of your brain that's tricked into thinking, "Oh, I'm actually in a room with people and so that changes my filters or lack thereof."
Emily: Yes. That's a really good point.
Jase: Okay. I've got it. If someone out there is going to make this app just give a thanks to me or something in the credits for it.
Emily: Definitely.
Jase: You know how in dating SIM games or text text-based, choice-based games, there's usually like the avatar and then the text box next to them. If you did like that, but in your messages where you have several different versions of your avatar, you've got the, me smiling and the me making a funny face and then the me frowning or the me looking angry and that you can switch between those as you're chatting and it shows up alongside your messages in like, maybe a pixel art style, you're in one of those games so that then you can convey some feelings along with it.
Dedeker: I remember back in the day, Microsoft had a chat app, I'm talking way way back in the day where there was like chat rooms, right, and that was our main way of socializing on the internet was sketchy chat rooms, but they had a chat room app that basically in the room, as you were talking to people, you could do that, you could essentially change the look on your avatar space or the posts that they were in and the chat would essentially populate almost like a comic strip.
Jase: Oh wow. Yes.
Emily: That's cute. I love that.
Dedeker: Yes. Which I think is a wild idea. Obviously it didn't really take off, but--
Jase: It's a cool idea though.
Dedeker: - I'll look into that. Yes, but I don't know if any was studying, if that helps people be nicer to each other, or not.
Emily: All the tech developers out there let's think about it and get back to us.
Jase: Yes, get in touch.
Emily: Let's move on. Yes, indeed. Let's move on now to another study which talks about sex. Something we don't talk about that much on this show. No. It might seem self-explanatory, but nonverbal communication can be really important during sex and during any sexual encounter you might be having. There was a study published in August of 2012 by Elizabeth A Babin, which was called an examination of predictors of nonverbal and verbal communication of pleasure during sex and sexual satisfaction.
This study examined the relationship between sexual communication, apprehension, sexual self-esteem, nonverbal and verbal communication in sexual satisfaction. Essentially sexual communication apprehension is defined as feel or anxiety talking to a sexual partner about sex. I think something a lot of people experience at one point or another. Sexual self-esteem is defined as an individual's sense of self as a sexual being.
The value that one might place on their sexuality, how important that is to them or how cool they think they are as a sexual human. I don't know.
Jase: How sexually cool they thought they were.
Emily: Yes, totally.
Jase: This study had a sample size of 207 participants. It was a mix of undergraduates and folks recruited through "social networking site." Doesn't say which one.
Emily: But I'm pretty sure we know which one.
Jase: Can only imagine.
Dedeker: I can appreciate, they tried to mix it up. It's not just undergraduate.
Jase: That is true. I do appreciate that.
Emily: Yes. I wonder, well, if it was in 2012, maybe it's My Space. Did my space exists then? Maybe.
Dedeker: We're the most sexually cool people in my space in 2012?
Emily: Maybe. I don't know.
Jase: Oh my gosh. Anyway. The mean age was 29, mostly white and 86% heterosexual identifying. Again, big caveat for that, so many studies. Participants were given statements to respond to on a six point scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree. You all know the one and these statements were about their perceived behavior with a partner during sex.
Dedeker: They found that a higher sense of sexual communication apprehension correlated with lower non-verbal and verbal communication of pleasure during sex. To put it in layman's terms, the more fear and anxiety that you feel about communicating with a partner about sex at all, correlates in some particular direction, they don't know which one with also not communicating pleasure during sex, whether that's verbal or non-verbal.
Then they also found that a higher sexual self-esteem or as we have decided to call it higher sexual coolness did correlate with a higher level of nonverbal and verbal communication of pleasure during sex. The higher your self esteem there is a correlation there with having more ease with communicating both verbally and non-verbally during sex. Again, one of those could inform the other, we don't know what the direction is, but there is a correlation.
Now, however, verbal communication was not necessarily a significant predictor of sexual satisfaction. Even if someone was a high verbal communicator, it didn't necessarily mean that the sex was going to be good or they were going to find the sex good. The author of the study called for more studies on the significance of specifically non-verbal communication during sex for clinicians and researchers and also recommended that people be more attuned to nonverbal cues to assess their partner sexual satisfaction. Now, that is true.
Again, now I do find this fascinating and interesting and some of it makes a lot of sense. I do think that it does start to get into, again, bigger questions, because I think that especially since 2012, we've had a lot of big cultural questions come up for instance, do nonverbal cues of pleasure indicate consent? As an example. If my partner is giving me particular non-verbal cues that they're experiencing pleasure, does that mean they're actually experiencing pleasure.
Something that our researcher Kiani brought up is the fact that also nonverbal cues during sex is very different and very gendered in what's expected of one person over the other. For instance, a lot of women are socialized to give a lot of nonverbal cues, not necessarily because they're feeling pleasure, but mostly because that communicates to their male partner often that they're doing a good job or they're trying to protect their male partners ego, this is something that has also been studied.
On the other side is a lot of men who are socialized to not necessarily give a lot of nonverbal cues during sex. The suggestion of being attuned to nonverbal cues is not wrong, but I think it doesn't necessarily give the whole story of what's actually going on when it comes to sex.
Emily: I didn't even think about that. Is that something that you would say that men are socialized to not really do much straight or talk or give non-verbal cues during sex? That's interesting.
Jase: Yes, absolutely. Yes. If you think about socially, how much more we associate making pleasure noises with women and we don't really with men.
Emily: That's really a good point. Yes. You hear that in porn all over the damn place.
Jase: Don't even think about it and it extends even more than that also just like words that you're saying, the actual verbal communication, as well as the non-verbal things like noises, I think as well as it even extends to body language and facial expressions and stuff like that, that it's yes, that we're very much culturally taught without ever being explicitly taught that these are how we should behave and I do think that can have a negative effect on both sides in terms of how effective that communication actually ends up being.
Dedeker: I think, especially because a lot of women are also taught that their sense of sexuality and pleasure is tied to performing, right, to visually performing during sex. I know a lot of women really struggle with- they may be experiencing a lot of pleasure but then sometimes needing to also perform the fact that they're experiencing pleasure gets in the way of actually feeling that pleasure and sometimes giving people permission to tone down that sense of having to perform can actually make it a little bit easier to access pleasure. There's a lot of different sticky bits here.
Jase: Yes, for sure.
Emily: Indeed. Wow. This has been great so far and we have more for all you all out there. We're going to talk about what happens if you're not aware of the nonverbal communication patterns, you've been given out to the world, we're going to give some practical tools and advice for helping to get your non-verbal communication better but before we go on to that, we are going to discuss some ways that you can help us keep the show coming to all you all for free.
We're back. What happens if you're out there, you're having a good day and you're talking to someone, and then they give you like-
Dedeker: You just met someone great, you met just a great avatar.
Jase: In the background cars even move from the background.
Dedeker: You're blowing kisses, touching faces.
Emily: -somehow what you're saying does not align with the nonverbal communication that you're giving out to the world. What happens if that occurs? Yes, I know it's tough. I'm thinking about this also, as myself and what I do give out into the world, and what I see coming towards me in the world, sometimes as well. When when you see someone walking towards you, you have to instantly decipher dozens of cues about their motivation, their mood, their reasons for coming near us.
Especially, personally, I am a small woman living in this world and if the man is walking towards me, I have to assess constantly, is this person a threat in some way? All of that happens through nonverbal communication. Even if it's somebody that you know really well, their actions might be speaking way louder than words. They might be telling you hello, or that they're really happy to see you with their voice, but the nonverbal communication that they're giving off might be saying something completely different.
That may cause anxiety, that may cause a bunch of things to happen to that person just because you're seeing these conflicting, noncongruent social cues that are being thrown your way. Okay. When I looked up nonverbal communication, there were a million articles out there that were all about the eight types of nonverbal communication and the six types and the 10 types, and the whatever.
I'm like, "Come on, everyone, just pick a number and stay in your lane." Yes, exactly. So yeah, I found that to be interesting. There's really not a set number of nonverbal communication types out there, but for the purposes of this episode, we found seven.
Dedeker: Yes. We're going to go through these seven different types of nonverbal cues as we've laid out. Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list. There seems to be some controversies and disagreement about how many types, but this is a good place to start. We're looking at things like facial expression. I think that's the first thing a lot of people think about when they think about nonverbal communication.
For instance, the universal facial expressions across cultures for happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, all those things. Of course, what's happening on your face. It includes things like your body movement and your posture. That includes your stance, subtle movements that your body makes, different tensions of muscles that are present or not present. It includes things like gestures and gestures are thing that often change across cultures.
That's always something to be very careful about that sometimes a gesture in our culture can mean something totally different, potentially offensive, or harmful in another culture as well.
Emily: It talks about the, okay, symbol in this article from helpguide.org. Like the okay symbol in America is something that in other cultures is super offensive.
Jase: Right. It's usually presented differently like we present the okay up above and the more offensive one is presented downward, but yes, it's like the middle finger gesture. Yes. .
Dedeker: Yes. It also includes things like eye contact, which again, is important when gauging somebody's interest in what you're talking about. Of course, it includes touch. I think there's probably been a billion business boy articles about having a better handshake, a more confident handshake. It also includes things like physical space. How proximal, how close or far away are you to someone when you're talking with them?
As well as, how do you negotiate your own physical space? How you socialize to negotiate your own physical space, but that's also a whole other thing that comes up when we're interacting with people. Also, your voice. Not necessarily what you're saying, but again, how you're saying it, the timing, the pace, how loudly you speak, your tone, or your inflection.
Jase: Yes. With all of these in mind, it is possible that you communicate super effectively. I have no problems displaying exactly what you mean with your nonverbal cues. However, on the flip side, it might be possible that you're sending out maybe some confusing nonverbal cues. Or something that's a little bit incongruent at times, and that might be undermining your actual ability to communicate.
The whole point of communicating, this might be working at odds with that. This is something that's not just a universal truth of like you always have good body language, good job, but it's very situational. It depends on a lot of factors. Can you two think of times when you in looking back have realized you've sent out mixed signals in some way where you're incongruence between some part of your verbal and nonverbal communication and what happened? What happened with that?
Dedeker: There's a silly, insignificant audition that still haunts me to this day.
Jase: Oh, no.
Emily: Oh, really? Oh, gosh.
Dedeker: I felt like it was-- it threw me off. It was a small audition, I don't even remember what the project was, probably something small indie film. The audition was at Cazzed. Everyone who's in LA knows about a good old Cazzed. I went and I did my read and the feedback that I got, I don't remember if it was feedback that I got in the room, or if it's feedback that I got later because that's part of the whole thing with Cazzed.
Is you get, the casting director will sometimes write feedback that you can access after the fact. I don't remember when I got the feedback, but they commented that I had seemed nervous during the audition. I remember that really threw me for a loop because I remember not feeling nervous at all for that audition because it was like a tiny little indie film and not a particularly difficult read.
I had remembered that my felt sense was like, I feel fine. I remember even watching my audition tape because that's something you get access to as well and seeming fine, from my own perception be like, what did I do? What did I give off? Did I actually seem nervous? Did I give off some weird incongruence cue with my body? Or with my tone of voice that seemed that way? Was it just the casting director misreading something?
Or were they just trying to fish for feedback to give and find something. It was very small and that still bothers me to this day thinking about that. Or I was like, what happened there?
Emily: That's really interesting. Yes. No, I just know that I have to be very, very cognizant of my voice and not having a resting face that seems super unemotional or like I'm not happy about something or whatever. Actually, the pandemic, I think, has been super helpful with that because when I'm serving at work, I have on a mask. That's great because I don't have to express with this part of my voice overtly.
I'm sorry, with this part of my face overtly in order to show like, I'm a happy human and you can trust me, even though I sound like a robot or whatever I sound like a low-speaking robot woman. Yes, I don't know that-- I've found absolutely that just people either laugh or they think I'm a bitch or something, whatever. It's just how I sound and people comment on my voice every damn day.
Thank you but also, it's definitely led to a lot of heartache over the years of people being, wow, what is wrong with you? Me feeling like no, actually, this is just how I sound, I'm sorry, and having to work really hard in order to show that I'm excited about something or to show that I'm a nice person, or to do whatever, along those lines. Even though I think you two think that I'm a nice person.
Jase: You're the nicest person.
Dedeker: You're the nicest person and seriously, after so many years of hearing your voice, you don't even notice it is until.
Emily: Exactly, but it's very jarring to people.
Dedeker: Yes, Other people are like, whoa.
Jase: Right.
Emily: They're like, yes, big deal. That is interesting. I think it's something for all of us to be aware of. I'm sure that we all have those moments. I don't know, if you do, Jase. People just look at you and they're like, wow, what a nice guy.
Jase: Actually, it's funny that you mentioned that. Something that I've been noticing about myself is actually trying to resist my urge to just always make everyone comfortable all the time and to not-- to actually more intentionally not smile or laugh or react in a comforting way to something that I don't like or that I'm not feeling super positive about. I know that this is a very common thing. A lot of people do this if they're laughing or smiling when you're uncomfortable.
Emily: The shade-eating grant that Stevenson always talked about.
Jase: Right. For me, that's just something I've become aware of, of trying to be a little more conscious about that. Even with friends and family or whoever, where it's not like people comment on it right away, but I do feel like it is, hopefully, making a slightly more congruous experience between my tone of voice and my face with also my values and what they know of me as a person because that's the other part of this that in addition to your verbal, nonverbal, and voice, tonal communication being congruent with each other, there's also an aspect of them being appropriate to the situation and appropriate to the individual, and that's something that's also part of this, too, be like you could all be totally congruent, but in the situation, it doesn't make any sense, that can be really scary and off-putting.
Emily: We'll talk about that later as well, absolutely. That is super important. We gave a lot of great examples, but these are some examples from helpguide.org again of what nonverbal communication gone awry looks like. Things like really intense eye contact or having a super firm handshake even if you're saying something sweet or kind or trying to get a point across that may cause people to feel super intimidated by you just because of those nonverbal things that you're doing.
This article talked about a woman who her partners kept leaving her over and over again. This was because she had raised eyebrows or tense shoulders or super stiff body or a really shrill voice when she was around people. It caused other people to feel anxious.
Dedeker: Wait, so this is something this person figured out for themselves?
Emily: I think that it was just some random-- I think that they were giving examples of random people that probably maybe-
Jase: Maybe a fictional story?
Emily: -didn't necess--
Jase: I see.
Emily: Yes, maybe didn't even exist. They were just like, "Karen has a boyfriend, but he left her because she has a shrill voice and a stiff body and he felt anxious."
Dedeker: Already red flags by the fact that they use the word shrill-
Emily: I agree with you. I agree with you. Another one that they talked about was a guy who just constantly interrupted or had a lack of eye contact, or he put his hands in his pockets all the time or stared out the window. When a boss was trying to explain something to him, it made him feel like he was being ignored, or this person wasn't interested in them or whatever, even though maybe that guy was just trying to think about is the next thing that he's going to say or whatever. There's so many different reasons why people have the nonverbal communication that they do.
Dedeker: I do feel like this is probably a good opportunity to drop in a caveat around all of this and all the stuff that we're talking about that if you're not neurotypical, this can be very, very different. The nonverbal cues that you give can look very, very different, and also, what you pick up from nonverbal cues can be very different.
Emily: That's a really good point.
Dedeker: That's awareness for yourself or awareness if you have a partner who's neurodivergent, in some way. It doesn't mean that none of this applies. Often, it just means that there's almost a different language that you become accustomed to and different cues that you do pick up on or different ways that you do communicate. Just to bear that in mind for everybody listening.
Jase: Being aware of that is a great example of a place where meta-communication, one of our favorite things, can really apply, too, that if you know these things about yourself, if you become aware that these messages might be coming across, by communicating more directly with people about those facts about yourself, could potentially be a really empowering way of communicating. With your partner, for example.
We've talked about this before, where I had a conflict growing up with my stepdad because when I'm listening to someone, I tend to not look at them because it actually makes it harder for me to pay attention to them. For him, that showed him I wasn't listening to him. Unfortunately, at the time, I didn't have the meta-communication tools to have that conversation with him and just try to reach some kind of understanding about it.
That is something I'm more aware of about myself now and that if that comes up, I'm able to identify and communicate about that more metally.
Dedeker: Let's talk about some actionable tools for improving our nonverbal communication skills. First thing is awareness of the different ways that nonverbal communication can function in conversation. A nonverbal cue could function for repetition as it's going to repeat, or it's going to strengthen what your verbal message is, or it could contradict it. Like we've been talking about, they could create some incongruency where the nonverbal cues you give are contradicting your words, which could potentially create mistrust.
They could serve as a substitution, as a naked substitute, for a verbal message. I think this is like the sex example, right? That instead of telling my partner, "Oh, that feels really good." Maybe I just give a nonverbal cue in the way that I move my body or vocalize in a particular way.
Emily: A grunch.
Dedeker: Yes, a grunch yes, that makes sense.
Dedeker: I will try that one out next time and let you know how it goes.
Emily: It goes great. Okay.
Dedeker: Oh, you have experience and you know.
Emily: Essentially, yes. We won’t go there.
Dedeker: Your nonverbal cues could complement what you're saying, or they could accent as an underlie the verbal message that you're trying to give. Have an awareness of these are the different functions that could be at play.
Jase: Here's some things that you can try out if you want to improve your nonverbal communication game. Number one is to just try to improve your emotional intelligence skills. Having emotional intelligence or maybe even just emotional awareness might be another way to say that can help you to be able to decipher what another person is going through at the moment, as well as to better interpret the unspoken information that they are sending out.
That can allow you to have more caring and compassion for people who might be giving off negative or upsetting vibes and, on the one hand, to not take that so personally, but on the other can help your responses to be more appropriate and in tune with that situation, like we were talking about before, not just congruent with yourself, but also with the situation and with the person that you're talking to.
It can help you better plan and to navigate your own nonverbal communication to help put people at ease and develop trust in what you're saying and a sense that you're also aware of them and not just tuned into your own things.
Dedeker: You can also improve your listening skills. People tend to gravitate towards those who are actively listening and demonstrating an interest in what they're saying and what they're communicating. That can mean asking questions for clarification instead of just sitting there trying to think about what you're going to say, while the other person is talking or trying to guess at what the other person is trying to convey, just trying to guess your way through it that if you're noticing a weird incongruency in their nonverbal communication or if there's particular things that you think you're picking up from it, it's always, always safer to find ways to clarify that instead of assuming.
Emily: Then, we've talked about this a bit already, but matching your nonverbal communication to the situation that you're in because it's potentially going to be different based on who you're with, what you're doing at that particular moment. If you're going on a first date with someone that you don't know or you're at an interview with someone that you don't know, versus going out with friends, or a group of people that you really do know, your nonverbal communication is going to be very different based off of each of those situations that you're in.
It's important to try to read the situation, use the appropriate nonverbal cues in that moment, and then you can really, hopefully, get across what you're trying to communicate.
Jase: Even if it worked really well for you in your avatar chatting app at your job interview, maybe don't touch their face while you're talking to them because that might not be appropriate.
Dedeker: Maybe.
Emily: That's important, definitely.
Dedeker: In the virtual space though, does that change what counts as appropriate or not for nonverbal communication?
Emily: That's a very good question.
Jase: That is interesting. You could do a whole-
Emily: That's a very good question.
Jase: -study in second life about nonverbal communication and what's appropriate in situations or something. That'd be interesting.
Dedeker: That's the thing with the study, as soon as I heard like, "Okay, they give you all these options for interacting," I think about online spaces or MMOs or second life where it's like people just going to run and click all the buttons and just dance in front of you and kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss. That's the way .
Jase: Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss.
Emily: I don't know if I want--
Jase: Unequip all of their clothes.
Dedeker: Kiss, kiss, kiss, touch, touch, touch, kiss, kiss, kiss, touch, touch, touch. Kiss, kiss is unequivocal it tends to run around in a circle.
Emily: I don't know if I want that with somebody that I just met. That seems a little scary. Alrighty, how do you get better at understanding the nonverbal communication of other people?
Dedeker: We suggest you can pay attention to the inconsistencies. Is the person saying one thing, but their body language is conveying something else to see if that's telling you something or if that's something that you notice. You can also look at nonverbal communication signals as a group, not just zeroing in on a single gesture of like, "Oh, they broke eye contact.
That must mean this one thing." Consider everything that's going on of what you're receiving. Also, trust your instincts. If you're noticing something, if you're getting a gut feeling, maybe you're sensing that someone isn't being honest, something isn't adding up, you may be picking up on some mismatch, and it is okay to also clarify that and ask questions as well.
Jase: It just reminded me of this funny story I heard. I think it was during some kind of a TED talk with this woman who was the expert on body language. That was her area of study. She told the story about either being on a date with a guy or something where she sat down and crossed her legs and his comment was like, "Oh, we just sat down, you're shutting me out already because you crossed your legs.
Dedeker: Because he's like in the whole--
Jase: Because he heard somewhere that crossing your legs was a body language signal. That means you're putting a barrier between yourself and the other person or whatever. She was just like, clearly you actually don't know that much about nonverbal communication. Let me tell you, and because that's her area. She just went into how that's so wrong.
That's something I think is worth thinking about with all of this, that this comes up a lot in like pickup artists do kind of stuff too of teaching like, oh, this cue means good things and this one means bad things. It's like you got to take in the whole picture and the context and understand that there's also 99% of what's going on with that other person has nothing to do with you.
That's another important factor is to not take it personally. If you're getting some of this more distancing or inconsistent body language, say from a coworker or just someone that you've met at a party or something like that. There's a really good chance that has nothing to do with you. In either case, the solution is not to push through that, but to just be like, "Okay, I'm going to move on and go to some other stuff or talk to someone else," and to not be like, "Oh, I've got to get past this somehow."
Some things to think about like areas to look at things to think about as you're going, the first thing is eye contact. Just, is the person making eye contact? If so, is it too much eye contact? Is that just right? Are they looking away at something because it's distracting or because they're thinking about that thing. Maybe there's a TV behind you and it's just really hard to pay attention to you because there's a TV moving behind you, which is the worst hate that.
Next thing is facial expressions. What is their face showing? Is it mask-like and blank? Are they wearing a mask? Is it hard to see what their expression is?
Emily: Might be given the current circumstance.
Dedeker: There are a lot of mask-like expressions going on right now.
Jase: Literally, masks like. The most mask-like they could be. Or, is it emotionally present? Is it filled with interest? I think someones that are easy to mix up for people sometimes is the difference between surprise in a delighted way and surprise in a little bit freaked out kind of way that those are sometimes hard to tell apart. Just to be aware that you can't just jump to the conclusion of like, ah, they rose their raise their eyebrows, that must mean they liked that thing.
That's not necessarily true. Just again, clarifying is better than not. Tone of voice. Does this person's voice sound warm? Is it confident? Does it seem interested? Does it seem nervous? Is it more strained or blocked? Again, it probably has very little to do with you and a lot more to do with other things. Posture and gesture. Is their body relaxed? Is it stiff, all tensed up, or their shoulders tensed and raise? Do they seem relaxed? Are they moving away from you? I say we, I don't know if we can quite cover this in these.
If they're taking steps back, it might mean they want more personal space. They turning away, it might mean they've got somewhere else they need to be, but they don't want to be rude, so maybe you could give them the out to let them do that. Just be aware of these things. Again, no one thing is going to tell you all the answers you need and the shows where people do that are just untrue. No one could do that, even the experts, but they give you clues. They give you little pieces of information.
Emily: Also things like touch. Is there physical contact and is that physical contact appropriate in this situation?
Jase: Like the face touching at job interview?
Emily: Yes. I'm sorry, if I'm serving you, please don't touch me.
Dedeker: No. Do people do that, do people touch you?
Emily: Yes.
Jase: I see it at the time.
Dedeker: No.
Emily: It's real. I'm like, do not please, that's personal space too. Intensity. Oh gosh, this is a big one for me too. Again, just because of how I sound, I sound really intense. Does this person seem flat or disinterested or super melodramatic or over the top, something along those lines, a timing, and pace. Is there a really easy flow of information that's going back and forth?
Do non-verbal responses come too quickly or too slowly, and then sound. We talked about this in a sexual setting, but also any other sounds that might indicate interest or caring or concern. This happens on the daily all the time, which is the podcast with Michael Barbaro. He always has nonverbal sounds or verbal sounds that are just like grunts or whatever to show how interested he is in whatever the person that he's talking to is talking about. It's fun.
That was a lot, there's a lot to talk about on nonverbal communication. Essentially, just all of this when it boils down too, it's important to recognize that you have nonverbal communication cues that you're sending out into the world and then other people are sending some back to you. It can be helpful to be able to know how to identify them. It can give you a fuller picture of what another person's trying to say, and hopefully, increase some understanding between two people.
If they're in conflict, maybe aid in listening skills, boost curiosity about the people that you're having conversations with. All of those things. It's important to be thinking about them, but they're not like the end all do all of communication. I think like Jase said, having better communication, especially if-- like Jase, he doesn't necessarily like to look at people when they're telling him something because he's trying to listen to them.
That's just like an idiosyncratic thing that he does. It's important to keep that in mind and have empathy, which is something that we're going to be talking about in our bonus episode. Not just empathy like being an empathic person, but also an acronym, which is a tool to enhance non-verbal communication between clinicians and their patients. We're going to talk about that in the bonus episode.