Actions often speak louder than words. In fact, they often precede your words
as you walk into a room to meet someone. Therefore your actions are the signals
you give others from which they judge you in that first seven to twenty seconds
that Americans now take to make a first impression of others.
To establish a first impression of comfort and credibility, remember these
three words: lower, slower and less. When you first meet someone talk and move
less, with lower and slower and fewer gesture and voice rate and level. You
don’t have to look comatose, just not speedy. This serves two purposes.
First, people subconsciously associate self-confidence and empathy with this
body style, although it has no proveable relationship to those human qualities.
Second, humans, like all other animals, need to feel comfortable in a new situation
before they can literally hear other people and begin to form positive feelings
towards them.
The most reliable way to feel more comfortable is to get “in sync”
with others. Getting in sync is a two-step dance. First, by minimizing your
movements and voice in the beginning, others have less “data” to process
so they can get comfortable with you more quickly. Then, second: bring out the
part of you which is most like the person you are with, literally in how you
look and sound to them. Why? Because people are most comfortable with and favorably
disposed towards people who look right, like them. While you can’t make
many changes of the four main ways we are either similar or different (age,
sex, ethnicity and size) you can become more like them. Children do this instinctively.
As adults we have lost the instinct to get into sync with others, except in
the thrall of early romantic love.
Your every move is telling the world what you expect from it.
In fact, as adults, we tend to act more differently as we are around people
unlike us, thus accentuating our differences and further increasing the sense
of discomfort, distrust and potential for conflict.
How can you become more like someone else? By making your voice rate, volume
and volubility and your amount and kind of gestures and other body movements
approximate theirs. Before they can feel comfortable
Curious about how to read others better? Conversely, would you like some insights
on how to cover your feelings when you want to keep them private from others
who are around you?
Here’s a place to begin. While the expression on your face may reveal
how you fee, your body language will indicate the intensity of that feeling.
We literally leak --to use the scientific term -- our feelings. In fact there
is a system called the Efforte-Shape system for recording body movement for
study that is derived from dance choreography notation. It offers a way to attempt
to understand what sequences of gesture have what meaning in what cultures.
Some gestures are nearly universal in meaning. For example, watch men in the
company of other men they do not like. Their posture will become more strained,
tense and often rigid. On the other hand, women tend to assume an overrelaxed
position with people they dislike.
Body Signs and Their Possible Meaning
Follow this guie to observe physical changes in someone else and discern their
possible emotional meaning. Remember, these indicates are not true for everyone.
sweats:
may indicate an increase in some emotional feeling
blinks more:
may indicate an increase in some emotional feeling
dilated pupils:
often indicates arousal or fear
blushes:
may signal embarrassment, shme, anger or guilt
talks louder and faster:
usually signals anger, fear or otehr excitement
talks slower and softer:
may signal sadness or boredom
raises body gestures:
signals a negative emotion, usually fear or anger
breathes fast and shallow:
indicates the presence of emotion
Are You Out on a Limb?
Gestures are emblems of feelings. Using too many gestures usually takes away
from the potency of yoru presence, just as talking high, fast, loud and/or alot
dimininshes your power and credibility.
Most people cannot help “leaking” their feelings. Fortunately few
of us are attuned to noticing the often subtle signals that indicate strong
emotion in others. Or we misread the signals.