Body Language

Did you know that 65-95% of all effective communication is nonverbal? Well, thats what Dr. Jackie Ranken has discovered in her studies. Check out her site, she looks like a funny little lady.

So if nonverbal communication is so influencial in our daily lives what are we telling others through our body language? Kevin Hogan, Psy.D. lays out for us some of the obvious and not so obvious communication mediums that we engage in.

1. Dress - in large part determines how much people will trust and like us.
In a study Dr. Hogan did when he was a sophomore in College, much like many of us are, he did a qualitative study on how jewlery retailers responded to someone who was wearing jean jackets and jeans as appose to someone wearing suit coats. They found that they got waited on three times as quickly, and saw jewlery that was almost five times as expensive. That would be a really fun study to do!

2. Vocal Cue - although this isnt so much body langauge, its really interesting. "It is best to gain rapport by matching the same rate and tone of voice that your fellow communicator is using. It is not necessary to mimic the other person, simply alter your speech patterns in the direction of the other person."

3.Posture and Physiology - "pacing" and "leading" is a form or what I think is observing and manipulating the situation in your favor. read about it, its really interesting.

4. Breathing - "You can pace the person’s breathing pattern as a powerful mode to build rapport." Take notice in the next few days to see how people breathe, I never realized its communication, so I'm going to take notice.

So, basically, Dr. Hogan says "You must often be more like others than yourself if your goal is to engage people in deep and intimate relationships." Which I think is worth taking a moment and thinking about.

Body language plays a BIG part in communication in the court room. I look forward to researching it in the future. I wonder what the process of being a jury consultant entails. That would be a great internship for the near future.

There are some really good RQ topics out there -The Pop Culture Page has a really good research question regarding distorted body image for woman from ads. That is a form on non-verbal communication.

NC is gonna win it all.

Julie Motheral
Quality Post #7