Effective Communication Tips

The Importance Of Body Language

Did you know that a person cannot NOT communicate. Though he or she may decide to stop talking, it is impossible for
her to stop behaving. The behavior of a person - their facial expressions, posture, gestures, and other actions - provide
an uninterrupted stream of information and a constant source of clues to the feelings they are experiencing. The reading
of body language, therefore, is one of the most significant skills of good listening.

Only a small portion of the understanding one gains in face-to-face interaction comes from words. One prominent
authority claims that a mere 35 percent of the meaning of communication derives from words; the remainder comes from
body language. Researcher Albert Mehrabian stated in a widely quoted article that in situations he examined, only 7
percent of the impact was verbal - the remaining 93 percent was nonverbal. You may question the specific percentages
arrived at by these researchers, but few people dispute the general direction of their findings - that body language is a
very important medium of communication. You easily put everything into this statement: No words are so clear as the
language of body expression once one has learned to read it.

Nonverbal communication was the only language used throughout most of humanity's existence. For many, many
centuries there was absolutely no oral or written language. Therefore, body language was the sole means of
communication. When language finally developed, people commonly allowed themselves to be distracted from body
communication. Some, however, continued to focus on nonverbal cues. An ancient Chinese proverb warns, "Watch out
for the man whose stomach doesn't move when he laughs." In the eighth century B.C., the prophet Isaiah commented,
"The show of their countenance doth witness against them."

While body language has been a source of interpersonal understanding from the very beginning of the human race, only
in the past few decades have behavioral scientists started making systematic observations of nonverbal meanings. They
have developed intricate notational systems, filmed people interacting for slow-motion frame-by-frame analysis, and
conducted thousands of other experiments. The scientific study of body language is still in its infancy, and though
conclusions are somewhat speculative, major contributions have already been made to our understanding of human
interaction. When we add this research of modern scientists to the observations of sensitive people throughout history,
we have a significant means of understanding others through reading body language.

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