Body Language Tutorial. Part 2 of 7 - What Body Language Really Tells Us.

There is quite a bit of controversy wrapped around body language... Lie detection, mind reading, fortune telling... you name it; I have heard or read it. But what can we believe? Where do myth and fact part ways to help you learn a skill that is indeed viable for providing accurate information? Let's chat a bit more about what body language really does tell you and why it is so darn telling...

To be accurate, body language will not and can not tell you the “truth” per se. It can tell you that there is incongruence between someone’s language and their actual mental state. It can give you very telling clues about someone's internal mental state, but it cannot tell you what exactly they are thinking. So basically it is a tipping point for you, but not a tell-all.

With body language, although people have their own unique idiosyncrasies… Cross culturally we are all fundamentally about the same. Developmental processes and cultural influence can change the fringes of what certain mental states LOOK like, but they will all come from the same core presentation.

Think of it in this way… there are foundational characteristics that are the same across the board at a “coarse” or broad level. For instance, anger looks the same with almost all people. Furled brow, clenched fist, parsed lips, reddening of the skin, etc… Some people may become a bit redder though or may furl their brow a bit more. But fundamentally, it will look the same. We come with a built-in system of detection that automatically senses and responds to these reactionary displays.

When these displays are "reactions" (as opposed to proactive, calculated actions) which they almost always are, they happen out of conscious awareness and as a result are not tainted by our future-evaluating, strategically directionalizing prefrontal cortex. The result of this strategic directionalization can be the use of language and deliberate body control to achieve what ever goal is held at the time. It is the conscious “controlling” of things that veers away from subconscious, reactionary displays and will result in tiny "display fractures" creating an unnatural delivery of messages. These fractures could be anything from a quiver in the voice, to darting eyes, to redirection of the feet.

These messages are picked up by our subconscious and can conflict with our conscious minds. It is this incongruence between what “should” be happening (conscious) and what actually “is” happening (subconscious) that is registered as “lying” or deceit in the mind of the recipient.

So what you will find is that although someone may TELL you they are mad, you may get a “gut” feeling that they are not because of the incongruence. You won’t know, specifically, that they are really not that mad but just trying to kid you because you joshed them last week. But, you will know that “something is up…”

So why is body language so reliable in portraying someone’s mental state?  The short answer is that it is one of the oldest and most hardwired social mechanisms that human being possess. For hundreds of thousands of years, the human race communicated solely through body language. Anger, satisfaction, pride, lust, fear…. All communicated through body language. You and I have mechanisms in our brain that have been passed through thousands of generations that automatically communicate through body language.

Body language can be compared to the act of breathing… Although you can control it with volition, if you are not actively controlling it, it will indeed act on it’s own in a natural and predictable way. Certain people will have certain breathing rhythms and rates… but they will all breathe in and out… Body language works the same way.

The end product from our evolutionary history is a subconscious, VERY accurate reflection of the cocktail of hormones and chemicals and mental states that are swirling around inside of each one of us at any given time. This makes body language an extremely accurate and difficult to replicate mode of communication. Tomorrow we will talk further about the specific of incongruence and our subconscious mind.

Please visit my website The Communication Expert to learn more about body language and other forms of effective communication.

The Communication Expert | David J. Parnell