The science of understanding people without speaking to them.

In this day and age, when we have too much speculated and often deceptive information about people, how do we understand people? Is there any way, we can know people beyond the words they speak? There is a simple way to study people and know more beyond the spoken interaction: Non-verbal Communication.

Non-verbal communication, as the name suggests, does not involve spoken language content and involves unspoken language of eye contact, facial expressions and body language.

The 5 Basic Mediums of Non-verbal Communication

• Facial Expressions
• Eye Contact
• Body Language
• Touch
• Scent

Let us understand them one by one

1. Facial Expressions: Mental Health Professionals agree that there are 7 basic emotions which are conveyed by facial expressions. They are: surprise, disgust, contempt, happiness, sadness, fear and anger. Since emotions are depended on situations, their combinations and intensity varies. Some of the examples to understand the expressions are as follows.

• Raised eyebrows: Surprise
• Wrinkled Nose: Disgust
• One side of lip pulled together : Contempt
• Wrinkles around the eyes while smiling: Happiness
• Lip corners pulled down: Sadness
• Eyebrows pulled together which wrinkle the head: Fear
• Lips pressed tightly together: Anger

These are some of the basic and expressions of emotions to understand. But when we have an emotion there is not just part of face that works. For example when we are sad, not only lip corners are pulled down but also our eyes droop and loses focus. In some cases, our lips also tremble if we are on verge of tears. It has also been seen that women use more facial expressions than men.

Scientists have discovered 21 facial expressions. This refers to the combination of expressions previously mentioned. Some of the examples are: Sadly Surprised, Fearfully Surprised, happily disgusted, etc. For further reading, you may refer this interesting article: 21 facial expressions

2. Eye Contact: The eye contact is basically made up of gazes and stares. The eye contact and eyebrows go hand in hand. Examples: eyes wide open along with eyebrows pulled up together means surprise, an intense stare means the person is angry. A basic understanding is necessary that eye contact has to be understood with a context of culture and personality. A person may avoid eye contact due to shyness. But it is also a great possibility that a person may be coming from a culture where lowering your eyes in front of another is a form of respect.

3. Body Language: Body language comprises of gestures, movements and postures. One of the simplest ways to understand whether a person wants us in their space is whether the person has open or close body language. The closer their hands and legs to them, the less open they are. For example, hands crossed the chest means the person does not wish to talk to you. It is also seen that women generally have a closer body language than men irrespective of their environment.

Another aspect is mirroring the body language. Studies show that the more we like a person, the more we unconsciously imitate their gestures and movements. So if a person has their head rested on his palm while speaking, mirroring their person can make the person feel you are similar to him. Thus, the person will feel familiarity around you and end up liking you.

            It is now understood by mental health professionals that appropriate understanding and usage of body language can lead to higher success rate at personal and professional life.

4. Touch: If there is one thing that humans are extremely alert about, it is touch. Touch is something in which one person understands what exactly another person feels about him or her. For example:  A high-five means congratulations, a handshake means a professional communication done and a push means the person has an extreme dislike towards you and wants to get you out of his space.

A very important reason why touch creates wary is due to gender and culture. Some cultures forbid even friendly touches between male and females. It has been seen in studies also that men use handshakes, shoulder and back taps when they meet someone while women prefer lightly touching a person’s arm and a hug. This also varies from person to person and culture to culture.

5. Scent: In western society, smell or olfactory senses have largely been dismissed and not been a part of non-verbal communication. In fact, there has been very little research as compared to above non-verbal cues. But t has been seen that scent has been an important part of human communication. This is the reason, perfumes and other such products are used which make an individual smell good and create a favorable impression on the others.

In a research one group was told to watch a happy film and another group to watch a fearful film. Later their clothes were taken which they had while watching it. Another group uninformed of their background was asked to identify the emotions and they were able to identify it correctly (Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, D Chen, J Haviland-Jones).

Some of the other usage of scent is to understand whether a person has any disease which could infect us and warn us to stay away from them. It has also been understood that male and female correctly distinguish natural odors of their own and the other genders.

Thumbanil Image Courtesy: Krakenimages / Unsplash

The post ends here. In the next post , I will elaborate on how to use non-verbal cues to detect deception.