Nonverbal Communication

Nonverbal communication is “messages expressed by nonlinguistic means.” It is the universal language the way I see it. Not everyone speaks the same language but most people can learn some, if not all of the different types of nonverbal communication. To fully and truly understand how someone might be feeling or thinking, it is important to know how to read the signs. It is beneficial in everyday life. Understanding nonverbal communication will only help improve the relationships you are currently apart of and the future ones that will come about. I will be talking about what I perceive to be the three most important types of nonverbal communication, those being face and eyes, body movement, and touch.

Having the ability to read someone by just studying their face and eyes might be the most crucial to know of the three. It is also the most noticeable. “Researchers have found that there are at least eight distinguishable positions of the eyebrows and forehead, eight more of the eyes and lids, and ten for the loser face.” Multiplying all the different variations of emotions that we experience, it makes it almost remotely impossible to identify someone’s emotion at that exact moment. The most plausible approach is to try to look closely and understand on some level what that person might be thinking or feeling. For example, just last night I was at a co-worker’s house having dinner and a subject got brought up about a pregnant co-worker, Kendra. Now this is going to sound bad but I had said to her mom how huge her head was compared to her first born baby. My friend Katie got bug eyed and pulled back when I had said that as to signify that her mom was going to be offended by me saying that due to the fact that she is highly religious and the whole “thou shalt not judge” aspect of it all. So I stopped myself and said that I was just kidding and I did not really mean that and proceeded to change the subject. After dinner, I had pulled Katie aside to ask her about the look she gave me and I was right. Her mother did not care nor want to hear about how I thought Kendra had a huge head which makes sense. I find it fun to read people’s expressions now and then ask them about what they were thinking when they made it. I have to say that it has helped me tremendously already to understand my friends and family better. Then there is the face that almost everyone can relate to and that is the mother “death stare.” Nothing has to be said, you just know you did something wrong or are about to get scorned for doing something that is frowned upon. It’s the look that has mouth closed, beady eyes, and maybe a flushed face. My favorite though is the deer in the headlights look where someone just has no clue is being said or going on. That is just the blank look with the eyes partly bug eyed and maybe the mouth just a little open. You give that look and people know you are clueless.

The next one that comes in very handy in the dating world would be body movement. It is communicating nonverbally through the physical movement of our bodies: our posture, gestures, physical orientation to others, and so on. “Social scientists use the term kinesics to describe the study of how people communicate through bodily movements.” Body movement is the oldest form of communication on the earth. Before speech was developed, the primitive man could only use his body to communicate with his or hers surrounding society.