Non-verbal Communication: What you need to know
Communications scholars and other scientists have long been aware of the important role of non-verbal communication. The tiny facial tics, the way we carry ourselves, how we may make eye contact with one person and avoid it with another. Some suggest that less than 10% of our communication is actually transmitted through our carefully or not so carefully selected spoken words.
This means that our non-verbal communication is hugely important.
The good news is that much of it is possible to change. To really look at how to do that better, we need to understand a few basic things.
Values and Norms
Every one of us is seeing the world around us through a particular lens. While this worldview is our own in that probably nobody else will grow up in the exact same circumstances as us, it is still based in those circumstances. The worldview that we adopt is built out of the time in history and geographic location that we're living in. The way that we will choose to interact with the world around us will be mostly based on these ideas we've adopted. In that way, those ideas are handed down to us. Those are values. Social prescriptions determined by the circumstances that we're born into. Norms are acceptable behaviours based on values.
Yes, this has everything to do with how we communicate.
Culture
Culture is a term used to describe how any group of people explains the world around them and how to interact with it. Culture guides values and norms, it is the system of beliefs that cultivates and supports them. It includes how we behave, the language(s) we are expected to speak, the shared or common meaning of gestures and words in the language. It's often shaped by the complicated histories of the region where the culture dominates.
In terms of communication, we learn culturally what to expect from the people and the world around us. When these expectations are not met by us or by others around us, people tend to be upset because it seems to attack their worldview. The culture we've adopted helps to define a certain perspective and provide some guidelines about how to behave and communicate to build social bonds.
Of course these things vary from family to family, neighbourhood, town, etc.. but generally there's a dominant strain of culture that defines certain expectations and unwritten rules that the majority of people adhere to when out in the public interacting with others. The difference is in the level of immediacy of the communication. We learn about culture through a process of socialization.
Socialization
This is where it all ties together. Socialization teaches us how to use and interpret words and non verbal communication. This is where we start to run into problems.Our culture attaches some generally agreed upon meaning to a word. A symbol and a sound. We learn these meanings in a certain time and place and attach our own personal understanding to them based on our worldview, our values and experiences. We then use these words to communicate our understanding of them. To put the idea out there that we want to convey. We need these words, we depend on these words.
The problem is that words sometimes have many different formal meanings, and unique personal meanings to individuals. It's not uncommon for people to choose meanings other than what you meant. In fact, it happens all the time.
You can probably think of times where you've been saying something that you thought was common knowledge, while your recipient looked confused or responded differently than you expected. Only to ask you a moment later what you meant by the words you chose. Think of the times in your life when you've been talking to a specialist in some field who has loaded their interaction with you up with jargon and forced you to make due with educated guesses based on their tone of voice and body language.
There is always much more being communicated than just words.
Non-Verbal Communication
When we aren't sure about what words mean, we look to the non verbal indicators to understand what the communicator is trying to say. Perceived meaning is based more on how something is said and how the messenger looks. The look on their face and tone of voice.
Basically, when we're not totally understanding what someone is saying, we use their non verbal indicators to fill in the blanks or make assumptions about what they're communicating.
For example, you're on vacation and aren't fluent in the use of the regional language. A local approaches you smiling and trying to tell you something. You're able to make out some of the basic words but aren't entirely sure what they said and so aren't sure how to respond. You apologize for your lack of understanding but leave the interaction feeling good because judging from their tone of voice, the look on their face, and their laid back body language you pieced together that they were just trying to tell you a joke as a friendly gesture. Getting back to your hotel you look up some of the words you picked up that weren't sure about and sure enough, they were telling you a joke that was actually pretty funny and unfortunately wasted on you.
Non verbal indicators are going on all of the time and informing our understanding of every interaction we have. In this way, non-verbal indicators can reinforce or contradict verbal messages, sometimes negating what is actually being said (think shaking your head no while saying yes or curtly responding that your day was fine when asked "how are you?").
This is important to think about because it has a lot to do with building and changing our relationships. Most of the time, the non-verbal signals we're sending off during communication are unintentional, happening at a subconscious level. They're critical parts of our communication that we rarely think about or have much awareness of.
If we think about using non-verbal indicators more consciously and deliberately, we can use them to our advantage. We can start to identify and remedy behaviors that aren't helping us communicate the way we want.
Touch is a good example of a non-verbal signal. Touch can be a very powerful communicator. In Canada, we tend to be a generally low expressive culture. In many circles, touch is limited to handshakes and maybe a hug here and there. Although touch is often limited in it's use, it is still expected in many circumstances. To not shake hands coming into a job interview or meeting with a potential client would seem strange, even off putting to most, while a gentle hand on the shoulder or back can indicate closeness and warmth to a friend you're discussing something sensitive with. It seems to say "I'm here for you". A hug may say "I'm happy to see you" or "It was great to see you" with no verbal communication at all.
Like most communication, successfully doing this requires an understanding of the dynamic of your relationship with the person you're trying to communicate with. This basically means an ongoing assessment of their non verbal cues toward you and cross referencing that with your historical knowledge of who they are and how they like to communicate and are comfortable with. Then filtering that through your own personal boundaries, identity, and understanding of how to communicate and coming up with how to interact with them. Then fitting all of that into whatever social context you're in. For some of us, this comes pretty naturally and our brains do all of this for us in a split second. For others, it may take some practice, but it'll be worth it and you and all of your relationships will benefit.
Here's a quick summary of a few things to be cognizant of when taking part in non-verbal communication (all the time). Non-verbal communication:
1. Affects verbal communication
- Can replace a verbal message
- Can reinforce a verbal message
- Can contradict a verbal message
2. Shapes the relationship we're building with another person
- How we look at someone - gaze
- The distance between you
- The use of touch
- When and how our voice rises and falls
3. Directly communicates our emotions before and during verbal messages
- The look on our face (happy, sad, scared, angry, surprised, disgusted)
- The sound of our voice
That's it for this very basic article. Be sure to share this with your socially awkward friends/enemies, the people who stand way too close to you, and your one friend who is always making uncomfortable advances to strangers with complete lack of self-awareness! Stay tuned for more.
