Nonverbal Communication
Holly Burwinkle
Chris Hodge
Whitney Wardlaw
Nonverbal Communication
Introduction
 “What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Our topic is Nonverbal Communication, and we are going to tell you just how important nonverbal
communication is everyday in your life and how sometimes people don’t realize that they are showing
emotions or feeling though their nonverbal actions that, if they knew the message they actually were
sending, they might think twice before they chose to act a certain way.
 Background Information
 According to an article published by the International Communication Association, nonverbal
communication is described as behavior that is expressed physically through actions that
creates or represents meaning (Sheehan, 2003).
 So basically anything that we do while we are in the presence of another individual is a type of
nonverbal communication.
 This includes facial expressions, body movements and gestures and how we interact physically
with other people.
 Because so much of how we communicate to others is through our nonverbal actions, it’s
really important to make sure that we are expressing emotions that we want to others to
perceive and not what we would want to keep to ourselves.
 This is what leads to some of the problems of interpretation in our culture today.
 According to an article published in Nonverbal Behavior in 2006, research showed that when
people were asked to recall or identify their own emotions from their nonverbal behavior they
often reported an emotion other that what they actually expressed (Hall, 2006).
 In other words, a lot of the time we express certain emotions or feelings, almost on accident,
that we don’t really mean to express or we are trying to hide, or at least don’t express verbally.
 Because nonverbal communication is so important to us everyday, we are going to talk about the three
main types of this communication that we tend to use, which are facial expression, body movement
and proxemics.
I. Facial Expression
1. Characteristics of 6 universal facial expressions – found in Perspectives on the Face by M.
Michael Cohen Jr. (Cohen, 2006).
i. Happiness (photo)
1. corners of lips are retracted sideways and upwards
2. lower jaw may drop open, exposing teeth
3. eyes may be squinted
4. raised cheeks
5. dimples
ii. Disgust (photo)
1. lowered eyebrows
2. wrinkled nose
3. raised upper lip
4. raised chin
5. corners of mouth point downward
iii. Surprise
Nonverbal Communication
Holly Burwinkle
Chris Hodge
Whitney Wardlaw
iv. Fear
v. Anger
vi. Sadness
2. Eyes
ii. Eye contact
1. Strong emotional connection through eye contact
1. During conversation, eye contact usually lasts 3 seconds before someone glances away.
2. Silent speed dating (gazing parties) SOURCE: New York Times article “Eyes Only For Each
Other, At Least For the Next Three Minutes” by Richard Morgan, published Sunday,
December 11, 2005
i. Couples stare into each others’ eyes for 2-3 minutes without talking
ii. Very popular in NY; becoming international trend
2. Eye movement
a. Pride and Prejudice clip (transition between Facial
Expression and Body Movement)
i. Triangle approach: eye- mouth- eye
ii. What do their eye movements tell you about the
situation?
i. What do their body movements tell you about the situation?
II. Body Movement
Now we’re going to tell you a little about how much body movement impacts nonverbal
communication, and how others perceive you because of your body movement.
1. Albert Mehrabian said, quoted in an article from IEEE Transactions on Professional
Communication, that “Emotional impact depends 7% on what is said, 38% on how it is said
and 55% on body language” (Decker, 1984).
2. There have also been other estimates of how much our emotions are reflected in our body
movement or body language, but all are relatively close to Mehrabian’s estimate.
3. This goes to show that the way we represent emotions or feelings through our movement or
gestures may be conveying the message clearer or at least more intense than the actual words
we are saying.
4. We have a video clip to show you to better explain the impact of body movement. And the
first time around we are going to play it without the words so you can just pay attention to the
nonverbal communication between these two people.
i. U-Tube clip (silent)
1. What do you think of the overall impact?
ii. U-Tube clip (vocals)
1. Do you agree with the 7/38/55 rule?
5. One other important thing to keep in mind when thinking about body language or movement is
the fact that there are cultural differences in the meanings of certain gestures or movements.
6. According to the book “Gestures: The DO’s and TABOOs of Body Language Around the
World” by Roger Axtell, the importance of cultural differences in gestures is often overlooked
and can lead to misunderstanding and possible accidental, insulting or offensive
communication between different cultures (Axtell, 1991). For example:
i. Beckon with index finger.
1. If you are in the U.S. – This means “Come here”
Nonverbal Communication
Holly Burwinkle
Chris Hodge
Whitney Wardlaw
2. But if you are in Yugoslavia or Malaysia this is more of an insulting gesture,
because it is only used for calling animals. And if you are in Indonesia or
Australia it would be seen as being obscene, since they only use that gesture for
prostitutes.
ii. Form a circle with fingers
1. If you are in the U.S. – This means “O.K.”
2. If you are in Japan – This means “money”.
3. If you are in France – This means “zero” or “worthless” This would be really
bad if you were at a restaurant and your waiter asked how your meal was.
4. And more interesting for this symbol, President Nixon once used this symbol
and made the mistake of insulting all of Latin America. He was on a tour to
promote peace between North and Latin America. Since there was a little
hostility between the two countries before he went, he made this much worse
when he stepped off the plane and flashed this symbol to the waiting crowd and
news teams, that to them meant “screw you”.
iii. And one more that isn’t obscene or insulting, but than can cause a lot of confusion is
when you nod your head up and down.
1. If you are in the U.S. – This means “Yes”
2. If you are in Bulgaria and Greece – This means “No.”
7. So just keep in mind what you are expressing when you make certain gestures not only
because you may be expressing more of your own feelings that you might like to, but also
because you may be sending the wrong and sometimes offensive or insulting message by
mistake.
III.
Proxemics
1. In Edward Hall’s book The Hidden Dimension he coins the term proxemics, “the study of
man’s perception and use of space” (Hall, 1966)
2. Interpersonal Distance
i. “Bubble” as defined in The new handbook of Methods in Nonverbal Behavior
Research – (Harrigan, 2005)
1. Intimate— 6-18 inches
2. Personal— 1.5- 4 feet
3. Social— 4-12 feet
4. Public— 12+ feet
ii. Unique meeting distance- where do you stop?
iii. What about differences in cultures?
1. Smiling may be confused with laughing at someone.
2. Different amounts of eye contact
iv. How do you feel when someone invades your space?
3. Territory
i. Why do you return to the same seat in class?
ii. How you feel when you find someone in your room/office?
iii. How is your living room arranged?
4. Angle of Orientation
i. Face to face - competition
Nonverbal Communication
Holly Burwinkle
Chris Hodge
Whitney Wardlaw
ii. Right angles – cooperation
iii. Role and status affects angles
5. Male vs. Female
i. Amount of space?
ii. Who is more likely to invade another person’s space?
Conclusion
 Understanding facial expression, body movement and proxemics can help you understand what
people are really expressing.
 Remember what Emerson said, “What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.”
 We all use nonverbals, but next time think a little deeper about what you are really “saying”?
REFERENCES
Axtell, R. E. (1991) Gestures: the DO's and TABOO's of Body Language Around the World. New
York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Cohen Jr., M. Michael. (2006). Perspectives on the Face. New York, NY; Oxford University Press.
Decker, B. (1984) A Good Speech is Worth a Thousand (Written) Words. IEEE Transactions on
Professional Communications 27 (1), 32-34. Retrieved on April 2, 2007 from Google Scholar
database.
Hall, Edward T. (1966). The Hidden Dimension. Garden City, NY; Doubleday.
Hall, J. A., Murphy, N. A., & Mast, M. S. (2006) Recall of Nonverbal Cues: Exploring a New
Definition of Interpersonal Sensitivity. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 30 (4), 141-155. Retrieved on
March 20, 2007 from Communication & Mass Media Complete database.
Harrigan, Jinni A. et al. (2005). The New Handbook of Methods in Nonverbal Behavior Research.
New York, NY; Oxford University Press.
Morgan, Richard. (2005, December 11). “Eyes Only For Each Other, At Least For the
Next Three Minutes.” New York Times.
Sheehan, M., & Buck, R. (2003) More Than Words: Rational and Experiential Thinking Modes and
Nonverbal Communication Accuracy. International Communication Association (annual meeting)
(1), 1-27. Retrieved on March 20, 2007 from Communication & Mass Media Complete database.