One section I found particularly interesting was from the emotion and motivation chapter. Posture is largely unconscious but can tell us a lot about one's emotional states. People slumped over or slouching can convey sadness while an upright posture can convey excitement or happiness. After reading this section, sometimes I look around the classroom and look at others postures and can judge their emotional state by how they are sitting. There are also many other unconscious behaviors such as hand gestures. People tend to point or move their hands fast when they are trying to highlight speech, and people tend to engage in manipulators such as when one body part makes contact repeatedly with another body part. I've noticed that when I'm studying i tend to bite my lip or twirl my hair. A lot can be told from baby language and gestures but you have to be careful not to make official conclusions based on these unconscious actions because many other variables can come into play.
Body Language
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I find it interesting to compare the rate of using hand gestures between people that I know - some people gesticulate much more than some of my other friends regardless of how excited or serious they are when they are talking.
I agree! Body language is cool stuff. You do not notice how much you pay attention to it until you learn more. I found myself analyzing my friends and teachers body language for a week trying to pick up new things. Language is not just words.
The TV show "Lie To Me" is based off of reading body and facial language, of course being a TV show they take it to the extreme but they do demonstrate this concept very well. In the show they see if people are lying based on how they react in terms of their body in response to questions or situations. Reading body language can't always be consistant and therefore it can't always be reliable but it most certainly can tell you a lot about what is on a persons mind if they aren't paying attention to posture or expressionisms with their hands!
I think you have a great point with your post. I have heard that as much as 70% of communication is nonverbal. Body language like hand gestures and facial expressions can convey a lot of information. I also generally think it is more important how you say something that what you say. Imagine if everyone spoke in a monotone voice! The inflection we add to our voices and conversations is part of what makes it interesting to talk with people.
Agree. Since I like to do observations, that Chapter is one of my favorite. It's really amazing that you can read people only by their behaviors.
I really find this interesting and relevant to our every day lives. I mean think about it, how many people have we had a conversation with in our life time without ever actually talking to them. I personally am not a person that confrontation and I am definitely not afraid make eye contact with a random person. Walking across the bridge daily, I think I probably have about a dozen body language conversations. Interesting, glad to see someone else is as intrigued as I am!
Body language and posture are definitely something I notice more now. Especially with myself, I unconsciously use gestures and what not all the time. I see body language used all the time during the day here at the U.
I also found the body language section very interesting. It can be very important to be able to understand why someone is doing a certain motion or in a certain position. If you can learn to read peoples emotions it can greatly help you. If you know how someone is feeling you can approach them in different ways.
I also think that the body language is such a interesting action to show own feelings. I sometimes watch random people and guess what they were feeling. Since English is my second language, the body languages and expressions helped me a lot to communicate with others in the US.
The amount of tiny symbols and indicators of moods is so surprising. another indicator of mood is supposedly pupils and whether they're dilated or not. I think this type of thing I'll continue to remember 5 years on because it's about basic human nature and behaviors.