The Body Language Expert & Motivational Speaker

The other day I talked about the magic of online dating. But the space and anonymity of online dating can be dangerous. It may give license to fib or falsify every thing from their online photo to their profile and current marriage status. It may also free them to be less inhibited and do other things that you normally would not do with the sections and politeness required in face to face interactions. Email and texting are fast and people who use those medians a lot or have been using it to date for any extensive time are use to the speed and the immediate gratification, a friend in my discussion group has been online dating for seven years. He is a tall attractive intelligent guy who owns his own business. I am sure women see him a great catch.  We have watched him go through many two and three week relationships. He calls them his fly high crash and burn relationships. He really does think that the next one will work, but he says matter of factly that there are so many women out there that it is a numbers game you just have to get through them.  

When you are use to that world you may be pushy or overly forward. The reporter who interviewed me said she was dating someone online who was a relationship expert. He started to send her lists of very personal questions. She said she felt interviewed and told him that these are things that would be revolved overtimes naturally and romantically as the relationship progressed. He never emailed her again. And He was a relationship expert. She said that many people online have their list and keep dating thinking they can find that magic person that fits their list. I agreed that there is a problem with list making. I threw away my rather long list a long time ago and started working on me. Perhaps list makers think the problems in their past relationships were the other person, they just did have the perfect person and they never stop to consider they may need to improve the person that was in all the failed relationships, themselves.

They my be  pushy or overly forward in their communication as the relationship moves forward and those late online chats can be intoxicating if you think you have met your soul mate. And yes people are having entire relationships on the intenet or texting. They are even breaking up via email! So be careful out there.

Women and men learn to communicate in particular ways because those ways are associated with their gender and nurtured and rewarded. Zoologists, biologists and anthropologists say that unlike certain animal species, in which the males and females are easily distinguished we look pretty much alike.  The first question a stranger will ask someone holding a baby is, “Is it a boy or a girl?”AND LADIES, WE GET INSULTED THAT THEY CAN’T TELL DON’T WE.  So we learn behaviors in childhood that help us be identified as masculine or feminine. What we learn may be different in Auburn, Alabama than in Bangkok, Thailand. AND, what you learn growing up may not fit the cultural needs or gender roles of today. What has your cultural heritage taught you about gender differences?

How much of the meaning of a message is communicated nonverbally? I know you have heard statistics in a presentation or read it in a book or online. The invalid statistic that has been promoted by many speakers and trainers states that 55% of the meaning of communication is body language, 38% is in tonality, and 7% rests in the words themselves. Yep I said INVALID.

Albert Mehrabian PHD, of the University of California,  Los Angles (UCLA), is credited as the originator of the 55%, 38%, 7% Rule. He and his colleagues conducted two studies on communication patterns and published the studies in professional journals in 1967.

Mehrabian later discussed the results of the studies in two books in the early 1970s. The results of the studies were widely circulated in the press, in abbreviated form, leading to a misunderstanding of the original research and inaccurate generalizations of the conclusions. They were even misquoted in the textbooks I had in grad school and the one I used when I taught body language for four years at Florida State University.

Below, an article about the research conducted by Albert Mehrabian.

Non-Verbal Communication

A Linear Model for the Inference of Attitudes from Multichannel Communications

Mehrabian and Wiener (1967) and M and Ferris (1967) investigated the combined effects of consistent or inconsistent verbal-vocal communications and consistent and inconsistent facial-vocal communications of attitude respectively. Both studies involved nine sets of communication stimuli.

In the M W study, verbal-vocal communications were prepared so that three degrees of positive verbal content were associated with three degrees of vocally expressed attitude. Having been judged for amount of liking conveyed, the words honey, thanks and dear were selected as instances of positive contents ( the judgments of these words had comparable mean values and standard deviations ). Similarly, the words maybe, really and oh were selected as comparable instances of neutral contents; and the words don’t, brute and terrible were selected as comparable instances of negative contents.

Two female speakers were employed to read each of the nine selected words in positive, neutral and negative vocal expressions. For these three conditions, respectively, the speakers spoke the words, regardless of content to convey, liking, high evaluation, or preference; a neutral attitude, that is, neither liking nor disliking; and an attitude of dislike, low evaluation, or lack of preference towards the target person. All possible combinations of two speaker conditions, three vocal conditions, three content conditions, and three instances of each content condition were recorded on tape.

To obtain the independent effects of the vocal and content components of these recordings, and to relate these to the effects of the total vocal content messages, Mehrabian and Wiener (1967) had three different groups of subjects listen to these recorded messages. One group was asked to judge the degree of liking conveyed by each message, relying only on the meanings of the words used and not on the vocal expression. The second group was asked to judge the degree of liking relying only on the vocal component and not on the meanings of the words used. Finally, the third group formed their judgments of liking on the basis of all the information combined in each message.

The results of the study showed that the vocal component in the various messages primarily determined the subjects’ judgments of affect from the total messages (content and vocal components combined), and that the content component of inconsistent messages had a negligible contribution to the affect inferred from such statements.

As you will realize now, the rule of 55%, 38%, 7% is not correct and only applicable in situations where messages are incongruent.

Mehrabian actually stated (Anchor Point, 1994) that he never intended his results to be applied to normal conversation (and assumedly not to public speaking either). He only wanted to help his readers resolve incongruent messages regarding liking and disliking. Thus, his research has useful, yet limited applications, which have been blown out of proportion.

This week I was interviewed as a body language expert about the effect of the lack of nonverbal communication on online dating relationships. The interviewer was excited that I had dated online so I could tell her my first hand experience as well as my professional opinion…

One of the best things is also one of the worst things about the internet. That is the barrier it creates between the two people as they begin the flirting and dating process. The barrier creates both anonymity and physical space between them that is not in any way a natural way to meet and interact with a potential partner.

It allows the online daters to do and say things they would not normally do face to face. Sometimes that can be a great thing. Someone who is normally rather shy can be more courageous and reveal themselves more easily and actually “approach” someone they would not normally feel comfortable asking out or dating. Two people can email each other sweet self disclosing emails saying things that they wouldn’t feel comfortable saying face to face, but still be communicating from their hearts. The space allows hearts to flutter open and tenderness to come out. That can be magical. You may be able to find a love you have waited for. For centuries lovers wrote letters to one another that created some of most beautiful poetry. Online dating can be filled with poetry.

Men and Women are different and that is a wonderful thing. It makes our lives more interesting, and the world a more balanced place. It important to note that the differences are not so much gender linked as gender class linked. What we often are seeing is not really a difference between men and woman, but a difference in status, a difference in the power people have. Not every man adheres to the statements we make about men. Think of Russel Crowe and Pierce Brosnen, Ashton Kuchter, Matt Damon, Arnold Swartzanager and Richard Simmons and not every woman fits the statements we make about women - think Condalesa Rice, Kate Hudsen, Kirstie Alley, Cindy Crawford, Britney Spears and well anybody else on the planet. We are different.

Have you always wanted to know the secrets of body language and learn to become a body language expert?  REGISTER NOW for my free one-hour teleseminar on first impressions to take the first step in becoming a people reader. My nonverbal communication coaching programs guide you through the process of reading people through thoughts and feelings and to consciously be aware of the signals you and the people around you are sending and finally how to use that information to be more successful in your business and personal life. Whether you are a body language novice or have been reading books on the subject for years, it is time to become an expert! It’s time for you to take action and create success in your life with this dynamic communication knowledge.

Join me for a free teleseminar to learn:

• The single-most important thing you must know before you start reading people.
• How to identify someone you can trust from someone who is dangerous.
• Three ways to come across as composed and self assured.
• The four most important factors in establishing a good first impression.
• How to deal with a wimpy handshake.
• Two essential body language tools to feel more at ease meeting people at any meeting, social event or gathering.
• How to get a stranger to start a conversation with you without you saying a word.
• How to get in an out of conversations easily.

You can REGISTER NOW  for my free one-hour teleseminar and receive all your dial-in info as well as your BONUS pre-course article on how to give a great handshake.  If you are unable to attend the teleseminar, no worries! My Virtual Assistant, Melinda Janicki will be emailing you with the mp3 recording of the call available 24 hours after the call.

http://www.pattiwood.net/program.asp?PageID=7830

I love my Thursday night Meeting of the Minds discussion Group

We talk about the wildest things we talk about politics, current events, and Kissing. We can move through a heated discussion on Torture and human rights and how we should vote to discussing what are the deal breakers when you are dating. What continues to fascinate me after two years of being with these wonderful folks is how we can continue to sit across the table and argue and disagree and still laugh with one another. I am currently working on a train the trainer program I will be recording in Chicago this month. It is based on my book, “The Conflict Cure.” As I have been working on the training program and rereading my book I have been realizing how often I avoid conflict. Yes, funny but true. I teach what I most need to learn. I know one of the reasons I do everything I can to make an angry person feel good is that I want to ease their pain. Any tense body language feels so uncomfortable to me. I am perhaps too sensitive to peoples pain. I realize that is a problem. It certainly can effect your relationships. Does avoiding conflict effect your romantic relationships?  Tell me about it so I can blog about it.  I will be blogging about verbal and nonverbal ways of dealing with conflict the next two weeks. In the mean time you may want to check out my books on conflict by linking to the products page on my website.

Right after we are born, people start treating boys and girls differently.

Boy babies are put down sooner and not touched as much. Mothers hold their girl babies longer right after birth. They touch and caress girls more, give them more eye contact and smiles. Boy babies, even in their first baths after birth, are handled less gently and put in their own beds away from their mothers sooner. And we wonder why men and women are different. What have you noticed about touch differences between men and women?

Here are links to two 2 videos and my answers to the questions that will be posted on Mad Dog & Mike’s blog:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eft3Q_zO6NE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJb1KvwuFvY 

1.  What do you see from the way both men gesture with one another in both of these links?

In the first link of the show at the stadium, as they first talk about the Finway and Camden stadiums, Mike begins a symbolic sword play with his gestures. He strikes the first blow with a dismissive hand flip that indicates him so superior to Russo he can flick him away like a little pesky fly and says do you like Fenway better than Camden? The dismissive backward hand flip is a Slap in the face to Mad Dog. Indicating nonverbally that I disrespect your option and you are going to look stupid in your response to that question.  Mike follows that with several outward sweeping sword moves to Mad Dog the sword fight then begins in earnest with Mad Dog first putting up a very brief peace symbol then a pointed finger to call, “time out, wait a minute” symbolically then an OK sign - all trying to be peaceful in responding to Mike’s attacks but then Russo’s voice gets very angry (that is nonverbal paralanguage) you can hear it get louder and rougher like a mad little kid as his emotions are pushed to the limit. Interestingly, Mike’s voice doesn’t escalate nearly as much as if he is on FM radio calming drugs even as he continues the sword fight his paralanguage indicates he is haughtily superior over Russo… Mad Dog continues to get Mike’s sword thrusts and swords sweeps to his body and Mad Dog continues to respond defensively putting up the OK sign and the protective palm and then near the end he is banging both his hands and puts them in to a fist symbolically pluming Mike and Mike slaps his palm to slap Mad Dog as if Russo was a smart aleck child and Mad Dog was the parent.

2.  They are arguing with one another in the first link (the one about Yankee Stadium), yet it seems like they don’t make a lot of eye contact.  What do you make of that?

The lack of eye contact is just radio eye contact. They are focused on speaking to the audience and into the mics - the rest of their bodies are interacting with each other. If they made eye contact they would have escalated to a real fist fight. Eye contact is the first move towards a fight!

3. In the link about David Letterman (2nd link), Mike gets up and walks out of the segment early.  What is your take on that?

First notice how excited Mad Dog gets when he knows what is being played. His hand flees in the air and he pushes his chair back across the booth as he yells “YES” in huge excitement.. If you watched Mike’s face very carefully he stays very still and then watches his face very carefully you will he realize he is about to be set up and embarrassed on the show and he says something and looks down in disgust. He stays and takes a sip of water. ( your mouth gets dry when you are nervous or under stress) and he swings the mic like when he hears the dig and then makes the comments about Dave making suggestions for the show, (all in very slow) takes his earpiece off and leaves. The listeners who didn’t see him leave would not know just how mad he is. The leaving was about set up being publicly humiliated by the producer it was slam to him.

4.  Many people mentioned roman episode, where Chris does not defend Mike, as a sign of the demise.  What can you read from Mike’s body language as they listened to the Letterman clip on air?

I know Mike is mad at him as he makes that comment (we can‘t hear) to him before he makes the other comments and gets up and leaves. Look at above, I think Mike is mad at the producers for making him look bad…his anger was directed specifically towards Russo. Russo was actually trying to say he didn’t hear the Mike dig when he was on the show. But what Russo doesn’t do is defend Mike then and there and say. Hey I have a great partner and you listeners know that I love him… You can see that Mike waits for that and doesn’t get it, then he leaves.

5.  In the Yankee Stadium link (about 9:30 into it), there is a lot of hand gesturing.  Russo is more animated than Mike.  What is your overall analysis of that?

Russo is more animated, period. He has a more kid like personality than Mike does.

6. Both Mike and Chris have mentioned when talking about their relationship, that their off-the-air issues have manifested themselves on-the-air.  Can you see examples of that in these videos?

Yes, the ones I mentioned.

7. Based on everything you’ve seen from these 2 videos, what does the body language of these two men tell you about their possible future together?

I think Mike is over it. His ego is to big. And Russo is just clueless to how much it affects Mike.

The other night I was at Borders bookstore with a friend. Yes, bookstores are one of my favorite hangouts. I am such a party animal!

I was fascinated to see how crowded the bookstore was on a Sunday night. Did you ever notice how people in line around you avoid making eye-contact? My mother always told me to talk to strangers ( we will consider the Freudian implications of that motherly suggestion another time. ) So when ever I am out in public I just naturally start talking to whoever I am standing with in line. It is tougher to do when they are focusing on the candy in the check out line at borders, but it is possible. Smile and ask them a question. Sunday I was asking people what they where buying. I love good book recommendations. I meet the nicest people everywhere I go. And no I do not pick up men this way, (check out my articles on that) but I do have the best time and the world seems a much friendlier place than it does if you are goal driven and ignore people standing two feet from you. So, try making some eye-contact and smiling and see what happens. And check out my articles on smiling and eye contact on the website. If you haven’t gotten this months newsletter on time use make sure you sign in on the website for a free issue.