1 Chapter 1: Basics of Nonverbal Communication

Danielle was flying from Alabama to Florida for a convention. It had been years since she had flown, and she was nervous. She wanted to read her book in solitude so that she would be distracted from being miles high in the air. She had the window seat and did her best to avoid eye contact with her seatmate as he placed his bag in the bin above their heads. He was an older gentleman, gray haired, tall and thin. He grabbed his book and sat down. Everything was going according to plan. She politely smiled at him as he settled into his seat, he smiled back, introduced himself and continued to talk. He never opened his book and neither did she. By the end of the flight, she knew a lot about him – his marriages, divorce, children, and business ventures. He talked to her the entire flight, barely giving her opportunities to interject. As awkward as it might seem, she was happy for the distraction even if it wasn’t as she had planned. Has this ever happened to you? You meet a stranger who divulges very personal information. Or have you ever met someone and by the end of your conversation you have told them all kinds of information about you? This may occur because of the nonverbal cues that you (or someone else) communicates.

This chapter is a brief overview of some basic concepts of nonverbal communication (NC). We will discuss some reasons for studying NC, variables associated with understanding what NC is and is not, as well at the various types of NC.

Reasons to Study Nonverbal Communication      

If you have ever sent an innocent text message and then received an angry text back, you know how easily texts can be misunderstood. Text messaging lacks nonverbal cues that indicate the emotional tone of a message causing us to infer, sometimes incorrectly, the tone of the message. Emojis were created to reduce this type of breakdown.

Erle et al. (2022) found that emojis were functionally equivalent to real facial expressions of emotion in most aspects, but not fully. If you have ever found yourself in this predicament, then you already know that an important reason to study nonverbal communication is to reduce communication breakdown and misunderstandings.

People often interpret NC through their individual frame of reference, which can lead to breakdown in communication. Individuals with a large frame of reference, through which they can interpret stimuli, may have less chances of misunderstanding a message.

I listened to a man discuss a mission trip he made to a native American reservation (or somewhere near one). He talked about setting various meeting times throughout the day to hold workshops. He said that people would come and go, but many were not on time. He wrongly interpreted their lack of punctuality as if they were not concerned with the information he had to share. His frame of reference was too narrow to understand that some cultures view time vastly different than he did. Some cultures place more emphasis and value on the relationship, without regard to time. Therefore, punctuality to events is irrelevant.

Another example of the miscommunication that can occur between cultures is through expressions. Smith (2004), had a friend from Puerto Rico who would scrunch his nose during their conversation. He said that at first, he thought that his friend had some sort of allergy and didn’t inquire any further about what it meant. However, he was conversing with another person from Puerto Rico and noticed that person doing the same thing. After asking about it, he discovered that wrinkling your nose is a way to say I don’t understand (Misinterpreting Nonverbal Communication, 2004).

In some cases, improving knowledge of NC can save lives. Former NY police department sergeant, Lou Savelli, trains police officers to recognize specific body language behaviors. As part of his training he shows a video from the dashcam of a 1998 stop that ended a police officer’s life. In the stop the man almost immediately gets out of his truck, which indicates he is hiding something in the vehicle or is going to attack the officer. When the officer told the man to step toward him, he hesitated, indicating he had a different plan in mind. He then put both of his hands in his pockets. Savelli explains that this behavior could indicate that he’s nervous about what is going to happen, he plans on being aggressive, or that he has something in his pockets. The man begins dancing in the street and then claps his hand. According to Savelli, “clapping the hands is one of the last indicators you see when someone is about to fight” clapping gets the blood flowing to prepare for an attack. As the officer was returning to his vehicle the man took a gun out of his truck and fatally shot him. Savelli states that “it’s so important to read body language for police officers because if you can recognize a threat, that you’re in danger, you can counteract that threat” and recognizing when there is an imminent threat could be the difference between life and death (The Secrets of Body Language, Threatening Body Indicators, 2008).

Last, a better understanding of nonverbal communication leads to improved interactions with others. We tend to place more credibility on the nonverbal information over verbal content. However, this should not always be the case. Decades ago, Mehrabian (1972) claimed that 93% of the information communicated in an interaction is nonverbal. Scholars have since debated for and against this high percentage, without any clear answers. Regardless, we can all agree that NC  is a critical part of the information in a message. Therefore, the ability to discern cues can improve our understanding of the message being conveyed, as well as help us understand how the other individual feels. This allows us to determine more effective ways of interacting.

We can reduce the chances of misinterpretation and communication breakdown by first understanding what NC is and is not, as well as increasing awareness and developing skills in encoding and decoding messages.

Defining Nonverbal Communication  

It is difficult to concisely define nonverbal communication without understanding the variables that contribute to its meaning. Nonverbal communication is interdependent with verbal communication, it can be conveyed intentionally or unintentionally, it is best decoded when the context is understood, it may or may not be an emotional expression, and it has varied meanings between cultures.

Interdependence

One reason it is difficult to define NC is because verbal and nonverbal communication can be interdependent. Oftentimes, nonverbal cues rely on verbal messages and verbal messages rely on nonverbal cues for a full understanding. For example, if you are told that your hair looks wonderful the words you hear might lead you to believe “hey, I’m having a great hair day.” Unless, of course, it is your roommate, you have just gotten out of bed, and their pitch and inflection (vocalics/ nonverbal elements) convey a contradictory message. Then you know, based on their NC, that your hair is likely a mess. Therefore, we can’t always define nonverbal messages as distinct from verbal messages.

Intentionality

Another problem with defining NC is intentionality, some cues are given intentionally, whereas others may be unintentional and uncontrollable (as in pupil dilation and micro expressions).  Crais et al. (2004) studied deictic (pointing) gestures of children aged 5 to 24 months. These researchers found that children learn to use these intentional gestures to communicate various desires as early as seven months. Some NC is unintentional and uncontrollable. Micro expressions are emotional cues that are leaked in the body and face, within a fraction of a second. Paul Ekman (2023), the world’s foremost expert in facial expressions, explains that micro expressions are “involuntary emotional” leaks that “expose a person’s true emotions,” and are often missed. Micro expressions are both unintentional and uncontrollable, at first. We work hard to control our expressions, but it is more difficult to control our physiological reaction. One example is pupil dilation. Our pupils will dilate whenever we are exposed to something that we find attractive, whenever we are talking about something that interests us, or when we lie, that is if we feel remorse or anxiety when we lie. Therefore, we can’t define nonverbal messages as an intention to communicate without words. We will talk more about these concepts in future chapters.

Other considerations

Nonverbal communication is also contextually bound – it is often misunderstood when interpreted in isolation of the context it was communicated in. In order to fully understand a nonverbal message, some of the contextual information you have to be aware of are environmental factors, cultural factors, and in some cases personal factors. The environment that a cue is given in needs to be taken into consideration. For example, if you see someone speaking with their arms crossed you may assume that they are uncomfortable, closed off, or perhaps angry about the topic being discussed. However, they might just be cold. Meanings among cultures may also be different. In the US, the thumbs up gesture used to be used to hitchhike or signal “okay”. However, in Iraq it has a pejorative meaning, equivalent to ‘up yours’.  Contrary to popular belief, nonverbal communication is not always an emotional reaction. For example, some individuals will nod their heads as they listen (this is common in Japan), but it does not indicate agreement with the speaker, only that you are listening to the speaker. This is a listening response, not necessarily an emotional response.

Even though there is great difficulty in defining NC, it will still benefit us to have some sort of definition. So, for purposes of contextualizing the information in this book, we will define NC as communication other than words that is communicated either intentionally or unintentionally.

Encoding/ Decoding Nonverbal Communication

The good news about communication is that we are not born knowing how to communicate well. Effective communication is a learned skill. Two skills we can work on to improve our communication are encoding and decoding. Encoding is the process a sender of a message performs to turn their thoughts into a message communicated to others. As I type this explanation about encoding and decoding I am deciding the best way to explain my thoughts – I am encoding a message about encoding. Danielle, from the beginning of this chapter, to be polite, may have been encoding cues that showed she was engaged and entertained by her seatmate’s conversation. When we smile, we choose to encode a message that we are happy or satisfied. If she had wanted to end her interaction with the stranger, but didn’t want to say it outright, she could have encoded a different message. She could have looked at her watch, looked out her window, yawned, etc. In that case she would have used her nonverbal cues to encode a message that she was disinterested and he should stop talking. Have you ever had a hard time ‘reading’ someone? I knew a woman once who never revealed information through her facial expressions and I never knew how to interpret her communication. There are several explanations for the lack of NC encoding that we will discuss in later chapters.

Decoding is the process a receiver of a message performs to judge, interpret, or evaluate the message they receive. As you read this section, you are decoding my thoughts about on the communication process and determining if it makes sense, if you understand what I am saying, and perhaps even if you agree with me. The stranger on the airplane, if he was paying attention through all of his talk, may have looked at her attentiveness and eye contact and decoded her cues as interest in his conversation. With the depth of the information that he communicated, he may have also decoded a message that she was trustworthy and non-judgmental. It is important to understand, though, that not everyone has the ability to decode nonverbal cues. Some individuals have nonverbal learning disorder (NVLD). Many children learn how to decode nonverbal cues through observation. However, some children with NVLD have a difficult time recognizing body language cues and facial expressions. According to Psychology Today (2022) children with NVLD tend to rely on verbal communication for understanding and so they may ask endless questions or interrupt often since they have difficulty reading nonverbal cues.

Encoding and decoding are essential parts of the communication process and is where much communication breakdown occurs. Some individuals are good at encoding NC whereas others are better at decoding NC messages. We learn to encode and decode when we are children. If a parent is nonverbally expressive in their communication, children tend to have good encoding skills. If a parent is not as expressive nonverbally the child tends to be better at decoding information. There is also a cultural influence in the encoding/ decoding process. High-context cultures, cultures that rely on a variety of cues to decipher meaning, tend to be better at decoding messages. Whereas low-context cultures, cultures that speak very directly and unambiguously, tend to have better encoding skills. Victims of domestic violence tend to have a deficit in both encoding and decoding skills (Knapp et al., 2014). Additionally, unhappy couples misread the nonverbal communication of their spouse more often and are more successful at decoding the nonverbal communication of strangers (Noller, 1981 as cited in Bull, 2021). Some people are better at decoding specific types of nonverbal messages than other types.

Types of Nonverbal Communication

There are various ways that our nonverbal communication is expressed. We might communicate through our physical appearance, our countenance and demeanor, facial expressions, and even the artifacts we choose for our environment.

In the late 1800s Charles Darwin wrote and published The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. This is often noted as the beginning of the study of nonverbal communication. Since that time many others scholars have contributed significantly to the study of nonverbal communication. In the 60s research began emerging in more specific types of nonverbal communication and the study of NC became more clearly defined. Some of the types of NC that scholars research now is appearance, kinesics, oculesics, vocalics, gestures, haptics, proxemics, facial expressions, arrangement of the environment, space and territory, chronemics, and health environments. The table below provides a brief explanation of each of the types. We will explore each of these types in more detail in subsequent chapters.

Each of these types of NC will be explored in more detail through the rest of this book. As we explore them, you will have the opportunity to understand the nuances of each in more depth, which will help you improve your encoding and decoding skills.

Summary

As you can see, nonverbal communication is complex. The variables associated with it, such as its distinctness but interdependence on verbal codes and intentionality of the cue, make it difficult to define. There are also a variety of reasons to study NC, some of which we didn’t cover. At minimum, studying nonverbal communication improves our ability to accurately encode and decode the behavior we observe. Increased knowledge provides an opportunity to improve our interactions and relationships, which helps us to be better communicators overall. I read once that we all strive to understand the people we interact with better and we desire to be mind-readers. Studying NC won’t make you a mind-reader, but it can help you be more confident and efficient in your communication with others.

References:

Bull, P. (2021). Visual Communication Through Body Movement. In S. Coen & P. Bull (Eds.), The Psychology of Journalism (pp. 277–303). Oxford University Press (OUP).

Ekman, P. (2023). Micro Expressions: What are micro expressions?   https://www.paulekman.com/resources/micro expressions/.

Erle, T.M., Schmid, K., Goslar, S.H. & Martin, J.D. (2022).  Emojis as social information in digital communication. Emotion.22(7), 1529 – 1543.  https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000992.

History Channel Education. (2015). Secrets of Body Language: Threatening Body Language Indicators. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3oeave?start=2649.

Knapp, M.L., Hall, J.A., & Horgan, T.G. (2014). Nonverbal Communication in Human Interaction, 8th Ed., Wadsworth.

Mehrabian, A. (1972). Nonverbal Communication. Aldine-Atherton.

Nonverbal Learning Disorder. (2022). Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/conditions/nonverbal-learning-disorder.

Promedion/ American Multimedia. (2004). Interpreting Nonverbal Communication: Misinterpreting Nonverbal Communication (segment 9). https://digital.films.com/p_ViewVideo.aspx?xtid=115840&loid=426630&tScript=0.