3 Chapter 3: Kinesics Body Movement

Denise has always been a phenomenal speller. She won every school spelling bee that she entered. This year, when her daughter, Faith, announced that she was one of three in her third- grade class who made it to the school spelling bee, memories of studying with her grandmother, school competitions, and her last competition came flooding back. Faith is a phenomenal speller, too. On the day of the spelling bee Faith courageously walked to the microphone round after round and spelled each of her words with confidence. When Denise noticed a child seemed to need encouragement, she would lean her body toward them. She found that she frequently nodded her head to show support to all of the students and realized at some points she would nod when they chose the correct letter and stop nodding when they did not. She tried to stop her head nods because she seemed to be giving cues, but it happened almost automatically. This wasn’t the only body language cues Denise gave during the spelling bee. When Faith would come to the microphone she would look at Denise, Denise would sit straight up, lean forward, smile, and nod gently to encourage her and bolster her confidence. Then the fateful word came for Faith – traditional, t-r-d-a-t-i-o-n-a-l. Faith transposed the letters. She walked back to her chair, dropped her shoulders, and pulled her knees to her chest. Denise was not disappointed at all, she knows that Faith has her ‘good spelling gene’ and she couldn’t be happier. They are both looking forward to next year.

Denise’s behavior at the spelling bee is a perfect example of kinesics. Kinesics, broadly speaking, is the study of body movement. The study of kinesics dates to antiquity. Philosophers from Ancient Greece and Rome focused on body language while speaking to audiences, but in the late 1800s, Darwin wrote specifically about the function of body movement in relation to emotions. Slightly less than a century later, in 1952, Birdwhistell coined the term Kinesics and defined it as “the study of body-motion as related to the nonverbal aspects of interpersonal communication” (Jolly, 2000). Birdwhistell launched early research on the connection between body language and interpersonal relationships: he identified body movement, gestures, eye contact, and facial expressions as part of kinesics. Subsequent scholars differ in the types of body movement they include in kinesics. For example, some say that kinesics includes body movement, gestures, eye contact, and facial expressions. Whereas some omit eye contact or facial expressions and stick strictly to posture and gesture. For our purposes, kinesics is the study of body movement specific to the head torso and limbs, gestures, eye behavior (oculesics), and facial expressions. In order to fully develop these concepts, though, each is addressed in their own chapter. This chapter focuses on body movements that include movement such as posture, body orientation, expansive versus contractive postures, interactional synchrony, and head nodding. The end of the chapter explores several different concepts discussed in relation to culture and co-culture.

Posture and Body Orientation  

Posture is defined as alignment of the body in a particular position or configuration. It includes arm and leg positions (e.g. crossed, folded…), torso (e.g. leaning), and the entire body (e.g. lying down). Movements in posture occur in shifts (posture shifts) and will only periodically change (Dael et al., 2015). Body orientation, on the other hand, is our “posture in relation to another person” (Vederber, 2013). Both communicate information that create perceptions that others have of us and reveals perceptions we have of ourselves.

Posture

Scholars believe that posture and body position communicate our emotional states (Forbes & Jackson, 1999), confidence, and power levels.  These emotional responses are displayed through specific behaviors of the torso and limbs, as well as the way that we sync our nonverbal behavior with others.

Emotional State. One way that researchers have looked at emotional information is by studying interest/ boredom and agreement/ disagreement. Interest and agreement are revealed distinctly through the body; one of the universal emotions they can potentially elicit is happiness. Likewise, boredom and disagreement elicit specific emotions as well (predominantly frustration). Researchers were interested in finding a correlation between these states and body language. They recruited participants to watch a random video. The participants were told that the videos were intended to evoke interest or boredom or agreement or disagreement. As they watched the videos, researchers actually studied the participants body language. They found that when participants were interested, they leaned forward and drew back their legs. Participants that were bored leaned back, stretched out their legs, turned their head away, and supported their head with one head. Disagreement was expressed by folding the arms and “tightly crossing the legs so that the knee of the lower leg was visible” (Bull, 2021).

Expansive vs Contractive Posture. We also discern a person’s state of mind (or feelings) by observing their posture and the way that they use their body to take up space. We make perceptions about their power and confidence based on their use of space through expansive or contractive postures. Expansive postures include open arms, legs stretched out, upright posture (Bull, 2021) chest out, hands on hips, and standing tall (Korner, 2020). People in power tend to use more expansive postures (Shutts, 2015; Goman, 2017) and those with an expansive posture tend to be more influential. Goman (2017) also explains that influence is demonstrated through high powered, confident, or expansive body language. As she says, think of space and height. On the other hand, a contractive (closed) posture is one that is small; the limbs are pulled toward the torso (Laborde et al., 2019) and the arms are folded and the legs are crossed (Bull, 2021). Think shrink and minimal space. Contractive postures creates an impression of anxiety, stress, or discomfort about the sender and indicates less immediacy (psychological – liking and closeness) between communicators (Meadors & Murray, 2014).

There is another benefit to expansive postures and that is the way that we internalize its effects and perhaps even the physiological way that it can help our bodies cope with stress. Carney et al. (2010) studied the physiological effect that power posing had on cortisol and testosterone. They found that when individual assumed a high-power pose (expansive posture) for 1 minute, their cortisol levels decreased, their testosterone increased, and participants felt more powerful and had a higher tolerance for risk. They also reported that low power poses (contractive posture) produced the opposite effect. Amy Cuddy delivered a TedTalk: Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are that was viewed by thousands and drew even more attention to the study. This research spurred controversy and several scholars set out to test their findings. Many researchers, claiming to replicate the original study, only found that the perception of powerfulness increased, that there were not any physiological changes. Carney et al. (2015) responded to these researchers, however, and claimed that these studies lacked proper replication and they urged future researchers to replicate it exactly.

Lest you think that academia is boring, in September 2016, Dana Carney (original lead author) rescinded her belief in the power posing effect (you can read her statement here).  However, if you think that was the end, you would be wrong. Amy Cuddy defended the work and wrote about her concerns in a four-page letter that you can find here. I’m not sure that the argument is settled today. Cuddy (2016) was afraid that Carney’s statement would prevent researchers from studying the effects of power posing for various reasons. Research continued, though. Laborde et al. (2019) completed some of the most recent work on power posing. They found that “at the subjective level, [participants] felt power was higher after high power poses in comparison to after low power poses, while perceived stress was lower after high power poses in comparison to after low power poses” (pp. 6). All controversy aside, researchers tend to agree that high power poses tend to increase a person’s perception of powerfulness. If we are to believe the adage that perception is reality perhaps that suffices.

Body Orientation

As a reminder, body orientation is the way that our body is oriented in relation to another person. Have you ever left a class and stood in the hall or lobby to talk with another student? When someone approaches you do the two of you turn and allow the person in or do you ignore the other person and continue standing facing each other squarely? Most of the time, unless the conversation is private, we turn our bodies slightly to open space for the other person to join us both physically and psychologically. In other words, we change our orientation. The way that we choose to orient our bodies toward (or away from) others reveals a lot about who or what we are interested in. We face, or turn, toward individuals that we want to interact with. If our shoulders are fully parallel, then we are physically and psychologically shutting out the rest of the world (Parvez, 2022). It clearly communicates a ‘wall’ of separation. It is important to read this in context, as with all NVC. Sometimes it is impossible to be parallel with a conversation partner, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t want to be involved with the other person (e.g. watching television). Some individuals find parallel body posture as aggressive, so they will turn slightly (Parvez, 2022). This might explain why some men prefer to speak to each other at a slight angle, but women don’t seem to mind and may actually prefer facing each other directly during conversation (Knofler & Imhof, 2007).

Leaning. Leaning is another way that we orient our bodies toward or away from someone or thing. We tend to lean slightly toward individuals or information that we are interested or involved in (Forbes & Jackson, 1999, Matsumoto et al., 2015).  It is an unconscious way that our body “indicates emotion – especially your feelings about various people on a team.” We will lean in toward those we have positive attitudes toward and whose opinion we respect. Whereas leaning backwards tends to indicate “feelings of dislike, dismissal, or negativity” as if we are distancing ourselves from it (Goman, 2017). There are other body language cues to consider when assessing meaning for leaning. Boe (2008) explains the following associations:

• Leaning back and closed = lack of interest
• Leaning back and open = contemplation and cautious interest
• Leaning forward and closed = potential aggressive behavior
• Leaning forward and open = interest and agreement

SOLER. Our body orientation can improve the quality of our interactions as well. SOLER was introduced in 1975 by Gerard Egan. He developed it as a guide for counselors when interacting with their clients to improve communication and the therapeutic relationship between them. The acronym stands for S-square, O-open, L-lean, E-eye contact, and R-relax. Egan understood the great benefit it would add to counselor/ client sessions when the counselor actively listened while assuming this body posture. This concept expanded beyond the counseling interaction as the benefits of its use were recognized in the medical field. When I was an undergraduate I heard about his concept in one of my classes. I thought that it would work to improve interpersonal interactions, tested it unofficially, and realized that it did improve dyadic communication. I wanted to test it scientifically, though. I designed the experiment and ran it over two semesters. The first semester was a pilot study, to determine any problems with the design or implementation of the project before collecting data. The following semester, after any adjustments that needed to be made were done, I ran the study with the help of fellow students. I trained all of the students helping facilitate the experiment on this active listening posture – I wanted to make sure that we were all doing the same behaviors. Two student facilitators ran each interaction. One was an unobtrusive observer who recorded information about the participant during the interaction (they sat out of sight). The other led the interaction and would either take notes (no active listening), interacted regularly, or interacted with SOLER. We had over 100 participants. After the interaction, participants filled out a survey assessing their disclosure level, comfort, and willingness to communicate with the listener again. The surveys were coded by a small set of letters at the bottom and distributed according to the experimental condition the participant was in. I found that when individuals were part of the SOLER condition they disclosed more than they normally would, they were more comfortable in the interaction, and they were more willing to have another interaction with the listener. Disclaimer: what you are about to read is strictly so that you can trust the results of my experiment. My professors at the time submitted my research to the International Listening Association. At their annual conference it was chosen as the top undergraduate research paper – out of all undergraduate submissions. Further, it was included with the research submissions from graduate students around the world – in the graduate category it was judged in third place.

Pulling several of these concepts together, Knapp et al. (2010, pp. 413) explain Mehrabian’s immediacy behaviors as

• More forward lean
• Closer proximity
• More eye gaze
• More openness of arms and body
• More direct body orientation
• More touching
• More postural relaxation
• More positive facial and vocal expressions

This tells us the great influence we have and can have on others simply by communicating through our bodies. In the next section we will discuss other ways that immediacy is communicated through kinesics.

Congruence and Synchrony

Postural congruence is the tendency to adopt a similar posture to your conversation partner. Congruent postures can communicate a similarity in views or even roles, whereas incongruent postures may indicate divergence and status differences (Bull, 2021). When we feel greatly connected to another person (or viewpoint), our nonverbal behavior will synchronize with theirs.

We behave in tandem, rhythmically with another person. Nonverbal interpersonal synchrony refers to “instances in which the movements…of two or more people…overlap in time and form (although the movement need not be exactly replicated for it to be synchronized). Movement synchrony is a particular kind of behavioral mimicry in which the time lag to the repeated movement is close to zero” (Feniger-Schaal et al., 2021). This interpersonal synchrony is the process of individuals seemingly moving in harmony with each other. My husband’s aunt, Joan, would sway when she stood, sang, or directed our choir. I would notice that there were times that when we were working with each other, I would sway in sync with her. Not only were our sways synchronized, if she were facing me I would sway with her as if looking in a mirror. The action of mirroring, though, demonstrates an even higher level of affinity.

Behavioral Matching. Have you ever been talking to someone and notice that they scratch their nose? Then, out of the clear blue, your nose begins to itch, and you are compelled to scratch your own nose? Or perhaps you scratched your nose and realized that it wasn’t even itching? This might be because of the tendency we have to mimic what we see in others – others whom we like especially. We send strong cues that we like or admire someone when we mirror their gestures and facial expressions (Goman, 2017), mimicking communicates trust and friendliness (Davis, 2017), and mirror-image congruent behaviors indicate a high rapport with our conversation interactant (Bull, 2021). We also create a sense of harmony when we match or mirror body language (Boe, 2008) and mimicking behavior promotes affiliation (Hove & Reisen, 2009). If you want to test someone else’s perspective on harmony between the two of you, subtly match your body language to theirs and then after a short time, stop matching their body language and watch for them to match yours (Boe, 2008). Your mirroring behaviors may be a result of the type of family you grew up in and your attachment style. Feniger-Schaal (2022) studied mirroring and attachment styles. They found that movements for those who had a secure attachment style was easy and fluid. Those who had insecure attachment styles were more rigid and tense.

Action and Body Movements

Body movements are also evaluated through specific actions. Dael et al. (2015) define an action in kinesics as movements of the head, trunk, arm, and hands outside of posture. There are many actions that a person will enact, but we will focus strictly on head nods.

Head Nodding

If you recall from the beginning of the chapter, Denise had a lot of head nods as she watched the children in the spelling bee. Head nods serve several functions: they contribute to creating a warm climate, act as reinforcers, control interaction (e.g. turn-taking), and accentuate speech.  Interactions (and environments) have a communication climate – or emotional tone. These are influenced both by the topic and by the nonverbal behavior communicated. Goman (2017) indicates that head tilts, nods, and forward leans all contribute to the creation of a warm atmosphere.

Nodding communicates a variety of information, even the speed that we nod indicates specific information. A faster nod shows that we agree: it reflects our thoughts or feelings. A slower nod is about communicating to the other person that we are focused on them and reinforces the speaker. Davies (2017) identified the following types of nods:

• Encouraging nod – “Tell me more”
• Acknowledgement nod – “I’m listening”
• Understanding nod – “I feel what you are saying…”
• Factual nod – “Yes, you are correct”
• Agreement not – “I agree with you” or “Yes, I will”

She goes on to state that individuals who nod while listening will solicit more information from a speaker. In my research I came to the same conclusion and subsequently added an “N” to the acronym SOLER. The “N” stands for nonverbal (minimal) prompts. They include head nods, smiles, and/ or short phrases such as ‘tell me more’ or ‘interesting’.

Head nods also control interactions and accentuate the spoken word. Head nods that are fast can be interpreted as agreement (as stated above) or they communicate other information. When head nods are faster, they may indicate that the speaker is wanting to speak or that they are ready for the conversation to be over. Fast head nods cue the speaker to either stop speaking so that the listener can interject or the speaker should stop talking all-together – the conversation needs to end. Last, Knapp et al. (2014) explain that head nods serve as kinesic markers and accentuate the spoken word. Kinesic markers “mark a specific oral language behavior” (pp. 220). We use our head to mark certain points in our conversation. Read the following script and imagine you are having a conversation with someone else.

“I’m going to Chick-fil-A….

and then I’m going over to Hope’s…

then I’m going home….

What are you going to do?”

Did your head move while you were reading? If so, you were using kinesic markers to emphasize and accentuate your spoken word.

Finally, body language can greatly influence success in job interviews. Researchers studied actual apprenticeship interviews for 101 individuals. It was a panel interview and as the researchers looked on, they recorded the interviewees body language on a detailed coding sheet. The researchers then went back and cross-analyzed the interviewee’s kinesic behavior and acceptance/ rejection rates. They found a direct correlation between those who were accepted, those who were rejected and their nonverbal communication. Individuals accepted had an upright posture, body was still, legs still and uncrossed, and their arms were in front of them with their hands together (both groups demonstrated these behaviors). However, the accepted group had more eye contact, they smiled more, and they shook and nodded their head more frequently. Individuals who were rejected avoided eye contact and their eyes wandered, they had less smiling and a more neutral expression, and their head was still and there was less head nodding (Forbes & Jackson, 1999).

Cultural and Co-cultural Kinesics

There is a lot of information on culture and gestures, facial expressions, eye contact, etc., but there are few studies on posture, body orientation, and body action. The general consensus seems to be that posture has universal meaning, upright posture and leaning behaviors tend to be viewed positively across all cultures, even though there are varying degrees of dimensions and interpretations (Matsumoto et al., 2015). Here are some culturally specific meanings associated with body movement.

Posture: In China, one is expected to sit up straight and not slouch (Body Language in the Culture of Asian Countries, 2020). In parts of the Middle East, showing the soles of your feet is offensive and sitting cross-legged in Japan is disrespectful, especially when sitting with someone older (Al-Adhami, 2020).

Synchrony Many cultures have rituals that foster synchrony – tribal dances, certain religious practices, festival behaviors (Novotny & Bente, 2022).

Head Behaviors There are distinct differences in some head nods. For example, nodding the head yes for most of the world is an up-then-down motion. However, in Greece and Bolivia that movement indicates ‘no’. In Japan, it communicates understanding, but is not a gesture of agreement (Body Language Across Cultures, 2022). In India, during the British occupation, people would tilt their heads side to side when talking to British soldiers because they were afraid their head movement would be mistaken as no (Ting-Toomey & Dorjee as cited in Akkilinc, 2019). That behavior persisted and now, just as in Japan, it indicates listening or attentiveness, and not necessarily agreement. However, in some parts of India, head tilt does indicate confirmation and approval (Mildred, 2018).

Co-cultural

There are variations of body movement meaning and understanding within our own culture. Some are based on stereotypical behaviors, some rooted in long standing sex-typed expectations, and even some intended to increase solidarity. A few of the areas I want to explore are sexual orientation, gender, race, and age. I encourage you to explore research in each of these categories on your own as well.

Sexual Orientation

Heterosexuality has been the standard that most research studies have defaulted to when studying body movement. There have been some interesting studies in the area though. Johnson and colleagues (2007) conducted three separate studies using body shape and body motion. They explain that the waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) has been related to judgments of biological sex. Hourglass figures are typically perceived as women, whereas more tubular shaped bodies are perceived as men. They explain that body shape tends to be more stereotypical as a judgment of a woman being a lesbian. They also looked at perceptions of walking since swaying hips are perceived as feminine, whereas swaggering shoulders are perceived as masculine. They then manipulated gait (walking) and body types. They had participants watch a video of an animated figure that with either a high or low WHR and either a swaying hips or swaggering shoulders. In the first 2 studies, they systematically varied body shape and motion and then asked participants to judge the animation’s sexual orientation. In the 3rd study, they used the outlines of real people, men and women, who were either gay or straight. They also carefully measured their body motions to determine any difference. After viewing the material participants were asked to judge the biological sex and sexuality of the outline figure. They found that body shape alone affected judgments of sexual orientation for women (more tubular shaped bodies), but not for men. In contrast, body motion for judgments of sexual orientation was greater for men than for women.

Other research focused on interaction behaviors. Knofler and Imhof (2007) studied self-touch, body posture, body orientation, and gaze during a dyadic interaction between heterosexual and gay participants. Their research question focused on the influence of sexual orientation in conversational dyads for each of the categories listed above. There were an equal number of men and women and an equal number of heterosexual or gay individuals. The researchers recorded a 20-minute conversation between the dyads, which were composed of the same biological sex, but different sexual orientations (gay participants were aware and had already come out). After viewing the taped conversations, raters coded the behaviors of the participants as either feminine, neutral, or masculine (based on stereotypical sex specific behaviors). They found that mixed dyads

featured more neutral body positions, more self-touches to the face and to other parts of the body, fewer and shorter direct gazes at the partner, and, finally, shorter events of eye contact. Dyads comprised of individuals with differing sexual orientations and dyads of [gay individuals] shared most characteristics which were investigated here. Mixed dyads and purely [gay] dyads differed significantly from purely heterosexual dyads in most aspects of nonverbal behavior with the only exception being body orientation, since individuals in mixed dyads preferred a neutral orientation toward their partner over a direct, full face orientation (pp. 201).

Many studies on sexual orientation seem to focus on the perception of stereotypical behaviors. It would be interesting to replicate the study by Knofler and Imhof today to determine what, if anything, is different.

Gender

Kinesic behaviors have been broadly classified as feminine and masculine. Wood (2019) identifies feminine kinesic behaviors as head tilting, smiling and contractive body postures. On the other hand, masculine kinesic behaviors include expansive body postures – taking up more space (expansive), large gestures, and entering others’ territory. She goes on to explain that women’s facial and body language patterns communicate warmth and approachability: mens’ communicate ‘in control’ and emotionally reserved. Boker (2011) found that women tend to nod more frequently and vigorously and when someone is speaking to a woman (regardless of sex) they tend to nod more than when speaking to a man.

Race

Nonverbal race bias refers to the tendency to evaluate a person’s nonverbal behavior differently when there are preferential expressions of race or ethnicity. Meadors and Murray (2014) studied implicit bias and manipulated participant beliefs about a criminal being Black or White. They used videotaped interviews of 160 participants (encoders): 80 men and 80 women, from four categories of American nationality – Black, White, Latino, and Asian. The participants were asked to describe two topics: a newspaper article about flowers blooming in Death Valley (the baseline condition), and a video clip from the documentary television series COPS depicting a confrontation and fatal shoot-out with a suspect whose identity is kept ambiguous (in which the suspect’s ethnicity is experimentally manipulated to be Black or White American; the criminal condition) (pp. 215).

The participant’s descriptions were videotaped while a research assistant (sitting out of view) asked them “What was the article about? Be as specific as possible,” then after watching the video they were instructed to “Imagine that you are an eye- witness to the crime scene you just watched. Tell the investigator everything you remember about the persons, places, and events that occurred.’ When they were done describing the crime scene, participants were then asked for details about the criminal “Tell us what you can about the suspect. Who was he, what did he do, and why? Include detailed descriptions such as appearance, verbal behavior, and motor behavior. Be as specific as possible.” Participants nonverbal behavior was coded once the video was complete. The most significant effect was that participants displayed significantly more closed posture when describing the White suspect than when describing the black suspect. Knowing what we know about open body posture how would you explain this? The authors posit that it could be related to confidence, openness, or a basic desire to communicate more. Whatever the explanation may be, it clearly reveals a difference in perceptions between criminality and race.

Group-specific body language serve as support and empowerment of group members. Ngugi (2023) wrote about his experiences living in and growing up in predominantly white areas. He is from Kenya and talked about the stereotypes he faced being from Africa and a black male. He states “when it comes, the baptism that reminds Africans and African Americans of the ties that bind is one of fire” (pp. 87). He goes on to explain his discovery and understanding of the Black man’s nod. Here are his nods and explanations:

• The nod of solidarity: we are in this together – a call to action
• The black power nod: reaffirmation of blackness – it’s okay to be black in a world where the standard of beauty is increasingly becoming white
• The nod of I see you even when others do not: it’s alright, I see/ feel you
• The stay cool/ keep your cool nod: e.g. being carded for a beer even though you are obviously over thirty – fellow black man sends this discrete message as a nudge to stay cool

His short account is interesting and illuminating. I encourage you to read it  here.

Age

Last, I want to revisit power posing. The studies done by researchers (endorsing and disputing) power posing studied the reaction of adults. Korner et al. (2020) decided to study the power posing effect on children. The children were in the fourth grade and the experiment took place during school. They had each child perform two power poses that were either high power or low power for one minute each (see Figure 2).

After their pose, they were given a questionnaire to fill out that assessed esteem and other, indirect, measures were collected (using cartoon pictures to relate feelings). They found that children’s reactions suggested that they “experienced higher overall state self-esteem and especially higher school related self-esteem, stronger feelings of power, and a better mood” (pp. 323).

Summary

Kinesics includes the study of body movement, gestures, oculesics, and facial expressions. We began our exploration of kinesics by looking at the way that our posture, body orientation, and nonverbal synchrony impact the impression we create, as well as our perceptions of ourselves. Good posture is not only good for our bodies, it communicates confidence and power. Likewise, expansive postures create positive impressions overall. We tend to orient our bodies parallelly toward others and conversations that we like. Our orientation toward others contributes to a dynamic interaction and can improve communication. We can better understand the impressions that we create with our body language by observing several of the concepts we discussed. Additionally, we can alter the way that we feel about ourselves with slight alterations. Even though there was/ is controversy surrounding the Power Pose Effects, the consensus among researchers is that it does create a perception of power and confidence. We covered a lot of information, but this chapter is still just a brief exploration of posture, body orientation, and body actions. There are more categories and in-depth information available if you are interested in studying further.

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