Each person participates in social life. A particular way of communication makes it possible to achieve a special aim by establishing the contact with the person: obtaining some information, meeting the mental necessity for communication, etc. Communication represents exchange of information for effective interconnection. Non-verbal communication occupies a greater percentage of the connection between people.
So, non-verbal communication can be interpreted as such a behavior of a person that signals about emotional status and the nature of the interaction between communicating individuals. Non-verbal communication means can be expressed in different ways. For example, it may be clothes, hairstyle, facial expressions, posture, surrounding subjects. If a human recognizes and understands such behavior, it will contribute to the highest degree of understanding between people. This kind of information allows understanding the person better. Particularly, it may concern the emotional status and specific qualities of people who communicate.
Which role does non-verbal communication play in our life?
As studies have shown, a modern human pronounces more than 30 thousand words a day, accompanying them with non-verbal behavior. Besides the language there are so many ways to communicate which serve as means of obtaining and sharing the information. In every culture, every sign and symbol has its own fixed designation which is clearly understood by others.
Non-verbal means of communication can transmit the huge information. In particular it may concern a communicator personality: his emotional condition, temperament, personality traits and characteristics, social status, communicative competence and self-esteem. The main role of non-verbal communication is to obtain a wide range of peculiarities of a concrete human. Such information we can get through gestures, facial expressions and intonation as they are able to express and correctly interpret the emotional energy of the person, symptoms and movements.
Features of non-verbal communication consist in the dependence on the situation, as they enable to understand the status of all of the participants during real-time communication. However, it is impossible to get information about persons that are absent in the moment, or even non-existent. Communication without words is spontaneous and happens involuntary. It is virtually impossible to control, so it is easy to reveal the truth in communication. As the saying goes, the truth always becomes known.
Non-verbal means of communication are absorbed by people only in natural conditions by observing, imitating or copying. They have the following sources: congenital or acquired during a person's social development, biological and social (Skills You Need).
Communication without words - main types
If you are aware of the variants of non-verbal communication you can better understand how to express them, as this type of communication uses not words, but senses, from which the channel of communication is actually formed.
So, let us talk about the most important versions of non-talkative communication:
Facial expressions
Facial expression is a human’s face; it is the main element of the display of emotions and feelings. Positive emotions, such as love or surprise, are recognized a lot easier than negative, which include disgust or anger. Emotions are reflected differently on the left and right side of the face because the left and right hemispheres of the brain have different functions: the right performs the control over the emotional sphere, and the left is responsible for intellectual functions.
Examples of emotions in facial expressions:
Anger – eyes are widely open, corners of the mouth are lowered, the view is narrowed, and the teeth are clenched
Surprise – the mouth is a bit opened, eyes are widely open, eyebrows are raised, and corners of the lips are lowered
Fear – eyebrows are closer to each other, lips are stretched and their corners are lowered
Happiness – the glance is calm, corners of the lips are raised and laid back
Sadness - "extinguished" look, lowered corners of the lips, eyebrows are closer to each other
Eye contact
This method of non-verbal communication helps to show the interest in the conversation and better understand the meaning of what was said. During a conversation two people work together to create and regulate the degree of comfort, periodically meeting each other’s eyes and looking away. An intent look can both build the trust and generate the discomfort.
Pleasant common themes maintain eye contact, and negative confusing questions force to look away, showing disagreement and hostility. Here are some examples of visual contact that allow drawing conclusions about the degree of interest in dialogue and relation to the interlocutor:
Delight - long eye contact, calm sight
Indignation - close, obsessional, a bit worried look, long eye contact without pauses
Hostility - avoidance of eye contact, "rolling up" the eyes
Expectation - a sharp look into the eyes, raised eyebrows
Intonation and tone of the voice
Excitement - low tone of voice, fast and intermittent speech
Enthusiasm - high tone of voice, clear and confident speech
Tiredness - low tone of voice, lowering the tone at the end of the sentence
Arrogance - slow speech, flat and monotone intonation
Uncertainty - mistakes in words, frequent pauses, nervous cough (Segal J., Smith M., 2016)
Gestures and postures
Feelings of people can be determined by the manner of sitting or standing, by the set of gestures and individual movements. It is easier and more pleasant for people to communicate with those who have expressive motor skills, lively and relaxed facial expression. Bright gestures reflect positive emotions and make an effect of sincerity and trust. At the same time, excessive gestures or frequently repeated gestures can speak about inner tension and uncertainty.
Non-verbal communication becomes available and the level of mutual understanding increases if you understand the postures and gestures of your interlocutor. To understand this better, here are some examples of behavior:
• Concentration - closed eyes, touching the nose, rubbing the chin
• Distrust - a hand covers the mouth, expressing disagreement
• Superiority – position “sitting”, one leg is on the other, hands are behind the head, eyelids are slightly covered
• Disapproval - turbulent movements, straightening of clothing
• Uncertainty - scratching or rubbing the ears, one arm is touching the elbow of the other hand
• Openness - hands are stretched to the sides with palms up, shoulders are straightened, the head "looks" straight, the body is relaxed (Skills You Need)
An example of non-verbal communication
Once, such an experiment was made. The group of people consisted of married couples. They were divided into two groups according to male and female and they had to watch the material on some versions of crying babies. After that they had to explain how they understand such crying. A great part of females unmistakably transcribed them. They told whether the baby is crying because he is hungry or wet or something else but males did not see much difference in different versions. From this experiment it may be concluded that women feel more sensitively and observationally, they can understand non-verbal gestures much easier. For men it is harder to do that, they need something specific, not a sentimental experience. Of course, some exceptions do exist (How Exact, 2016).
References
How Exact. (2016). Non-verbal means of communication. Retrieved from http://howexact.com/en/pages/211796#
Segal J. Smith M. (2016). Nonverbal communication. Retrieved from http://www.helpguide.org/articles/relationships/nonverbal-communication.htm
Skills You Need. Non-verbal communication. Retrieved from http://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/nonverbal-communication.html
