Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Crossed Arms and Other Bad Body Language Habits

A few days ago, I was preparing for a presentation with my team. We started practicing our slides in front of each other and noticed that every single one of us had something that we do when we get nervous. One person bites their nails, another guy scratches his face and I play with my hair. I am grateful that we were comfortable with pointing out these gestures to each other.

The next day, I decided to put my hair up in a bun to prevent me from playing with it. I presented in front of my colleague and she said that although my hair was up, I still found a loose strand and reached for it. The craziest part is that I don’t recall doing any of this while I presented. Some of our body movements become so habitual that our brain ceases to pay attention to them, but that doesn’t mean that others don’t notice.

It’s  important to avoid gestures that might result in distracting someone from what you are saying or give a negative perception of you. You don’t need to be a decoding expert to interpret bad body language habits. Are you victim to any of these common ones?

1. Crossed Arms – often associated with being defensive. The arm-gripping gesture may occur if a person is feeling insecure or nervous. It is a form of self-hugging for comfort (i.e. can be seen in doctors’ office waiting rooms). When I’ve noticed a friend of mine doing it, she denied that it has anything to do with being defensive and said she was just comfortable. While it is still a possibility, sometimes the body gestures that feel most comfortable to us are a reflection of an internal state that we are not even aware of yet ourselves. Avoid this gesture and try to have open body language when communicating with others. (Unless of course you are cold.  In that case, hug yourself as much as needed)

2. Looking Down – Can be interpreted as boredom or slight arrogance. I’ve noticed that a person who is feeling shy in a particular social setting may feel uncomfortable making eye contact. Although they don’t actually have bad intentions, others tend to interpret it as something negative.

3. Time checking – the ultimate sign of disinterest. Avoid checking the time when speaking to someone unless they asked you what time it is.

4. Fidgeting – just like my bad hair-playing presentation habit, it’s distracting. Any kind of unnecessary movement will take away attention from what you are trying to communicate.

5. Multi-tasking – In the current state of technology, I should’ve put this as number one. There is nothing more annoying than when a friend takes out their phone to text...or worse..check Facebook or other social media during dinner. You might consider yourself a multi-tasking world champion but others don’t care about how good you are at it. It’s just rude. Give them the uninterrupted attention they deserve and they will only respect you more for it. You can update your Facebook status on your way to the bathroom.


     As a self-awareness exercise, you can ask your friends if you have any particular “ticks” or body movements that they have observed in you. Make sure that none of your gestures are distracting or result in others forming a negative opinion of you.

Happy D-coding,


Darya



Sunday, May 19, 2013

learning deception from a three-year-old

A friend of mine showed me this video a little while ago. If you haven't already seen it, it's worth a watch just because kids are usually best at not being able to hide their body language even if they are trying. Note how John looks away from the camera several times when repeating the lie, but gets better at eye contact throughout the video. As we are older, we get better at keeping eye contact when lying, and that's why a lie is often associated with more eye contact than usual.

 The best line is "it's not empty". I'm sure everyone has had a moment of being caught in a lie and trying to reason on a technicality. Whether you were 3 or 33.



Read my full article on clues to deception here.