NONVERBAL
COMMUNICATION
•Nonverbal communication skills are those related to
body language, such as eye contact, gestures, facial Types of Nonverbal Communication
expressions and vocal tone. Conversely, in verbal 1. Facial Expressions
communication, you use text, signs or conversation 2. Eye contact
to express yourself. Nonverbal communication 3. Body Language
reveals a lot about how you transfer information, 4. Body Posture
approach others and empathize. 5. Head Movement
6. Proximes
ELEMENTS OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
• Appearance: Speaker: clothing, hairstyle, neatness, use of
cosmetics. Surrounding: room size, lighting, decorations,
furnishings.
• Body Language: Facial expressions, gestures, postures.
• Sounds: Voice tone, Volume, Speech rate.
TRAIT 1
FACIAL
EXPRESSIONS
•Facial expressions are responsible for a huge
proportion of nonverbal communication.
•Just imagine how much information can be
conveyed with a smile or a frown.
•The look on a person's face is often the first thing
we see, even before we hear what they have to say.
•While nonverbal communication and behavior can
vary dramatically between cultures, the facial
expression or happiness, sadness, anger, and fear
are similar throughout the world.
Eye Contact
• Visual Sense is dominant for most people in
business world. The way you look at
someone can communicate respect,
understanding interest, bonding, hostility,
confidence etc.
• It is important in maintaining flow of
conversation and for gauging other
person’s interest and response.
• Eye Contact also helps set the tone of
the conversation without any use of words.
Body Language
• Body language is the use of physical behavior,
expressions, and mannerisms to communicate
nonverbally, often done instinctively rather than
consciously.
• You may wave, point, beckon, or use your hands
when arguing or speaking animatedly, often
expressing yourself with gestures without
thinking. However, the meaning of some
gestures can be very different across cultures
• At any time, it is of utmost importance to
maintain good gesture like having an open
posture, using firm handshake, direct eye contact
and avoid touching your face among others.
Body Postures
Situations like feelings of Standing with your
nervousness, stress, or hands on your hips,
even anger often shown communicate
by Arms folded in front aggression or a desire to
of the body, minimal or dominate whereas
tense facial expression or standing straight with
little eye contact. hands on side seen as a
Body Posture for Body Posture for First happy posture
difficult Conversation Impression
Sit upright, with your Get Your Camera
shoulders back and your straight up right and
arms unfolded by your don’t slouch. Sit straight
sides or in front of you in front of camera which
and restrained from shows your interest.
touching your face too
Body Posture for Public much. Body Posture for Virtual
Speaking or Interview Communication
Head Movements
•Head movements are especially
rich conveyors of communication
and one of the easiest nonverbal
cues to understand.
•Certain head movements tend to
be culture-specific, such as
nodding in agreement for within
western cultures.
• when presenting in a meeting,
you can gauge participants’
understanding and interest in your
presentation by observing their
head movements.
ALBERT MEHRABIAN'S 7-38-55 RULE OF PERSONAL COMMUNICATION
“The non-verbal elements are particularly important for communicating feelings and attitude, especially when they are incongruent: if words and
body language disagree, one tends to believe the body language.”
FIRST EXPERIMENT SECOND EXPERIMENT MEHRABIAN'S FORMULA
The Content v. The Tone The Tone v. The Facial Expression 7-38-55% Rule
Positive Dear Thanks Honey Maybe
Neutral Maybe Oh Really 7%
Three tones of voices saying the word Use of
Negative Brute Don't Terrible 'Maybe' in three different ways Words
Each word was spoken with three different Three facial expressions were
tones i.e., positive, neutral and combined with the above recording
negative towards an imaginary addressee
38%
3 groups of 10 participants were asked to Tone of
listen to the recordings and rate the degree Voice
of positive attitude of the speaker
FINDINGS?
Group 1: Only the content
Group 2: Only the tone of voice
Group 3: All the information available
55%
Body
FINDINGS? Language
Weightage to Dated origin
Criticisms of Non-verbal Component
Albert Validity & practicality is often questioned
• Albert Mehrabian himself admits that it can be applicable only in certain
Mehrabian's contexts
Limited application
experiment • limited to cases when the communicator is expressing attitudes or
emotions, and when body language and tone of voice contradict the
meaning of the spoken word
Gender specific research
• his sample contained all female participants
Language & binary approach
• The language used was restrictive and weighted either as positive or
negative
Emails & contemporary communication methods cannot convey
the 93% Non-verbal factor
Limitations in Emphasis on delivery
practical • Creativity, Content, authenticity alone can get a speech right even
without proper delivery
implications of Consistency
the experiment • Difficult to apply the rule when a speaker is trying to portray a wide
variety of emotions
Digital communication
• In our current digital environment or the general electronic
communication stifles the application of the theory as we may not be
able to convey tone of voice or facial expressions
• For example, If applied to a medium such as email the theory would
imply that only 7% of any message conveyed will be understood by the
recipient, which is definitely untrue
THANK YOU