MATERIALS FOR GESTURE-READING
Posted on December 11, 2008 - Filed Under Uncategorized
“’Tis the sublime of man . . . to know ourselves parts and proportions of one wondrous whole!”
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
“Religious Musings”
A storehouse of information on the observation of gestures and their interpretive meanings has been made available to us every time we have conducted a seminar. We usually devote the initial segment of the seminar to asking people to comment on gestures that they have observed and to consider possible meanings. Some of the more obvious gestures, such as folded arms, are quickly associated with a defensive posture. However, some — such as steepling (putting the fingertips together) (see Figure 40) — are often misinterpreted as something other than confidence. When we discuss the data gathered on this gesture and ask how a person might react in a real-life situation to someone who steeples, the majority agrees that a confident attitude and the steepling gesture are indeed congruous. Add to this gesture a slight turning up of the lips in a faint smile and most will accept the label “the cat that swallowed the canary” gesture.
The individual significance of a gesture is sometimes subject to as many interpretations as the number of persons evaluating it. But we must remember that each gesture is only one input and that the total
congruent communication picture is what we are seeking. We should not be completely influenced by observing only one signal and making a decision while being unaware of the gesture-cluster and the prior and subsequent gestures.
In order to comprehend the full meaning of a gesture-cluster and determine the congruity of its components, let us first look at several types of nonverbal communication that are easily recognizable and often encountered.
Taken From : How To Read A Person Like a Book
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