The Definitive Book of Body Language (2 page)

The ability to work out what is really happening with a person is simple—not easy, but simple. It's about matching what you see and hear in the environment in which it all happens and drawing probable conclusions. Most people, however, only see the things they think they are seeing. Here's a story to demonstrate the point:

Two men were walking through the woods when they came across a big deep hole.

“Wow… that looks deep,” says one. “Let's toss a few pebbles in and see how deep it is.”

They threw in a few pebbles and waited, but there was no sound.

“Gee—that is a
really
deep hole. Let's throw one of these big rocks in. That should make a noise.”

They picked up two football-sized rocks and tossed them into the hole and waited, but still they heard nothing.

“There's a railway sleeper over here in the weeds,” said one. “If we toss that in, it's
definitely
going to make some noise.” They dragged the heavy sleeper over to the hole and heaved it in, but not a sound came from the hole.

Suddenly, out of the nearby woods, a goat appeared, running like the wind. It rushed toward the two men and ran right between them, running as fast as its legs could go. Then it
leaped into the air and disappeared into the hole. The two men stood there, astonished at what they'd just seen.

Out of the woods came a farmer who said, “Hey! Did you guys see my goat?”

“You bet we did! It was the craziest thing we've ever seen! It came running like the wind out of the woods and jumped into that hole!”

“Nah,” says the farmer. “That couldn't have been my goat. My goat was chained to a railway sleeper!”

Sometimes we say we know something “like the back of our hand” but experiments prove that less than 5 percent of people can identify the back of their hands from a photograph. The results of a simple experiment we conducted for a television program showed that most people are generally not good at reading body-language signals, either. We set up a large mirror at the end of a long hotel lobby, giving the illusion that, as you entered the hotel, there was a long corridor going through the hotel and out the back of the lobby. We hung large plants from the ceiling to a distance of five feet above the floor so that, as each person entered the lobby, it looked as if another person was entering at the same time from the other end. The “other person” was not readily recognizable because the plants covered their face, but you could clearly see their body and movement. Each guest observed the other “guest” for five to six seconds before turning left to the reception desk. When asked if they had recognized the other “guest,” 85 percent of men answered no. Most men had failed to recognize themselves in a mirror, one saying, “You mean that fat, ugly guy?” Unsurprisingly, 58 percent of the women said it was a mirror and 30 percent said the other “guest” looked “familiar.”

People everywhere have developed a fascination with the body language of politicians because everyone knows that politicians sometimes pretend to believe in something that they don't believe in, or imply that they are someone other than who they really are. Politicians spend much of their time ducking, dodging, avoiding, pretending, lying, hiding their emotions and feelings, using smoke screens or mirrors and waving to imaginary friends in the crowd. But we instinctively know that they will eventually be tripped up by contradictory body-language signals, so we love to watch them closely, in anticipation of catching them out.

For another television show, we conducted an experiment with the cooperation of a local tourist bureau. Tourists entered the bureau to ask for information about local sightseeing and other tourist attractions. They were directed to a counter where they spoke with a tourism officer, a man with blond hair, a mustache, wearing a white shirt and tie. After a few minutes discussing possible itineraries, the man bent down out of sight below the counter to get some brochures. Then another man with a clean-shaven face, dark hair, and wearing a blue shirt appeared from beneath the counter holding the brochures. He continued the discussion from exactly where the first man had left off. Remarkably, around half the tourists failed to notice the change and men were twice as likely as women to completely
miss the change, not only in body language but in the appearance of a completely new person! Unless you have an innate ability or have learned to read body language, the chances are you're missing most of it, too. This book will show you what you've been missing.

Barbara and I have written
The Definitive Book of Body Language
using my original book,
Body Language
, as our base. Not only have we considerably expanded on that one, we have also introduced research from new scientific disciplines such as evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology, as well as technologies such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), which shows what happens in the brain. We have written it in a style that means it can be opened and read on almost any page at random. We've kept the content mainly to the movement of the body, expressions, and gestures, because these are the things you need to learn to get the most out of every face-to-face encounter.
The Definitive Book of Body Language
will make you more aware of your own nonverbal cues and signals, and will show you how to use them to communicate effectively and how to get the reactions you want.

This book isolates and examines each component of body language and gesture in simple terms to make it accessible to you. Few gestures are made in isolation of others, however, so we have also, at the same time, tried to avoid oversimplifying things.

There will always be those who throw up their hands in horror and claim that the study of body language is just another means by which scientific knowledge can be used to exploit or dominate others by reading their secrets or thoughts. We feel, however, that this book seeks to give you greater insight into communication with your fellow humans, so that you can have a deeper understanding of other people and, therefore, of yourself. Understanding how something works makes living with it
easier, whereas ignorance and lack of understanding promote fear and superstition and make us more critical of others. A bird-watcher doesn't study birds so that he can shoot them down and keep them as trophies. In the same way, the knowledge and skills in body language serve to make every encounter with another person an exciting experience.

For the purpose of simplicity, and unless otherwise stated, the use of “he” or “him” will apply equally to both genders.

The original book was intended as a working manual for salespeople, managers, negotiators, and executives, but this one can be used for any aspect of your life, be it at home, on a date, or at work.
The Definitive Book of Body Language
is the result of over thirty years of our cumulative knowledge and involvement in this field and we give you the basic vocabulary you need to read attitudes and emotions. This book will give you answers to some of the most puzzling questions you've ever had about why people use some of the behaviors they do, and it will change forever your own behavior. It will seem as if you've always been in a dark room and, while you could always feel the furnishings, the wall hangings, and the door, you've never actually seen what they look like. This book will be like turning on the lights to see what was always there. But now, you'll know exactly what things are, where they are, and what to do about them.

Allan Pease

This is “good” to Westerners, “one” to Italians,
“five” to Japanese, and “up yours” to the Greeks

Everyone knows someone who can walk into a room full of people and within minutes give an accurate description about the relationships between those people and what they are feeling. The ability to read a person's attitudes and thoughts by their behavior was the original communication system used by humans before spoken language evolved.

Before radio was invented, most communication was done in writing through books, letters, and newspapers, which meant that ugly politicians and poor speakers such as Abraham Lincoln could be successful if they persisted long enough and wrote good print copy. The radio era gave openings to people who had a good command of the spoken word, like Winston Churchill, who spoke wonderfully but may have struggled to achieve as much in today's more visual era.