Derren Brown: Archive
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From: happany
Date: Tue Dec 24, 2002 12:31am
Subject: Re: Reading Body Language
--- In a previous message mistersquashy wrote:
> Anti Essays : Psychology : Body Language
>
>
> Sometimes it\'s easy to tell what is on a person\'s mind by the way
> they position their body. Facial expressions also give clues as to
> what other people are thinking. The way a person stands, positions
> their arms, and smiles can tell a lot about them. Men and women
> typically have different movements, which mean different things.
> People position their bodies in many different ways when standing.
> The most intimate of them being, face to face, hip to hip (Fenney
> 102). This is something that usually only men do when they\'re mad.
> When conducting an experiment, in which she acted like a man for a
> day, Susan Fenney stood this way towards a male coworker. He would
> keep inching away from her. Within five minutes he had done two
> complete circles (Fenney 102).
> Men usually take up more space while sitting down. It is not
> necessarily because they are bigger; men were raised believing that
> they have more power then women (Fenney 102). They are also more
> likely to take an armrest, and least likely to give up a subway
seat
> to a pregnant lady (Fenney 102).
> The way men and women greet people is very different. Contrary to
> popular beliefs, men are more likely to touch women when they greet
> them, then women are to touch men. Men usually touch people on
their
> upper body, for instance, back-slapping. When Susan Fenney tried
this
> on her boss on her day as a man, he was startled and took a moment
to
> answer her. It is more like women to touch people on the shoulder
or
> arm (Fenney 102).
> Facial expressions are great indicators of what is on people\'s
> minds. The face has 44 muscles, nerves, and blood vessels, which
can
> twist into 5,000 different expressions (Blum 34). Facial
expressions
> are not always easy to read though. As Dr. Paul Ekman said, \"In a
> sense, the face is equipped to lie the most and leak the most, and
> thus can be a very confusing source of information\" (Blum 34). The
> face is able to signal emotions in a second, and it is also able to
> hide emotions just as well (Blum 32). Researchers have come up with
6
> basic and different expressions that are usually the most easy to
> read and make. Those are: anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise,
> and happiness (Blum 34).
> Smiles are the most easily recognized way of showing happiness. We
> can see when someone is smiling more clearly when away from them
300
> feet (the length of a football field) then any other expression
(Blum
> 34). Smiling can mean a lot of different things. Usually it means
\"I
> like you and I hope you like me\" (Fenney 105). Other times it can
> mean things like \"I\'m embarrassed\", \"I\'m shy\", or \"get away
> from me because I\'m feeling uptight\" (Gay 15). There are many
> different kinds of smiles. A grocery store clerk gives a customer a
> smile that is a lot different then the smiles on the faces of a
> person that just won the lottery. A polite smile (like a bank
teller
> would smile) is slightly turned up at the edges of the lips, but
has
> no effect on the eyes. There is also the felt smile, which is when
> your lips pull upward and your eyes crinkle (Blum 34). Women tend
to
> give friendly, nonthreatening smiles while they look at people,
> unlike men who generally don\'t change their facial expression
> (Fenney 105).
> A lot of body language is learned while we are young. It is easy
for
> babies to learn that a nod means \"yes\" and a shake of the head
> means \"no\" (Gay 13). Young kids tend to learn by copying their
> older brothers and sisters. This is where some learn things like
> grooming, dressing, walking and sitting. Children without siblings
> learn from other people, like their parents (Gay 13).
> Some body language is instinct. Before young children can even
talk,
> they bite when they are mad. The naturalist, Charles Darwin,
explains
> that this is like young crocodiles that \"snap their little jaws as
> soon as they emerge from the egg\" (Gay 15). It is also understood
> that when someone has their arms open towards you, it means to
\"come
> here\" (Gay 13). George Rotter, Ph.D., said, \"The abilities to
> express and recognize emotion are inborn, genetic, and
evolutionary\"
> (Blum 34). Some things that can affect our ability to recognize
> emotions are culture, parenting, and experience. Some studies
suggest
> that abused children are likely to not be able to correctly
identify
> other\'s facial expressions, and therefore are more likely to get
in
> trouble (Blum 34).
> Facial expressions and body language can help give clues as to what
> people are thinking. We make constant movements every second of the
> day without realizing it. Trying to read facial expressions can be
> very hard, because they are so quick. Body language, on the other
> hand, is more easily read. We are taught some very obvious types of
> body language, like that someone is lying when they won\'t look you
> in the eye, but there are many more than that. Watching people from
a
> distance, you can usually determine how they feel about each other,
> whether they are friends, family, or just plain strangers. Body
> language is something we see everyday that helps us to communicate
> without words.
> Works Cited
> Blum, Deborah, \"Face It!,\" Psychology Today Oct 98: 32-66.
> Fenney, Susan, \"What I Got When I Acted Like a Guy,\" Redbook
April
> 95: 102-105.
> Gay, Kathlyn. Body Talk. New York: Charles Scriber\'s Sons, 1974
Yes - but how on earth could you tell, just by looking at someone
that they were thinking about falling out of a tree ????
