The Good Nonverbal Communication

張貼日期：Mar 08, 2020 5:29:33 PM

Annie Liu

The first impression is important in interpersonal relationships. A person’s appearance, looks, dressing and behaviors are all important for giving people a good impression. I would like to focus on non-verbal behaviors. In my opinion, paying attention to the facial expression and the body language management makes better communication.

Nonverbal behaviors play important roles in communication. Most of the time, our message is delivered through how we look when we say something, not what we actually say. Albert Mehrabian, a pioneer researcher of body language in the 1950’s, found that the total impact of a message is the result of about 7 percent verbal, 38 percent vocal and 55 percent nonverbal behavior. Mehrabian reveals his findings of various types of language behavior in his book, Silent Messages. Take myself as an example. I have a part-time job in a restaurant. We are all asked to service the customers and solve their problems in smile even though we have been very busy all the time. Otherwise, I may receive customer complaints. Regardless of how I do my job quickly and perfectly, as long as I give my customers a bad look- it’s unacceptable to them. From here we see how important the nonverbal behaviors are in our life.

We should not let the bad facial expressions screw up the interpersonal interaction. We can know whether the persons like us or not from their facial expressions. For instance, a smile shows happiness or agreement. That’s why people always say, “A laugh is the language without a word.” Raising eyebrows means to ask a question or emphasize a word. Sometimes people bite their lips when they are worried, anxious, or stressed. And tightening lips might be an indicator of distaste, disapproval, or distrust. Frowning will let someone feel you are unhappy, and lowering the brows shows someone you are angry or frustrated. It’s important to manage our facial expressions especially in public or in social interaction.

It is essential to read body language in order to be a kind and polite person. Through people’s body language we can learn whether the talk is delightful or not. This is the key to good communications. According to a study, we can know if a person is interested in the talk, his body will lean to the talker. And if people don’t want to continue the communication, their feet will not face the person talking to them. The feet will face toward the door’s way because they want to leave. If people cross arms, they may be defensive, and self-protective. Or they may feel uncomfortable in the talk. If people have closed posture, that indicates hostility, unfriendliness, and anxiety.

Having a good relationship and communication is something we have to learn in our whole life. And paying more attention to facial expressions and body language can help us to improve our interpersonal interaction and relationship.