Discussion Board Post: Self-awareness in negotiation through nonverbal communication
In the Harvard reading, Nonverbal Communication in Negotiation, we have another opportunity to learn about this source of negotiation insight. Unless you are a trained Secret Service agent (p. 17), most people lack the ability to draw accurate conclusions from body language (p. 18). Potentially, humans possess the capacity to plunge into emotional cognition by recognizing their own emotions, managing these emotions, motivating themselves to achieve a goal, recognizing emotions in others, and managing relationships with others (p. 19). Understanding nonverbal communication requires self-awareness. Select one of the five “prescriptions” from pp. 19-20 and comment on its practical value. For the exclusive use of C. OPARA, 2023.
9-903-081
REV: SEPTEMBER 14, 2009
MICHAEL WHEELER
No
onverba
al Communicaation in
n Nego
otiation
n
An Introducto
I
ory Exercisse
Co
onsider the negotiation pictured below
w: what’s you
ur best guess about what’ss going on? Here’s
H
some background. Three MBA
A students arre engaged in a simulateed but unscriipted negotiaation.1
Neils,, on the right, represents a national reetailing chain
n. Daniel and
d David, on the
t left and in
i the
middlle, are a team
m representing
g a regional real
r
estate dev
veloper trying
g to work out a long-term
m lease
with Neils’ compa
any, which th
hey hope wiill anchor theeir planned shopping
s
cen
nter. The imaage in
Figurre 1 is of a speecific momentt about 45 min
nutes into theeir negotiation
n.
Figure 1
Source: HBS classroom
m video.
ow take a mo
oment to look
k at the picturre again and mull
m over wh
hat might be taking
t
place in
i the
No
negottiation. You will
w get more out of this no
ote if you jot down your own
o
hunchess before contin
nuing
to thee next page.
1 Speciial thanks go to Neils
N
Bormans, Daniel
D
Krutzina,, and David Walch who kindly agreed to the pu
ublication of thiss image
and oth
hers in this note.
______________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
Professo
or Michael Wheelerr and Research Asssociate Dana Nelson
n prepared this notte as the basis for class
c
discussion.
ght © 2003, 2004, 2009 President and Fellows of Harvarrd College. To ord
der copies or requeest permission to reeproduce materialss, call 1Copyrig
800-545–7685, write Harvarrd Business Schooll Publishing, Boston
n, MA 02163, or go
o to http://www.h
hbsp.harvard.edu. No part of this pub
blication
may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval sysstem, used in a sp
preadsheet, or transsmitted in any form
m or by any mean
ns—electronic, mecchanical,
photoco
opying, recording, or
o otherwise—with
hout the permission
n of Harvard Busin
ness School.
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Now, compare your reading of this single snapshot with what was actually happening. The retail
operator, Neils (right), had just made a proposal to the real estate development team of Daniel and
David. Daniel (left) is enthusiastic about Neils’ offer, but David (center) is not convinced they should
accept it. Daniel is trying to get David, his own partner, to agree to the deal.
Did you get the gist of it? Some people are uncanny in their readings of this picture, making
interpretations that square exactly with what was taking place. Others are not quite as precise but
have a sense that the real negotiation is between the two ostensible teammates, Daniel and David,
and not across the table with Neils. Very few people who see the picture are utterly off the mark.
Think about what you were looking at to make your own interpretation. Maybe it was their
gestures. Neils has his hand to his chin in a thoughtful pose, as if he were waiting for something to
happen. Daniel’s hands are up, as if he were making a point. By contrast, David’s hands are drawing
back, perhaps not agreeing. Or you might have noted what they were doing with their eyes: Neils is
clearly watching what is going on between the other two. Their broader gestures and postures may
offer clues as well: Daniel seems to be moving toward his partner, while David is leaning back.
In isolation, no one of these things is meaningful, but together they reveal important aspects of the
interaction. Moreover, the behavior was not deliberate; while it may be easy for us to glean meaning
from the picture as detached observers, the parties themselves may have been only partially aware of
what their behavior expressed. If we had been at the bargaining table ourselves, we would have had
to cope with a constant stream of perceptions—images, sounds, emotions—with no pause button to
let us stop and separate important signals from all the background noise. Add to that the pressure to
succeed (or survive) in a high-stakes situation, and it’s a small wonder that when we interact we
often miss important nonverbal messages.
Negotiators who nevertheless manage to look for to nonverbal cues have a distinct advantage in
dealing with other people. They are more likely to know when a “yes” means real commitment to a
deal and when it is said with reservation; they can distinguish real threats and promises from those
that are only bluster; and they can spot confusion and unspoken anger, and thus defuse difficult
situations and build trust. People thus skilled at reading nonverbal communication may do it
intuitively, but they do not have some special ESP. They are simply alert to behaviors that the rest of
us often overlook or misinterpret.2
This note distills the practical implications of current research on nonverbal communication.
Specifically, the first section sketches different kinds of nonverbal behavior: facial expressions, eye
movements, physical gestures, paraverbal cues, posture, and “personal space.” The next section looks
more deeply at the interactive nature of nonverbal communication, specifically, how one person’s
behavior both influences and reflects what others do. The final section suggests how negotiators can
make better use of nonverbal communication, even on the fly. The following themes run throughout:
1.
We communicate far more information to other people than is conveyed by our words alone.3
2 While experts in reading nonverbal communication have long been thought of as possessing a rare, virtually unteachable
talent, in the past decade there has been a surge of “experts” in nonverbal communication who claim to be able to teach
anybody the art of “reading people.” Companies such as SpeedReadingPeople based out of Hartford, CT now offer training
professionals in many disciplines how to read the nonverbal behaviors of others, and how to use these observations to “reach”
one’s client, patient, or suspect
3 A reviewer for the movie Rushmore describes how words are sometimes unnecessary. In one scene, a young Max Fischer
(Jason Schwartzman) confesses to his older friend and rival Herman Blume (Bill Murray) that his father is actually a barber, not
an illustrious neurosurgeon as he had earlier claimed. “If you want to pick one shot from this year’s movies, try the look on Bill
Murray’s face as he shakes hands with Fischer senior: puzzlement, disbelief, a speck of outrage, the quiet rush of truth, and last
2
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2.
Our nonverbal signals sometimes contradict the words we use and subvert our objectives.
3.
Much of this communication is less than fully conscious. Many behaviors are not deliberate,
nor are we aware of performing them. Likewise, while we are all affected by the behavior of
others, we do not fully appreciate how it shapes our own perceptions and emotional state.
4.
Reading nonverbal communication is an art, not a science, but with practice and reflection we
can become more responsive and influential.
5.
Nonverbal communication must be understood in the context of the broader set of
interactions among all the parties. (Just think how the individual cues in Figure 1 mean much
more when considered in relation to one another.)
From Snake Oil to Science
Much that is written about body language in popular books and magazines unfortunately has
little basis in science and even less practical value. Some is downright silly. For example, two selfdescribed experts declare: “Baseball caps, hats, and ponytails on a balding man can . . . indicate
resistance to growing older (or growing up).”4 Manuals on salesmanship are likewise full of tips
ranging from the obvious to the dubious. One author claims, “We . . . close our fists when threatened,
such as a woman clutching her purse or someone grabbing the arms of a chair. Threatening people,
likewise, shake their fist and bang it on the table.”5 By contrast he notes that an “open palm has
always been a green-light sign of the friendly person who can be trusted and counted on.”6 Evidence
for his proposition: the facts that saints are often depicted with palms up and that people hold their
hands up when taking oaths in court.
Such nonsense has given the study of body language a bad name. As Dave Zielinski observes,
“Many body-language bromides are little more than urban myths that have seeped into our belief
systems by sheer repetition, passed along in how-to books or at industry conferences like so much
gossip. Many of these axioms ignore the subtleties of changing . . . contexts, speakers’ personal
comfort levels or their desire to communicate in an authentic, unselfconscious way. Others are pure
bunk.”7
Facial Expression
Serious researchers have thus had to distance themselves from the widespread quackery. Many
have done so by focusing on particular aspects of nonverbal communication (e.g., facial expression,
physical gesture, or posture) rather than trying to tackle the topic comprehensively. Until recently,
they have also had to swim upstream against scientific orthodoxy.
of all, a gentle settling of kindness. The entire thing takes maybe four seconds: this is known as acting.” (Anthony Lane,
Nobody’s Perfect (New York: Knopf, 2002), p. 267.)
4 Jo-Ellen Dimitrius and Mark Mazzarella, Reading People, (New York: Random House, 1998), p. 50. The authors hedge by
admitting that “many balding men have to wear a hat outdoors to avoid sunburn on their scalp or for warmth in cold
weather,” but caution that “if the hat stays on indoors, that’s another story.”
5 John Perry, “Palm Power in the Workplace,” The American Salesman, 46: 10 (October 2001): 22–26.
6 Ibid.
7 Dave Zielinski, “Body Language Myths,” Presentations, 15: 4 (April 2001): 36–42.
3
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Paul Ekman is now one of the most respected figures in this field,8 but he had little academic
support in the 1960s when he began to explore whether facial expressions carry the same meaning
across cultures. Many other social scientists, including Margaret Mead, dismissed Ekman’s
hypothesis that they were universal, clinging to the conventional wisdom of the time that facial
expressions are learned behaviors, specific to particular social environments.9
Ekman persisted, however. He traveled around the world, showing people pictures of facial
expressions and asking them to assign an emotion to each. He found that the expressions for
happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust10 were universally recognized, even in isolated
cultures. He also discovered, however, that cultures may have different norms dictating who is
permitted to “show which emotions, to whom, and when.”11 Ekman and his colleagues cataloged
thousands of possible facial expressions, labeling each one with its corresponding emotion. Their
result—the Facial Action Coding System, or FACS—provides intricate rules for reading and
interpreting each expression. The system takes weeks to master, but those who do so achieve a much
higher rate of accuracy in reading facial expressions.
Other scholars have taken the opposite approach, looking at how expressions can cause emotions.
For example, a group of German psychologists had subjects look at cartoons while holding a pen
either between their lips or between their teeth. Those holding the pen in their lips were unable to
contract the muscles necessary for smiling, while those using their teeth were forced to grin. This
second, grinning group thought the cartoons were funnier than did the first group. The physical set
of their faces had affected their feelings—and their judgment.12
Actors have long navigated the two-way street between outward bearing and the internal state.
Method actors are taught to draw on emotional memory to generate an authentic performance.
Conversely, classical training claims that actors don’t actually have to feel the emotion; they simply
have just to “assume the position.”13
Actors tend to embrace one approach and disdain the other, though research amply demonstrates
that just as emotions may spark facial expressions, physical behavior can affect emotion. For example,
a study measured physiological indices of anger, sadness, and fear in two groups: one was told to
relive an experience, the other to replicate the facial expressions associated with such emotions.
8 Ekman is a professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California Medical School in San
Francisco. For downloads of his recent publications, see http://www.paulekman.com/frame.html.
9 Malcolm Gladwell, “The Naked Face,” The New Yorker (August 5, 2002): 40.
10 Some scientists disagree about which feelings are “basic emotions” and which are more properly called “moods.” Basic
emotions are regarded as universal and innate. They include emotions such as the six mentioned above, although some
theorists have made additions or subtractions to this list. They typically have rapid onset and last a few seconds. Higher
cognitive emotions include love, guilt, shame, embarrassment, pride, envy, and jealousy. Some researchers classify happiness
and sadness as moods, signifying their tendency to be somewhat longer lasting though less acute. For an overview, see Dylan
Evans, Chapter 1, “Universal Language,” in Emotion: The Science of Sentiment, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); also
Susan T. Fiske & Shelley E. Taylor, Social Cognition, (New York: McGraw Hill, 1991).
11 Paul Ekman, “Facial Expression and Emotion,” American Psychologist, 48: 4 (April 1993): 384.
12 Gladwell, p. 47. Earlier studies asking participants to smile or frown demonstrated this causal relationship; however this
study is particularly interesting because it forces participants to make expressions without being aware of doing so, thus
demonstrating that the facial configuration itself—as opposed to an awareness of one’s expression—is responsible for the
emotional change, thereby suggesting a physiological component.
13 Laurence Olivier was one of the most famous actors of the classical school. Tony Curtis, who costarred with Olivier in
Sparticus (1960), recalls him saying: “You know, Tony, clothes make the actor . . . . Dress the part, look at yourself, and you are
the part. Put the clothes on, and you’ll slowly begin to see an image of what you want to be” (Mark Feeney, “They helped get
his act together,” Boston Globe, January 15, 2003, sec. C, p. 6.)
4
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Despite their differing instructions, the groups had the same physiological responses.14 This nexus
between outer and inner states is central to the practice of meditation: a posture of stillness and
measured breathing can bring mental tranquility.15 Coaches likewise implore players to “put on their
game faces” as a part of their mental preparation for competition.
The linkage between internal feelings and visible behavior has evolutionary roots. At one time
many of our visceral reactions were quite adaptive: when our ancestors had to cope with saber-tooth
tigers, their “fight or flight” response (racing heart, soaring blood pressure, dilating pupils) helped
them either defend themselves or run from predators. In today’s tough business negotiations this
automatic, physical response may be less appropriate, but the flush in our faces and the tension in
our muscles are still there for others to see.16
Social norms can also give birth to nonverbal communication, particularly when we have
contradictory motives. Take “tells” in poker, for example: the unintended signals people send about
the cards they are holding. One poker player claims that they reflect subconscious conflict.
Parents, teachers, and the Bible preach to us that telling the truth is always better in the long
run. That rigorous education settles into the subconscious and becomes the foundation for the
character we display as we grow into adults. Tells are simply a result of conflict between the
implanted notion of morality and our intention to deceive.17
Even though strong biological and social forces trigger our nonverbal behavior, people actually
can mask their feelings rather well. In fact, the very act of covering them up may serve to dampen
them. More than a century ago Darwin himself observed:
The free expression by outward signs of an emotion intensifies it. On the other hand, the
repression, as far as is possible, of all outward signs softens our emotions. He who gives way
to violent gestures will increase his rage; he who does not control the signs of fear will
experience fear in greater degree; and he who remains passive when overwhelmed with grief
loses his best chance of recovering elasticity of mind.18
While we may exercise significant self-control, however, hints of emotion can leak out in what
Ekman calls “micro-expressions.” These are fleeting, involuntary, and often unconscious facial
expressions that occur when emotions stimulate corresponding facial muscles: a momentary blush or
twitch that might be caught in a frame or two of film but which would escape the notice of most
observers. Nonetheless, Ekman is confident that people can be trained to recognize signals that may
last only a tenth of a second. “I have a training tape, and people love it,” he says. “They start it, and
they can’t see any of these expressions. Thirty-five minutes later, they can see them all. What that
says is that this is an accessible skill.”19 In the context of negotiation, people who are better able to
14 Gladwell, p. 47.
15 A deeply revered Buddhist monk counsels, “Anywhere you find yourself sitting or standing, half smile.” (Thich Nhat Hanh,
The Miracle of Mindfulness (Boston: Beacon Press, 1975), p. 122.)
16 “Fight or Flight: The Evolution of Stress,” StopStress.Com Catalog, http://www.stressstop.com/articles/article1.html
(accessed October 25, 2002.
17 Andy Bellin, “Tells: The Fine Art of Losing at Poker,” The Atlantic Online, January 2002, http://www.theatlantic.com/
issues/2002/01/bellin.htm, accessed August 16, 2002.
18 Charles Darwin, The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1872/1965), p. 365.
19 Gladwell, p. 46.
5
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read expressions of counterparts have a distinct advantage, in that they can gauge the tone of the
other person and make adjustments to their own approach accordingly.
The literature in clinical psychology lends support to this claim that sensitivity to facial
expressions can be developed—sometimes as a necessity for survival. Several studies have found that
adults who were physically or sexually abused as children are better at reading facial expressions
than those who were not abused, especially when these facial expressions depict negative emotions
such as anger.20 It is possible that situations of prolonged abuse force children to become more
attuned to their abusers’ expressions so that they can avoid further abuse. Some theorists take this a
step further and suggest that people who historically have been in a position of weakness—such as
women or other traditionally oppressed groups—may become more sensitive to the nonverbal
signals of others in order to survive and get what they need in their relatively weak positions.
Evidence such as this suggests that these skills are, in fact, learnable, while sometimes at great cost to
the individual.
Eye Movement
Negotiation is rich with ocular metaphors. When we come to agreement, we “see eye-to-eye.” A
bargainer who gives in to a demand is said to have “blinked.” When someone won’t look at us
directly, we regard him as “shifty-eyed” and untrustworthy.
Research does show a connection between eye contact and perceived power dynamics. This may
be related to paying attention and showing respect. Studies show that speakers feel more powerful
and valued when listeners maintain eye contact; conversely, speakers feel that listeners who are
looking elsewhere have more power and control in the situation.21 Research also indicates that that
speakers who themselves maintain eye contact while making a request achieve a higher rate of
compliance than those who break their gaze.22
Many people also regard eye contact (more specifically, the lack of it) as an indicator of a person’s
credibility, but surprisingly, this belief is contradicted by research.23 There are many benign reasons
why someone might avoid steady eye contact. Some are personal—for example, shyness or a lack of
confidence—while others are socially and culturally determined. One classic study found that Arabs,
Latin Americans, and southern Europeans focused their gaze on the eyes or face of their partners,
while Asians, Indian-Pakistanis, and northern Europeans were more likely to look toward but not
20 Amy W. Wagner & Marsha M. Lineham, “Facial expression recognition ability among women with borderline personality
disorder: Implications for emotional regulation,” Journal of Personality Disorders, 13: 4 (Winter, 1999): 329–344; and Amy W.
Wagner, “Relationship between emotion knowledge and reports of childhood sexual abuse among women without diagnosis
of borderline personality disorder,” Dissertation Abstracts International, sec. B: The Sciences and Engineering, 56: 12-B (June,
1996): 7059.
21 A. Milton Jenkins & Randall D. Johnson, “What the Information Analyst Should Know about Body Language,” MIS
Quarterly, 1: 3 (September 1977): 40.
22 Nicolas Gueguen & Celine Jacob, “Direct Look Versus Evasive Glance and Compliance with a Request,” Journal of Social
Psychology, 142: 3 (June 2002): 393–396. This study found that the effect described was stronger in women than in men,
suggesting that the genders may differ in their responsiveness to various types of nonverbal communication.
23 DePaulo, Peter J. and Bella M. DePaulo, “Can Deception by Salespersons and Customers Be Detected by Nonverbal
Behavioral Cues?” Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 19: 18 (1989): 1552–1557. “Further, there are a few behaviors, such as
frequent gaze aversion (‘shifty eyes’) that are mistakenly taken as signs of deceit: Such cues are correlated with observers’
impressions of deception but not with actual deceit” (DePaulo & DePaulo, p. 1554).
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directly at the other person, or not to look at him at all.24 In the United States, eye contact shows
others that you are paying attention and are interested in what they have to say; in West Africa,
however, as well as among some groups in Japan and Korea, people avoid eye contact as a way of
communicating respect.25 In these cultures, direct eye contact is a sign of weakness and can be seen as
rude, disrespectful, and intimidating; it can also be seen to have sexual overtones.26
Ignorance about these social norms can foster misconstruals and undermine constructive
relationships. Research indicates that African-Americans engage in less eye contact than European
Americans, a continuing vestige of the days of slavery and, more recently, of segregation when a
black person who stood tall and looked directly risked scorn—and far worse—for seeming “uppity.”
The same study, moreover, found that white participants regarded listeners who avoided looking at
them as less interesting and more withholding.27 Furthermore, researchers have found that whites
and blacks tend to have subtly different eye behaviors that act as turn-taking cues. Conversations
across races, often complicated to begin with, become all the more frustrating if people have different
behavioral habits.28
Finally, some of the things that we do with our eyes appear to be hard-wired. Just imagine a
person who is trying to remember a fact: you will likely visualize someone whose eyes are cast
upwards as if searching his mind for the answer. Likewise, reflection sometimes requires so much
concentration that we close our eyes to avoid distraction. The controversial practice of neurolinguistic programming (NLP) is described in the appendix. Even though its particular interpretative
guidelines are suspect, there is no doubting the close linkage between our thinking and our eyes.
As a general rule, we should be cautious about reading too much into others’ eye behavior.29
Social norms and personal habits vary widely. Cues that may have more meaning (like dilated
pupils) are hard to catch in the moment, though experienced card sharks do take the precaution of
wearing dark sunglasses when they are at the table. Our attention may be better focused on our own
behavior, making sure that it is appropriate to the situation. A riveting gaze can seem robotic,
insincere, or threatening. On the other hand, even in reserved cultures some sort of personal
acknowledgement—a look of agreement, a questioning eyebrow—is certainly appropriate signal that
you are listening and engaged.
24 Loretta A. Malandro, Larry L. Barker, & Deborah Ann Barker, Nonverbal Communication, 2 ed. (New York: Random House,
1983/1989), p. 311.
nd
25 Malandro et al., p. 312.
26 Deborah Wang, “Eye Contact & Movement,” Nonverbal Communication Web Project, http://soc302.tripod.com/
soc_302rocks/id1.html, accessed January 28, 2002.
27 LaFrance and Mayo (1976) as cited in Malandro, et al., pp. 140–141.
28 Ibid.
29 After President George W. Bush first met Vladimir Putin, he gushed that he was confident that he could trust his Russian
counterpart, having looked him in the eye: “I was able to get a sense of his soul” (Ron Fournier, “Bush says he got sense of
Putin’s soul,” Chicago Sun-Times, June 17, 2001, p. 2). Bush’s enthusiasm caught his own advisers off guard and drew criticism
from many fronts. An editorial writer who had also spent a brief time with Putin found him hard to read. “I sat very close to
Putin, listened carefully to what he had to say and remembered that he was a spy, that he had been a KGB agent and was once
head of his country’s domestic intelligence service—in other words, a trained liar. I had no idea of what to make of him”
(Richard Cohen, “Sizing Up Putin,” Washington Post, June 19, 2001, sec. A, p. 21).
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Gestures
Gestures can be an important aspect of nonverbal communication, but they are often interpreted
simplistically in popular literature. Julius Fast, author of the classic book, Body Language, notes,
“Perhaps scratching the nose is an indication of disagreement, but it may also be an indication of an
itchy nose.”30 Gestures can only be understood in the context of an entire interaction—just as the
meaning of a word or statement depends on the context of the conversation—otherwise they will
likely be misunderstood.
Gestures serve different functions in conversation. Researchers distinguish “emblems” that have
specific verbal translations (a beckoning hand) from “illustrators” which act out what is being said
(the outstretched arms describing the fish that got away). They also differentiate so-called
“regulators” that direct the flow and intensity of conversation (picture someone “talking with his
hands”) from “adaptors” which simply deal with physical needs (rubbing a stiff neck).31
The gestures that we make thus result from a complex mix of what we are physically feeling in the
moment and the expressive norms that we’ve grown up with. Even some emblematic gestures are
ambiguous, especially across cultures. Take, for example, the inauspicious start of presidential
meeting between Richard Nixon of the US and Leonid Brezhnev of the USSR in 1973. Upon his
arrival, Brezhnev raised his arms high in a way that many Americans interpreted to be the gesture of
a brash victor when the Soviet leader meant to signal open friendship.32
As with making inferences about eye contact (or the lack of it), we should be cautious making
inferences about people’s specific gestures. Behavioral changes over the course of an interaction may
be more significant, however. When a previously animated person becomes more subdued, for
example, it may signal withdrawal and disengagement. In his popular book What Every Body Is
Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People, Joe Navarro uses examples from his
interrogations as an FBI agent to illustrate non-verbal cues that are universal and recognizable to
anyone trained to see them. Navarro asserts that by being attentive to changes in nonverbal factors
ranging from microexpressions to gross body movements, we can spot if the people we are dealing
with are comfortable or anxious, and from there draw conclusions about the current state of the
negotiation.
Prosody or “Paraverbal” Factors
Vocal qualities—tone of voice, pitch, emphasis, inflection, volume, rate of speech, and
pronunciation—can carry more meaning, intended and otherwise, than the actual words that are
spoken. For example, the sentence, “I did not ask her to come today,” could have many different
meanings, depending on where the emphasis falls. If it is on the pronoun, “I,” the implication is that
that someone else is responsible. If the stress is on the last word, “today,” the suggestion is that the
timing is wrong. Emphasis on “her” implies that someone else was invited—or that she, of all people,
is the most unwelcome. And if the emphasis is on “ask,” the implication is that she came uninvited.
These paraverbal clues clarify meaning and establish the attitude of the speaker towards others.
They also express emotion. On an Aloha Airlines flight some years ago a substantial portion of the
30 Julius Fast, Body Language (New York: Pocket Books, 1970), p. 149.
31 Paul Ekman & Wallace V. Friesen, “Hand Movements,” The Journal of Communication, 22 (December 1972), as cited in Jenkins
et al., pp. 35, 38–39.
32 Malandro, et al., p. 308.
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upper fuselage suddenly ripped off. One attendant was sucked out of the gaping hole and others
were injured. The pilot—Mimi Tomkins—somehow remained calm and managed to safely land the
damaged aircraft.
Tomkins was formally commended for her heroism, but Honolulu air traffic controllers were
criticized for not adequately reacting to the emergency. They had not even lined up fire-fighting
equipment to meet the flight. Why not? According to one controller, “She was so casual, that
somehow we didn’t fully realize the severity of the accident.” Experts on communication who
analyzed the incident concluded, “Had the pilot sounded more hysterical, more desperate, the tower
would have ‘gotten it.’”33
Perhaps Tomkins’ training had taught her to suppress her emotions in a crisis. While this suppression likely
allowed her the presence of mind needed to bring the plane to safety, it may have given the controllers a mixed
message. Habituated by daily routines, they may have registered her tone of voice but not the words themselves.
Posture
We speak of negotiators who have a “stance” on the issue, who “stand up” to demands, and even
“posture” over their bargaining power. The pervasiveness of such metaphors may reflect the power
of physical impressions. When we meet people, we see how they carry themselves even before
anyone has spoken a word. As Leston Havens observers:
We are all now and then guilty of the folly of judging others at a glance, across a crowded
room. It is the nature of first opinions to classify: in or out, strong or weak, dumb or smart,
shrewd or naïve . . . . At root the judgments are tribal: does the observed belong, or can I defeat
him?34
We read posture as a sign of person’s confidence and ease, and how they relate to others. (Are
they facing toward or away from each other? Leaning in or out?) Researcher Albert Sheflen has
outlined three dimensions of posture: (1) inclusiveness vs. noninclusiveness, (2) body orientation (visà-vis vs. parallel); and (3) congruence vs. noncongruence.35
Perceived inclusiveness can be a quality of either an individual or a group: a person will seem less
approachable if his arms are folded across his chest than if they are relaxed and open; likewise,
several people conversing will seem less open to company if their bodies are turned inward toward
the group than if their bodies are angled outward. One group of researchers even found that those
who maintain open body positions are better able to affect attitude change in listeners than those
with closed body positions.36
33 Elaine Hatfield, John T. Cocioppo, & Richard L. Rapson, Emotional Contagion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1994), p. 192. Research has also indicated a correlation between volume and tone of speech and one’s status. People who were
more powerful and/or of higher social status in a negotiation were perceived as having more “relaxed sounding” voices, and
speaking more loudly; Judith A. Hall, Erik J. Coats & Lavonia Smith LeBeau, “Non-Verbal Behavior and the Vertical
Dimension of Social Relations: A meta-analysis,” Psychological Bulletin, 131 (2005): 6, 898–924.
34 Leston Havens, as quoted in Peter Kramer’s, Should You Leave? (New York: Penguin, 1999), p. 236. Havens adds that these
quick judgments may have evolutionary roots, but they do not always serve us well.
35 Albert E. Sheflen, Body Language and Social Order (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1972), as cited in Jenkins &
Johnson, p. 41.
36 Hugh McGinley, Richard LeFevre, & Pat McGinely, “The Influence of a Communicator’s Body Position on Opinion Change
in Others,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 13: 4 (April 1975): 686-690, as cited in Jenkins & Johnson, p. 41.
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Body orientation describes the way people are aligned in relation to each other. Sheflen maintains
that people positioned vis-à-vis (literally, eye-to-eye) are confronting each other and engaged in each
other’s reactions, while parallel orientation suggests less interaction and concern for the other
person.37 This contradicts one of the core prescriptions of Getting to Yes!,38 namely, getting negotiators
on the same side of the table, so that they will be “hard on the problem and soft on the people.”39 It is
a thin line, perhaps, between constructively confronting each other’s needs and exacerbating
differences.
The third dimension of posture, congruence vs. noncongruence, describes the degree to which
parties’ body positions are similar. Scheflen contends that people who are in agreement are more
likely to assume similar postures than those who are in disagreement. We will explore this concept
shortly when we discuss mutual influence and emotional contagion. The key point is that one
person’s posture often both reflects and influences that of others.
“Personal Space”
The familiar notion of personal space is defined as “a portable territory with invisible boundaries
that expand or contract depending on the situation. Individuals carry it around with them constantly
and position themselves in conversation in a way that will maintain it.”40
The amount of personal space we prefer is heavily influenced by unspoken social norms learned
early in life. People in the United States tend to require a relatively large amount of personal space
and have relatively low levels of physical contact with others.41 While two North American men
conversing need about two feet of distances to feel comfortable, South Americans are at ease standing
much closer, and Arabs tend to stand closer still.42 These differences are likely to cause North
Americans to see South Americans and Arabs as pushy and invasive, while they in turn will see
North Americans as cold and distant.
Interpersonal distance can also serve as an indicator of discomfort, or trying to “evade” a
situation. When someone leans back, steps away, or puts something between themselves and the
person they are interacting with, it is likely a signal they wish to “distance themselves” figuratively
from the sitation (and are doing so in a literal way).43 Additionally, people of higher status tend to
37 Ibid.
38 Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (New York: Penguin,
1991).
39 William Ury’s subsequent book, Getting Past No: Negotiating With Difficult People (New York: Bantam, 1993), carries the
physical metaphor further in a chapter entitled “Step to Their Side,” in which he recommends listening, acknowledging, and
agreeing whenever possible (p. 54).
40 Malandro, et al., p. 186.
41 Edward Hall of Northwestern University attributes our relative lack of contact and proximity to our Puritan heritage: “Dr.
Hall points out that we spend years teaching our children not to crowd in and lean on us. We equate physical closeness with
sex, so that when we see two people standing close together we assume that they must be either courting or conspiring” (Flora
Davis, Inside Intuition (New York: Signet Books, 1971), p 82).
42 Davis, p. 82. One study found differences in the conversational distances assumed by Japanese, Venezuelan, and American
students (Sussman and Rosenfeld (1982), as cited in Malandro, et al., pp. 190–191). Interestingly, however, they found that,
when speaking English, both Japanese and Venezuelan students approximated the conversational distance of North
Americans.
43 Navarro, p. 31.
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impose a closer interpersonal distance upon those of lesser verticality.44 Our habits are so deeply
ingrained that encountering people with different norms can overwhelm our other thoughts and
feelings. Someone who ventures too close can trigger our fight-or-flight response, neither of which
reactions may serve our real interests. There is no easy language for negotiating a spatial solution
(“Shall we split the difference at a foot-and-a-half?”), but with a measure of self-awareness, we can
recognize our own role in these awkward social dances and not project too much negative meaning
in the other person’s steps.
A Holistic View
To this point, we have sketched different aspects of nonverbal communication—facial
expressions, eye movement, gestures, posture, and maintenance of personal space. These behaviors
are typically unconscious and are prompted by a mix of physiological and social forces. Specific
actions inevitably express something about the nature of the individual, but they should not be
interpreted by simple formulas. The meaning of nonverbal communication can only be divined as
behavioral patterns emerge over time. As we will see in the sections that follow, the key to real
understanding of nonverbal communication lies in seeing it interactively, in a relational context.
Mutual Influence
This section makes an argument about our behavior that may be unfamiliar to some readers. For
the sake of clarity its propositions are stated up-front. A series of illustrative photographs are
provided as well. The argument is that what we think, feel, and do is inextricably bound up with the
corresponding thoughts, feelings, and actions of our counterparts. Specifically:
•
Our physical behavior both influences and reflects the behavior of people with whom we
interact.
•
That behavior not only manifests our internal feelings; it also affects our emotional state.
•
Our emotional state, in turn, shapes how we perceive people and issues in the negotiation
process.
•
Nonverbal communication thus is much more than mere exchange of information:
specifically, it defines and expresses the negotiating relationship, positively or negatively.
Decoding nonverbal communication thus is not a matter of translating isolated gestures. A far more
interesting process of mutual influence takes place.
With these points in mind, take a look at the series of five pictures on the next page, and then turn
back to this text. You will recognize the same negotiators depicted on page 1 of this note, though here
they are in the very first moments of their interaction. (Neils, on the right, is negotiating with the
team of Daniel and David, on the left.)
As you will see, Neils brings his hand to his chin in Figure 2b, and then momentarily puts it down
again. Daniel seems to respond, though somewhat differently, in Figure 2c. Eight seconds later, Neils
assumes exactly the same posture (Figure 2d), and just seven seconds after that, David joins the other
two. What’s significant is that the participants were not consciously aware of their behavior at the
time. In fact, they did not even spot their convergence when they first viewed the videotape.
44 Hall et al., Nonverbal Behavior and the Vertical Dimension of Social Relations, p. 911.
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Behavioral psychologists call this phenomenon “mimicry,” and it has been well documented by
a host of researchers.45 More than physical behavior is passed from one person to another. Feelings
migrate just as powerfully because of the constant interplay between physical and emotional states.46
For example, studies have shown that when strangers are seated facing each other in silence, within a
minute or two, “the most emotionally expressive of the three transmits his or her mood to the other
two—without a word being spoken.”47
So what kinds of feelings may have been conveyed nonverbally in this sequence of photographs?
Recall that these were the very first moments of the negotiation, so the parties may understandably
have felt a bit anxious, especially as they were being videotaped. A trace of nervousness may explain
the gesture of propping up the chin.What’s striking is how quickly they all were doing the same
thing: just 11 seconds after Daniel raised his hands, Neils and David mirrored his behavior. Perhaps
they were all feeling this tension and found a common way to express it, thus making it part of their
collective experience. Perhaps only one of them initially felt this tension, but passed his emotions to
the others as they picked up his gestures.
Figure 2a (at 47 seconds)
Figure 2b (at 59 seconds)
45 “In conversation, people tend automatically and continuously to mimic and synchronize their movements with the facial
expressions, voices, postures, movements, and instrumental behaviors of others” (Hatfield, et al., p. 10).
46 “In fact, according to Gordon Allport (1986), the original meaning of the term empathy was ‘objective motor mimicry’; it
th
was only in the latter half of the 20 century that it came ot be used as a global term encompassing vicarious emotion, role
taking, and the ability to understand others.” (Tanya L. Chartrand & John A. Bargh, “The Chameleon Effect: The PerceptionBehavior Link and Social Interaction,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76: 6 (1999), 896.)
47 Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, & Annie McKee, “Primal Leadership: The Hidden Driver of Great Performance,” HBR,
December 2001, pp. 42.51, Reprint RO111C.
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Figure 2c (at 61 seconds)
Figure 2d (at 70 seconds)
Source: HBS classroom video
There are several plausible interpretations, but if this common display revealed some tension, it
may have had a surprisingly constructive impact. “Anxiety can also affect the way we see others,”
notes Dylan Evans. “Rather than making us view strangers in a negative way, being in an anxious
mood can actually make us feel closer to them.”48
There certainly were other cross-currents of thoughts and feelings in this interaction, both
private and shared, but the power of mutual influence is hard to deny here. Such influence is most
potent when people are in close proximity, clearly visible to one another. If the same three negotiators
had been communicating by speaker-phone, the constraints on contagious physical behavior would
likely have diminished the transfer of emotion and mood as well.
The transfer of feelings is important because they color how we see the world. Aristotle himself
observed that “feelings are conditions that cause us to change and alter our judgments.”49 The
negative attitude of one member can leak over to others in a group, for example, and stifle their
creativity. By contrast, researchers have found that “an upbeat environment fosters mental efficiency,
making people better at taking in and understanding information, at using decision rules in complex
judgments and being flexible in their thinking.”50
An awareness of the current tone or “code” of communication and that of their counterpart can
be a useful tool in a successful negotiation. A code refers to an unstated set of rules governing the
verbal and non-verbal aspects of an interaction (essentially all of the aspects summarized thus far in
this note). According to William Donahue, “code is king” in negotiations. The ability to switch codes
48 Dylan Evans, Emotion: The Science of Sentiment (London: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 125.
49 Evans, p. 112.
50 Goleman, “Primal Leadership,” p. 46.
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(say from an overly serious, business-like tone to a friendly one when a negotiation is getting hostile)
can mean the difference between a successful and failed agreement.51
People do not wholly lose their individuality when they interact, of course, but the boundary
between one person’s attitudes and another’s is fuzzier than we prefer to think. That texture and
location of that line also constantly changes through interpersonal feedback and internal processing,
both of which prompt further behavior that propels the interaction ever forward.
Figure 3
My Perceptions
Your Perceptions
MY BEHAVIOR
YOUR BEHAVIOR
My Emotions
Your Emotions
Source: Authors.
The process illustrated in Figure 3 is complex. Our recognition of other people’s nonverbal cues is
imperfect at best, as is our understanding of the sources and meaning of our own behavior. The
process also takes place at incredible speed, at a less than conscious level. Videotaped college
students were found to have synchronized their movements within 21 milliseconds (half the time of a
single frame of film and a tenth of the time it takes a person to push a button in response to a flashing
light.)52 Although deliberate mirroring supposedly can help build rapport,53 other experts contend
that conscious efforts are just too slow and thus “doomed to look phony.”54
Yet there is a growing body of research which suggests that even conscious mimicry, as long as it
is done “imperfectly” and with a delay of several seconds, is rarely detected and highly persuasive in
multiple contexts. In one study, students who received a sports drink pitch from an interviewer who
purposely mirrored body movements were significantly more likely to buy it than those who
received an identical pitch without mirroring.55 Intentional mimicry has even been shown to work
with nonhuman imitators: students who viewed a sales pitch from a computer-animated figure
programmed to mimic their head movements (i.e., tilting, nodding, etc.) were 20% more likely to
agree to the pitch than those that saw an identical message but that was not programmed to mimic.56
Of course, it must be noted that the actual content of these interactions was almost entirely
scripted, thus making it easier to focus on the mirroring. In real-world situations people must focus
on what is being said (and formulate their own answers) hence this sort of mimicry may not be as
simple or as effective as these lab studies have demonstrated. Yet, even though we cannot
51 William A. Donohue, “Read My Lips: Code Switching in Negotiation,” Ivey Business Journal Online (2004), via ProQuest,
www.proquest.com, accessed July 2009.
52 For comparison, researchers note that “it took even the lightning fast Muhammad Ali a minimum of 190 milliseconds to spot
a light and 40 more milliseconds to throw a punch in response” (Hatfield, et al., p. 38).
53 Tanya L. Chartrand & John A. Bargh, “The Chameleon Effect: The Perception-Behavior Link and Social Interaction,” Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 76: 6 (1999): 893–910.
54 Hatfield, et al., p. 38.
55 Rob Tanner & Tanya Chartland, “The Convincing Chameleon: The Impact of Mimicry on Persuasion,” Fuqua School of
Business (Duke University) Wokring Paper, 2005.
56 Bailenson and Yee, “Digital chamelons,” Psychological Science 16 (October 2005): 10, 814–819.
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choreograph our every gesture, we can learn a lot about what others are thinking and feeling by
being more aware of the ways in which our own behavior may be a reflection of theirs. Specific
prescriptions in this regard are offered in the concluding section of this note.
Rapport, Vibes, and Synchrony
The process of mutual influence takes place largely outside of our awareness, unless we carefully
attend to it. Even without such a focus, however, we often have the vague feeling of being in or out of
“synch” with certain people. Without being able to put our finger on it exactly, something just seems
to click in some relationships but not in others.
Researchers have found that feelings of being in synch have a strong physiological component.
After a few minutes together, people’s breathing patterns and even heart rates sometimes come closer
together without any conscious effort or awareness. In such instances individuals are quite literally
“moving to the same beat” and sharing the same “vibes.” The same convergence can occur with
social behavior: two people who speak at different rates, for example, tend to compromise in their
interaction: the fast speaker will slow down, and the slower one will pick up the pace. Being in synch
does not necessarily mean that each individual is mirroring the other. Instead, their behavior may be
complementary, as when one person is telling a long story and the other is listening intently.
Not surprisingly, research shows that people tend to achieve a greater degree of synchrony with
those they like and to whom they feel close.57 There is also evidence that synchrony helps facilitate
smooth, harmonious interaction and deeper rapport. What is less clear, however, is whether
deliberately adopting another person’s rhythms is feasible or effective,58 though studies indicate that
intentional failure to do so is detrimental to rapport and can be perceived as hostile.59
As a practical matter, people must improvise how they interact, which may explain why the early
moments of a negotiation can be stiff and awkward.60 People have to work out their different
preferences about intimacy—including interpersonal distance, eye contact, body orientation,
formality, and so forth.61 If one party assumes too much closeness, the other may feel uncomfortable,
anxious, and exposed. If the pendulum swings too far in the other direction, however, each will feel a
lack of rapport.62
Behavioral boundaries are constantly redefined in the course of interaction as the parties move
closer or further apart, both literally and figuratively. Research suggests that if any action disturbs the
equilibrium, at least one of the parties must adjust some other behavior, bringing the level of
intimacy back in balance. For example, if one party intrudes by moving closer, the other may
decrease his level of eye contact or turn his body at an angle. Without this compensation, one or both
57 Hatfield, et al., p. 39.
58 One approach claiming to teach this skill—Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)—is described briefly in the Appendix.
59 Jenkins & Johnson, p. 42.
60 The importance of a handshake has also been highlighted in empirical and antidotal sources as an important gesture that can
literally “make or break” a negotiation. Undergraduates who had a firm handshake were rated as more hirable than those
possessing a weaker one (the relationship was mediated by extraversion); Greg L. Stewart, Susan L. Dustin, Murray R. Barrick &
Todd C. Darnold, “”Exploring the Handshake in Employment Interviews,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 93 (2008): 5, 1139–1146.
61 Miles L. Patterson, “Compensation in Nonverbal Immediacy Behaviors: A Review,” Sociometry, 36: 2 (June 1973): 237–252.
62 Phoebe C. Ellsworth & Linda M. Ludwig, “Visual Behavior in Social Interaction,” The Journal of Communication, 22
(December 1972): 375–403; as cited in Jenkins & Johnson, p. 43.
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parties will feel discomfort. These responses are not often consciously noted, and yet they can
underpin—or undermine—the relationship building process.
Interaction is thus a dance that requires a degree of grace on everyone’s part. Some experts in
nonverbal communication have even borrowed notation forms from choreographers to track and
study the steps that people take together.63 Negotiators, of course, have to work out who will lead
and who will follow—or how those responsibilities will be shared.
Interpretation and Application
The challenge to reading the internal thoughts and feelings of other people is not, as we have seen,
the lack of evidence. The problem is its abundance. Micro-expressions, gestures, posture, and tone of
voice are part of a cascade of information that comes forth whenever we interact. Researchers have
the luxury of being able to scrutinize video-tapes frame by frame in order to discern subtle meanings.
By contrast, negotiators have to function in real time, interpreting whatever signals are being sent by
their counterparts while they are also trying to be creative, persuasive, and self-aware. As a practical
matter, this requires negotiators to be mindful of broad patterns of behavior and not try futilely to
interpret each and every signal.
Intuition and Pattern Recognition
Zacarias Moussaoui is charged with being the so-called “twentieth high-jacker” in the
September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.64 While conspirators have subsequently been
described as withdrawn and somewhat hostile, Moussaoui initially impressed Clancy Prevost, his
flight school instructor, as open and amiable. Moussaoui apparently had no knowledge or aptitude
for flying but just seemed to enjoy socializing. “We had lunch and shot the breeze,” Prevost recalled.
“There was nothing to indicate that this guy was anything other than a genial businessman who like
to hang out with pilots and could tell the girls he flew a 747.”65
Only later did Prevost experience an unsettling feeling about his student. The instructor had been
telling Moussaoui a story about a fire on a Saudi airliner with passengers making a pilgrimage for
Ramadan. According Seymour Hersh’s account, Prevost then happened to ask Moussaoui if he were
Muslim, to which Moussaoui replied, “I am nothing.”66
“He sort of flushed,” Prevost continued. “It wasn’t the right reaction. That’s when I said to
myself, ‘Hey, wait a minute. What are we doing here? He’s a nice guy, but he has no
knowledge of airplanes. Professionally, we should check him out.’” Prevost reported his
misgivings to the Pan Am administrators, who, after some hesitancy, called the FBI.67
63 Effort-Shape analysis, originally developed as a method of dance notation, is now used by psychologists and
anthropologists to study other types of human behavior, including behavioral interaction (Davis, p. 172).
64 There is considerable circumstantial evidence to link Moussaoui with Al Quaedda and some people have concluded that he
was supposed to be on the plane that ultimately crashed in Pennsylvania as it had only four high-jackers—one fewer than on
the other three aircrafts. For a skeptical account of the prosecution’s specific case, see: Seymour Hersch, “Annals of National
Security: The Twentieth Man,” The New Yorker (September 30, 2002), pp. 56–76.
65 Seymour Hersch, “Annals of National Security: The Twentieth Man,” The New Yorker (September 30, 2002), p. 58.
66 Ibid.
67 Ibid.
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The FBI arrested Moussaoui near the Minnesota flight school on August 16, 2001.
Prevost apparently had no special training in reading nonverbal communication and was
operating on the assumption that Moussaoui was just another typical customer. It was the coupling
of an odd statement and a flush—the wrong reaction, in Prevost’s own words—to jolt him into
realizing that things were not as they had seemed.
Moussaoui’s “tell” sounds much like the micro-expressions that Paul Ekman has so carefully
studied. We can only speculate what may have prompted it. Perhaps Prevost’s off-hand question
about being a Muslim summoned up suppressed anger; perhaps it served to underscore for him how
different the two men were; maybe it caught him off guard and made him afraid that his deception
would be exposed. We can never know. Moussaoui himself may never really know either. His
visceral response may have been sparked by a combination of all those things or something
altogether different. Yet it told a certain truth about him and Prevost was alert enough to catch it.
Preovost’s own reaction was emotional, not cognitive—he experienced a feeling, not an idea. This
may be a key to interpreting nonverbal communication: to gain awareness of other people’s feelings,
we must be attuned to our own. The authors of Emotional Contagion say, “Conscious analytic skill can
help us figure out what makes other people ‘tick’; but if we pay careful attention to the emotions we
experience in the company of others, we may well gain an extra edge into ‘feeling ourselves into’ the
emotional states of others.”68
Our feelings, even strong ones, are often hard to put into words. We may be bothered deeply by
something yet have difficulty naming it. If we have been taught to be “rational,” we may force such
feelings down, preferring to base our judgments on what we can objectively see and explain. The
suspicions that we have about someone else may be utterly groundless and simply reflect our own
insecurity or residual memories of bad experiences with others. We don’t want to think of ourselves
as paranoid or unfair, so when we feel a twinge of doubt, we put it aside. And sometimes we should.
The challenge is knowing when.
Lie Detection
Many people are confident that they can tell when others are lying,69 but for most of us, our
hunches are no more accurate than a coin toss.70 There are, however, some intriguing exceptions: a
small portion of the population seems to have special skill in reading nonverbal cues and detecting
liars.71 Secret Service agents score well. One study found more than half of them to achieve at least
70% accuracy and nearly a third, 80% accuracy.72 Psychiatrists also tend to be better than the average
person, though only 12% scored at the 80% accuracy level.73
68 Hatfield, et al., p. 188.
69 Hocking (1976) and Littlepage & Pineault (1979), as cited in Robert S. Feldman (Ed.), Applications of Nonverbal Behavioral
Theories and Research (Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1992), p. 233.
70 Miller & Burgoon (1982), as cited in Feldman, p. 218.
71 Anne Warfield, “Your Body Speaks Volume, But Do You Know What It’s Saying?” Business Credit, 104: 2 (February, 2002):
20–21.
72 Dave Zielinski, “Body Language Myths,” Presentations, 15: 4 (April 2001): 36–42.
73 Ibid.
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A Massachusetts General Hospital study discovered a third group that outperforms all others in
spotting liars: aphasics, patients with serious brain trauma that results in an inability to understand
language.74 Researcher Nancy Ectoff says that while it is possible that this kind of brain damage
stimulates “development of compensatory skills in recognizing nonverbal communication,” it seems
more likely that “language may camouflage other communication skills we all possess.”75 Liars may
give off signals that are there for anyone to see, but most of us lose those cues in a flood of other
information. Just as magicians distract us to conceal their real sleight of hand, our own minds may
focus on the wrong signs.76
The bad news in this research is that most of us are over-confident in our ability to identify liars.
That probably should make us more cautious about the conclusions we draw from body language
generally. On the other hand, the ability of aphasics does confirm the existence of telling signals;
furthermore, the skill demonstrated by Secret Service agents and psychiatrists points at our capacity
for learning how to read these signals.
Science writer Malcolm Gladwell interviewed two Los Angeles policemen who, in different
harrowing situations, had been able to distinguish truly dangerous criminals from ones who were
merely upset. In spite of differences in the detectives’ appearance and styles, Gladwell reported:
The sensation of talking to the two men . . . is surprisingly similar. Normal conversation is
like a game of tennis: you talk and I listen, you listen and I talk, and we feel scrutinized by our
conversational partner only when the ball is in our court. But Yarborough and Harms never
stop watching, even when they’re doing the talking. . . . Harms gave the impression that he
was deeply interested in me. It wasn’t empathy. It was a kind of powerful curiosity.77
For these two officers, perfecting this curiosity is a matter of life and death. Yarborough chose not
to shoot when a wild-eyed teenager confronted him with a hand-gun. Something in the boy’s face
told him that he was not really dangerous. Harms, by contrast, killed a man who was approaching
his squad car and reaching into an overcoat. The officer correctly sensed danger: the man was
carrying a bomb. Whatever challenges that negotiators face reading the behavior of their counterparts
pale compared to situations that police confront, yet that same visceral curiosity and can likewise
serve us well.
Emotional Intelligence
Psychologist Howard Gardner pioneered the notion of multiple intelligence.78 Beyond the
familiar verbal and mathematical-logical dimensions, he identified five others: spatial, bodilykinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal (or “intrapsychic”).79 Gardner calls the last two
74 Williams J. Cromie, “Researchers face up to liars: expressions speak louder than words,” The Harvard University Gazette (May
18, 2000), http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2000/05.18/aphasic.html, accessed October 24, 2002.
75 Cromie, “Researchers face up to liars.”
76 In fact, four studies (Kraut, 1978; Maier & Janzen, 1967; Riggio & Friedman, 1983; Stiff & Miller, 1986) found that the cues
people rely upon to judge truth-telling are not the same as the cues found to be related to actual truth-telling. Only three cues
(speech errors, speech hesitations, and pitch) were associated with both actual truth-telling and judgments of such. All of these
findings are, however, associated with situations in which people are interacting with strangers as opposed to those with
whom they are more familiar (Feldman, p. 234).
77 Gladwell, pp. 47–48.
78 Howard Gardner, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligence (New York: Basic Books, 1983).
79 Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence (New York: Bantam Books, 1995), pp. 37–38.
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“personal intelligences.” These are much more important in dealing with other people than our
facility with words and numbers.
Other researchers and popular writers have plunged deeply into this domain, so we now accept
the view that emotional cognition is fundamental to how we see others and function in the world.
Peter Salovey identifies five different ways in which this capacity is exercised:80
(1) recognizing one’s own emotions as they occur;
(2) managing these emotions (e.g. calming oneself down or shaking off a bad mood);
(3) motivating oneself or having emotional self-control in order to achieve a goal;
(4) recognizing emotions in others; and
(5) managing relationships with others.81
Reading nonverbal communication requires all of these skills. Someone who has trouble recognizing
her own emotions will have a hard time seeing them in others. In turn, a person who has difficulty in
managing his own negative emotions may inflict them on his counterparts. Motivation is important,
as well. Negotiation can be stressful and exhausting; without conscious effort, it can be easy to lose
energy and tune-out what others are communicating.
Negotiation thus requires a certain presence of mind, an attentiveness to what is happening in the
moment and how that fits into larger patterns of interaction.82 This may require overcoming our own
hesitancy about reading other people’s nonverbal behavior. According to Erving Goffman, author of
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life,83 we may feel skittish about invading other people’s privacy.
We may shield ourselves from others’ emotions out of respect or because we do not want to deal with
the complications these emotions present. We should at least be aware of what we chose to ignore.
Putting the Pieces Together
The study of nonverbal communication has become a science, but its practice will always be an
art. Understanding nonverbal communication does not involve memorizing a lexicon that defines
each and every gesture or expression. Instead it requires a broader view, one in which behavior is
seen as interactive and multi-layered. Above all else, it requires continual self-awareness as is
underscored by the following prescriptions:
1.
Use all your senses: Nonverbal communication is more than physical gesture and posture. A
slight break in a person’s voice or a quick rise of color to his face may be more revealing than
how he sits or folds his arms. Mood, in turn, is not communicated by one discreet action. It
must be sensed much more generally.
2.
Look in the mirror: Your own behavior is doubly telling. Research on emotional contagion
and mimicry demonstrates that what you are doing and feeling can influence the behavior of
others. Likewise, if you check your own feelings, you may find something that you picked up
from your counterpart.
80 Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, p. 42.
81 Ibid., pp. 43–44.
82 For more information on presence of mind: Michael Wheeler, “Presence of Mind,” HBS Case No. 902-176 (Boston, Harvard
Business School Publishing, 2002).
83 Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1990).
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Nonverbal Communication in Negotiation
3.
See the big picture: Specific cues can only be understood in broader context. People who have
keen skills at reading nonverbal communication have a facility for pattern recognition and are
alert to signals that do not fit the pattern, indicating when things are not as they seem.
4.
Test your assumptions: Whatever we glean from nonverbal communication is necessarily
subjective. Even when we correctly intuit that someone else is suppressing his anger, we can
only guess at what triggered it. A direct question may be possible in some cases and an
apology, in others. Sometimes such guesses need only be filed for future confirmation. Other
times backing off a demand or reframing question may lessen the reaction.
5.
Be yourself: We should do what we can to project ourselves positively, but we should steer
clear of stagy gambits and mannerisms. Most are of questionable value. Our own discomfort
at trying to be someone else will likely leak out and undermine our credibility.
These principles can be hard to implement at the bargaining table when the substantive and
emotional stakes are high. They can be practiced, however, in everyday settings. Instead of tuning
out at a long meeting, use it as an opportunity to hone your observational skills. From the look of
things, who else shares your impatience and how are they displaying it? Whose tone of voice reveals
their frustration at not getting their ideas across? Next time you are flying cross-country, look up
from your book and see how much you can glean from the movie even without the headphones.
Most important, watch your own feelings when you interact. Are you comfortable or anxious, and
how is that expressed in your posture? Make good use of the fact that your physical behavior can
have a positive effect on what you communicate to others—and what you truly feel yourself.
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Appendix
NLP: Neuro-Linguistic Programming
Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) may be the best-known technique for understanding
nonverbal communication. It warrants a cautionary note here. John Grinder and Richard Bangler
developed NLP in the 1970s from studies of effective communicators.84 NLP does not purport to be
an explanatory theory. Rather it is a set of guidelines for communication predicated on the belief that
our modes of thought are closely tied to our behavior, physiology, and descriptive language.
Illuminating behavior and patterns of expression supposedly provides insight into underlying
thought processes, including ones that are “other than conscious.”
NLP enthusiasts claim that we can communicate more effectively by adjusting our mode of
expression to others’ ways of thinking. Specifically, they believe that the way in which we interpret
information is determined by our “primary representational system” (PRS). While we all use auditory,
visual, and kinesthetic senses, one or another supposedly dominates. An individual’s PRS is said to be
revealed by his or her descriptive language, eye behavior, and other behavioral and physiological
cues. If we discover someone else’s PRS, we can build rapport by using verbal and nonverbal language
that speaks to their preferred system. According to this view, ineffective communication occurs when
people are essentially speaking different languages—either verbally or physically.
NLP advocates believe that a person’s PRS can be determined by listening to the language he or
she uses. Thus, the auditory person would supposedly say, “That rings true,” while the visual person
might say, “I see what you mean.” The kinesthetic person would use metaphors like, “I think I have a
handle on the situation.” Bandler and Grinder claim that eye movements also reveal significant brain
activity. Right-handed people85 look up and to their left when remembering something visually, the
authors contend, but up and to the right when constructing something visually. Righties supposedly
will look down and to the left when having an internal dialogue with themselves, and down and to
the right when accessing their feelings.
NLP has numerous critics, however. One researcher states, “NLP has achieved something akin to a
cult status when it may be nothing more than another psychological fad.”86 The lack of supporting
empirical evidence is frequently cited: “Recent literature surveys suggest little supportive evidence for
NLP but considerable contrary evidence, and the supportive evidence can be explained in other ways.87
Though the validity of the specific techniques of NLP is questionable, the simple act of paying
close attention to others should be beneficial. Likewise, it is always good to recognize that the people
with whom we deal may process information very differently from the way we do. Precise logic is
persuasive for some people, while others find metaphors or demonstrations much more compelling.
Good negotiators experiment with different rhetorical forms and look for cues—verbal and
otherwise—to see which are foster the most understanding.
84 Barbara A. Madonik, I Hear What You Say, But What Are You Telling Me? (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001), xxiii.
85 People who are left-handed or ambidextrous may exhibit eye behaviors that are the mirror-opposites of the ones described
for the average right-handed person (“Advanced Neuro Dynamics: An Introduction to NLP,” http://www.nlp.com/aboutnlp/nlpintro.html, accessed July 9, 2002).
86 Matthew Elich, Richard W. Thompson, & Laurence Miller, “Mental imagery as revealed by eye movements and spoken
predicates: A test of Neuro-Linguistic Programming,” Journal of Counseling Psychology, 32: 4 (1985): 625.
87 Ibid., p. 622.
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