Body angling

I had a very nice e-mail this week, asking me to resume my blogging about body language. So here’s a bit more about proxemics.

It’s not just interpersonal distance that shows how comfortable you are with another person. The angle or orientation of your body is also very telling. Usually, we “point” our upper body at the people we like or agree with and angle away from the people we dislike or disagree with — giving them the “cold shoulder.”

If someone turns just his or her head to look at someone, but the body is angled away, it can indicate that the person doesn’t like the other person or what she has to say.

And as always, remember that body language can only be interpreted in clusters and in context. In the picture above, the locked ankles, crossed arms, and lack of eye contact of the woman on the right send the same message as the body angle: “Shut up already!”

interpreting body language

I had several e-mails from people who read my blog posts on body language. Each of them asked something along the lines of “What does it mean when someone… (insert gesture/posture)?”

I gave the same answer to each of these questions: it depends.

There’s no body language dictionary that can give you the correct interpretation of every gesture in every situation. Body language needs to be interpreted in context and in clusters.

The same gesture or posture could mean different things, depending on circumstances and on what other gestures accompany it.

Someone who crosses his or her arms could feel defensive or they could simply be cold or trying to hide a stain on his or her shirt.

I once had a client who kept licking his lips and touching his face. At first, I thought he was highly uncomfortable, maybe even hiding something, but his body language was relaxed and open otherwise. It turned out he had a dentist appointment earlier in the day. His lips and cheeks still felt numb and he kept checking to make sure he wasn’t drooling on my desk

So be careful not to interpret isolated gestures.

Body language: hugs

I thought since this is the season when you get together with family and friends, I’d blog about hugs.

You’d think that a hug is a hug, but there are a lot of different kinds, and not all of them are the pleasant kind. A hug can reveal a lot about the two people and the relationship between them.

The A-frame hug

In this type of hug, the two huggers stand two feet apart, lean over, and only touch each other’s shoulders. With their rear ends sticking out, they seem to form an A frame. Sometimes, the A-frame hug also includes air kisses.

The wallet rub hug

This is also called the side or one-arm hug. Two people stand side-by-side and hug with one arm around the other’s shoulder or waist.

The baby burp hug

While hugging, the two people pat each other on the back as if burping a baby.

The jock-twirl hug

One of the huggers lifts the other of the ground and twirls him or her around.

The full-body hug

This is a hug with maximum body contact, so it’s usually only shared with lovers or someone you’re very close to.

The cheek hug

The two people press their cheeks against each other while they hug. This can also be done while one of them is sitting and the other is standing.

The shug

This is a combination of a hug and a handshake. While you shake hands, you lean forward a bit for a one-armed hug. The handshake creates a barrier between the two huggers, so this type of hug isn’t very intimate at all.

The bear hug

The bear hug is the same as the full-body hug, but it’s much tighter.

Body language: interpersonal distance

I’ve been asked to blog a bit more about proxemics. I mentioned before that the interpersonal distance we keep from other people depends on factors such as gender, culture, and personality.

But how much distance we keep from others also depends on how comfortable we feel with the situation and the people around us.

More than once, I found myself in the following situation at work: For group sessions, I arranged the chairs in a circle. At the far back of the room, two rows of chairs were still standing from an earlier presentation.

Now my clients entered the room for their first court-mandated session. As you can imagine, they didn’t want to be there and wanted nothing to do with a psychologist.

Care to guess which seat the first person to enter chose?

You probably guessed it. In some groups, there’ll be someone who tries to sit in the very last row at the back of the room, as far away from me as possible. Keep in mind that this happens in the very first session, when I didn’t have a chance to work with them yet

Beware of misinterpretations, though. As with all body language, interpersonal distance can be interpreted only in context. I once had a client who insisted on always sitting very close to me during group sessions. It wasn’t because he liked me so much — he was hard of hearing and wanted to make sure he didn’t miss a thing I said.

body language: creating barriers

I thought I’d blog a bit more about body language. In my job, I’ve seen all kinds of interesting things people do, often without being aware of doing it.

In situations in which we feel insecure or uncomfortable and can’t increase the distance between us and other people, we create barriers or protective shields by placing objects between ourselves and others, e.g., we cross our arms or we clutch a purse or briefcase against our chest.

Speakers talking to a large audience feel more comfortable behind a table or a lectern.

At many parties where people are not 100% comfortable with each other, you might have seen them standing around holding their drinks with both hands.

By the way, it’s not just my clients who do this kind of thing.

I had a colleague who recreated the Great Wall of China on her desk. She placed her nameplate, files, photographs, books, a watch, and a handful of pens on the far side of her desk, marking her territory and forcing the person on the other side of the desk to keep his or her distance.

So, have you ever observed other kinds of erecting barriers? Or used such body language in your fiction?

body language: touch zones

I had a few e-mails, asking if I had wrapped up my “series” on body language.

No, I haven’t. So here’s a bit more about body language and touching.

Some areas of our bodies may be touched by acquaintances and, under the right circumstances, even by strangers. In western cultures, these “touchable” body parts are usually hands, arms, shoulders, and upper back.

Head, neck, chest, legs, and feet are taboo for touching except for people we’re really close to.

We know these unspoken rules and act accordingly, even if we don’t consciously think about it.

Socially accepted touch zones vary in different cultures. There also might be interpersonal differences. One person I know can’t stand having her face touched, even by the people she’s very close to.

So as your characters go from being strangers to acquaintances, then friends and maybe finally lovers, they’ll not only touch more frequently, but the touch zones will change too.

body language: handshake II

Last week, I blogged about hand position (vertical, palm down, palm up…) in handshakes. But there are also other factors that influence how a handshake is received by the other person.

Here are a few examples:

Outstretched arm:

Some people stretch out their arm horizontally, keeping a lot of distance while shaking hands. It might mean that the person wants to keep her emotional distance too or simply that he or she has a larger personal space.



The politician’s handshake:

In this double-handed handshake, the left hand wraps around the other person’s hand too. This is also called a “hand hug” or a politician’s handshake since some politicians use it to come across as warm, trustworthy, and sincere. It can have the reverse effect, though, if used on a person we just met since this is a more “intimate” kind of handshake.




The arm grasp:

The left hand is used to grasp the other person’s forearm, elbow, upper arm, or shoulder while shaking hands. The arm grasp is a sign of dominance since you can control the other person this way. The higher up the arm the left hand is placed, the more intimacy is conveyed. A touch to the upper arm is a bigger invasion of personal space than grasping the forearm, for example.

The various kinds of arm grasps are popular with politicians too, especially when they find themselves in the submissive position (the right side of a photo during a handshake).

Reagan - forearm grasp	Bush - elbow grasp
Clinton - upper arm grasp	Obama - shoulder grasp

Depending on the type of relationship the two people shaking hands have, the arm grasp can come across as either warm or domineering.

I’ll blog about a different type of greeting, a hug, next.

body language: handshake I

A handshake says a lot about our personality and attitude – how we hold our hand, how firm our grip is, how many times we shake, how far apart we stand, and what we do with our other hand.

Let’s start with hand position.

A handshake between equals has both hands in a vertical position.

If one person holds his hand so that his or her palm is facing down, it’s a sign of dominance and superiority. This is why politicians who are photographed shaking hands always want to be on the left side of the photo – in this position, they will appear to have the “upper hand” and be in control.

I had clients who held out their hand palm-up in a submissive handshake. In a way, they are asking for help and guidance before they even said hello.

Then there’s the queen’s handshake — stretching out the hand, palm-down, almost as if expecting the other person to kiss an imaginary ring and allowing just to grasp the fingers, not the palm. This, too, can be a sign of superiority.

More about handshakes in the next blog post.

body language: romantic touch

As a relationship progresses from strangers to lovers, touching becomes more frequent, more body parts become accessible to touch, and the type of touch changes.

You might be familiar with Morris’s sequence of intimacy. Morris proposes twelve steps of growing intimacy in relationships:

1. Eye-to-body: glancing at each other to assess attractiveness
2. Eye-to-eye: establishing mutual interest through eye contact and smiling
3. Voice-to-voice: first conversation
4. Hand-to-arm/hand-to-hand: these are usually casual, non-romantic touches
5. Arm-to-shoulder or side-to-side contact: this could still be a friendly, non-romantic embrace
6. Arm-to-waist contact: a more intimate kind of embrace
7. Mouth-to-mouth: kissing
8. Hand-to-head: caressing the neck and face.
9. Hand-to-body: more intimate caresses
10. Mouth-to-breast
11. Hand-to-genitals
12. Genitals-to-genitals or mouth-to-genitals

If a person tries to skip a step, he or she might be seen as taking things too fast.

body language: cultural differences in touching

Social touching differs from one culture to another. Each culture has unspoken rules about which touches are considered socially acceptable. Some cultures have strict rules about who can touch whom where.

Patting a child on the head is considered an affectionate gesture in many Western countries, but in some Asian countries such as Thailand, it’s considered offensive since the head is seen as the seat of the soul.

Two men holding hands would be seen as a sign of friendly affection in countries such as Saudi Arabia, India, Egypt, or Morocco, while in other countries, they would be seen as gay lovers.

In high-contact countries such as France, people might greet each other by kisses on the cheek, while in low-contact country, it would be considered presumptuous.

Frequency of touch also varies between cultures.

Burton & Dimbleby (2006) observed people in a coffee house. During one hour, Puerto Ricans touched 180 times, French 110, Americans two times, and English people didn’t touch at all.

More posts about interpersonal touch soon.