Years ago during a modern dance class the instructor demonstrated a complicated movement. When the class attempted to repeat it, he complained. “No, the arm goes here, not there.”
The class protested, “We just did what you did.”
“Well then,” he countered, “do as I say, not as I do.”
Whether one is trying to dance or determine if a friend is really dependable, actions speak louder than words. In the long run, what really matters is not what someone says, but what they do.
Doing is the nonverbal part of behavior; it is movement. And communication research for the past several decades has shown that 70% of judgments about other people rest on how they move.
When we make judgments about other people’s movements, we draw on our own body knowledge.
Body knowledge is best thought of as a personal lexicon of movement meaning. Body knowledge is personal, because we move ourselves. We know movement from the inside – how certain actions feel, what we like, what we don’t like.
We also know movement as outside observers, because everyone around us is always moving. Thus our lexicons of body knowledge are also shaped by the social and cultural conditions that surround us.
So the good news is, we are able to read and understand the nonverbal behaviors of other people. The bad news is, we seldom can explain how we are doing so.
In the next blog, I address the secret anatomy of body knowledge – how it develops, how it helps us, and how it also can result in body prejudice.