body language
 

does anyone of you know about that stuff? Is it usefull to know about it? I'm just reading a book about it and it all seems pretty much fascinating, even if a bit surreal. I neven even thought about how I shake hands.

Re: body language
 

Ive read a fair few books on it. However ive never delved into Neuro Linguistic Programming that much which is a kind of continuation of the subject. How you stand/act/move/talk etc are all indicative of what you are really thinking.

How you shake hands is important and shows how you feel about someone else. What you say and word choice is also increadibly important. Saying 'i respect what you are saying but' actually means 'i dont respect what you are saying at all so shutup and let me talk'

etc etc

Re: body language
 

you just opened my eyes.

Re: body language
 

I watch people's body language alot


When someone walks around with his feet pointing outwards
I always assume he's a dumbass that I shouldnt take seriously

Re: body language
 

Re: body language
 

I gave my year 10s a 101 in life as a plenary (something at the end of the lesson while they were all packed up, waiting for the bell, really), teaching them how to give a good handshake.

:cool:

Re: body language
 

My feet do that but its because I over-pronate.

I can't help that :(

Re: body language
 

Well depending who/where you read, it does seem to make sense..

Re: body language
 

this is a perfect example of forum sarcasm.

Re-read it if you dont understand.

Re: body language
 

I don't think you picked up the right signals here.

Re: body language
 

'Body Language' by Allan Pease written some time in the 80s. Some things seem to make sense, others dont, but it was for free (IRC is great :)), so I dont mind much .

Re: body language
 

I hope you dont think i was directing the quote at you.

Re: body language
 

Alan Pease is very good. He's an australian dude. I have a video with him on it somewhere here that deals with body language. You may also wish to read stuff by Dale Carnegie as he is also one of those 'big names'.

Re: body language
 

How does how you shake hands say anything significant about you?

Apparantly i have a weakish handshake.

I don't think i'm a weak/passive person (i just don't think that trying to hurt somebody is a particularly good first impression ... it's too aggressive for a start ... makes people think they're in a competition with you ... the best way to win a war is to make sure the other person doesn't know that they're in one etc etc etc)

Re: body language
 

I've got a rather weak handshake as well, I tend to blame it on being left-handed.

Re: body language
 

It just does. If its too firm then i always think 'is he trying to prove something to me? like some kind of 'im teh man' thing??'

if its too weak i think 'HMM POSSIBLY A HOMO. BETTER NOT TURN MY BACK'

It shoudl be firm but not make the other person wince or anything. You are also meant to look them in the eye as you do it. I think it goes back to 'teh olden days'.

Re: body language
 

Before I met my ex-girlfriends mother my ex kept telling me that the one thing I should try to do is have a firm handshake. Since I am otherwise rather "unpresentable" I kept this in mind but by the time I met her, I had hyped it up in my mind so much I probably tried to break the bitches arm when I shook it.

I'm not really sure what that tells me about me except "I'm shit", and I hardly needed complex psychological theory for that little lesson.

Re: body language
 

Easy.

When a girl starts rubbing her breats at the pub whilst looking at you it means you'll get laid. When a man starts rubbing his penis at the pub it means he'll get jailed.

Re: body language
 

A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. A friends girlfriend thought she knew it all because she'd read a book on body language.

So she would do things like accuse you of lying if you closed your eyes at any stage when talking to her. This, she says, was a sign in the book that you are hiding something.
What a load of utter shit.
That or she would only believe you if you looked up when telling a story, this she said ment that you were recalling things from your brain.
If you looked down you were lying again.

I asked her what would it mean if I had a clenched fist. She said it ment that I was emotionally stunted. I explained it ment I wanted to twat her in the face.

Everyone thought I was joking. I wasn't.

He dumped her last week for, quote, "wrecking my ****ing head with her incessant pseudo-pyschologial bullshit".

Re: body language
 

every line you write hurts jj a little more ...

(i don't think that's a bad thing personally. he's a silly prick at the best of times ...)

Re: body language
 

Body language can be read, but it takes practice and isn't always text book.

Re: body language
 

Some body 'languages' may be quite similar, but I think much of it varies from person to person.

Re: body language
 

I doubt it. People can obviously have their own mannerisms, but you'll still get widespread agreement within a culture about what sort of body/facial expressions convey happyness, confidence, sadness etc. If you have good actors, most people could watch a dramatized scene with the sound turned down and successfully use body language to identify the scared female character, the strong confident businessman, the scheming villian etc.

Re: body language
 

You are supposed to look for clusters of signs, not just one single sign, at least that's what the book im reading says. A single signal can have all kinds of different meanings.
Anyway, I guess I'll just finish reading it and then pay a little more attention to body language to see if its of any use.

Re: body language
 

The problem with body language and NLP (especially NLP because holy shit theres a lot of bullshit there) is the complete lack of supporting evidence for the claims made in popular accounts So, person X doing Y means that they think Z. Well ok, how do you know this? Are we honestly meant to believe that the author has performed a controlled survey to find these things out, or is it more likely that he's basing his claims purely on anecdotes and intuition, perhaps backed up by the notorious spectre of common wisdom? The handshake thing someone mentioned earlier in this thread is a pretty blatent example of this - "you can tell a lot about a person from the way they shake hands". Can you? How the hell do you know? You might as well claim that people who see penises in inkblots are gay (lol Rorschach).

Re: body language
 

Why would it hurt me?
I better get a mop to clean up the irony :(



I remember reading those. The 'tells'. Looking up and right means your retrieving something and looking down and left means you are lying etc etc. Tbh its bullshit but if you tie it in with other things it *may* indicate someone is lying or telling the truth etc.

Its clearly not fool proof tho and unless you actually know what you are looking for its somewhat stupid to say 'omg lies' whenever anyone blinks or looks in a certain direction.


You cant tell much from it. Its not the 'be all and end all' of relationships. When i got a job in a pub the guy who hired me shook my hand and i thought for a moment id have to goto hospital to get all the joints realigned and my bones set. He shook it so hard it brought tears to my eyes. Thing is that he does it with women too and they have actually screamed in pain. I have no idea why hed do it but clearly he thought 'grrr masculine handshake shows im teh boss!'. Whereas other times ive gone to shake someones hand and its been really 'limp wristed' which is just plain odd.

I do think theres something 'in it' (both NLP and body language research) because theres been too many studies done and too many people have observed it working. Best example currently would probably be Derren Brown. He uses NLP constantly.

I think it *can* work on some people and its more 'it will give you an advantage when talking with certain types of people' as opposed to 'omg i have psychic powers and the ability to tell if you are lying by the look of your shifty eyes'.

Re: body language
 

you need to check for yourself to see if it works. Another point is that wether or not other people subconsciously (that's a word for the spelling thread...) assume certain things about you because of your body language, even if they are not true. That could be bad, for example in a job interview or whatever.

Re: body language
 

That was my gripe really, I'm not discounting body language but there are plenty of people who treat little bits of information like that as gospel. And they just deserve a slap.

I recalled another one of her little gems just now, once while talking to my friend (her fella) I scratched my nose. This ment that I was, once again, lying. Something she lept into and announced to our large group of friends. When I quizzed her about it she said that touching or scratching your nose ment you're lying because the blood capillaries fill with the same reflex as blushing and when you're lying. Hence making your nose itchy.

Deriding her little nonsense only confirmed in her mind that she was right, because I protested too much. (admittidly she got that little gem from Shakespeare, not Body Language books)

Derren Brown is an interesting character when it comes to body language and psychology. I watched an interesting interview with him where he went into detail about how he manages to do what he does with people.
In it he claimed to hold a degree in clinical hypnosis, which he got bored with, then proceeded to get a further 3 degrees over the years in various forms of psychology.
Something which placed the interviewer at ease and allowed Derren to "work his tricks" on him. Problem is, Derren lied. He has a degree alright. Only one. In Law and German from the University of Bristol.

So his 'powers' are from personal research into subjects like this. Which means that there has to be some truth to the various areas he uses. Body language being one.