Well, I don’t know about that although I bet he would have been a good communicator! The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals is a book by the British naturalist Charles Darwin published in 1872, on how animals and humans express and signal to others their emotions. It was the beginning of scientific research on nonverbal communication.The experts reveal that a substantial portion of our communication is nonverbal – handshakes, facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice, and hairstyle [for those of you who know me, please stop laughing!]. According to this article in About Psychology, research has identified several different types of nonverbal communication. Among them are:
1. Facial expression
2. Gestures
3. Paralinguistics [“Don’t use that tone of voice with me!”]
4. Body language and posture
5. Proxemics [personal space]
6. Eye gaze
7. Haptics [you know, “Reach out and touch someone!”]
8. Appearance
What others can you think of?
Speaking of handshakes, how about hugging as nonverbal communication? Take a look at this article in The Poughkeepsie Journal for an interesting commentary on the personal space invasion.
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