How do I Understand Body Gestures?
According to Shirley Elkin, founder and director of Communication Dynamics in Decatur, Illinois, that only 7 percent of what we tell others is with words. With these kinds of statistics, it's impossible to ignore how important body language and gestures are for you to convey the right message. Understanding the gestures of your body is not difficult to understand, and it has the potential to improve your communication skills.
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Instructions
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Study the five roles that nonverbal communication plays. To understand specific gestures, you should start with the foundation of body language meaning. The five roles are repetition, contradiction, substitution, complementing and accenting.
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Understand the three phases of gestures. Gestures differ from body language in that they more often specifically relate to something that a person says. Each gesture has a preparation, stroke and reaction stage to its implementation. The message lies in the stroke phase, while prep and reaction entail the beginning and end of the gesture.
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Learn the types of gestures. In addition to phases, there are general categories of gestures. These are emblems, iconic gestures, metaphoric gestures, regulators, affect displays and beat gestures.
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Learn about specific gestures and what they mean. There are hundreds of minute gestures that people make; some are universal, while others are culture specific. Start learning about specific gestures, such as an open palm, which indicates honesty and openness. Use such gestures appropriately when interacting with others.
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- Photo Credit body language image by L. Shat from Fotolia.com
