Appear More Attractive with these Body Language techniques from Grayson Psychology. 1) give space when you just meet someone; don’t come in too close, too early. Once you just meet someone, back up a little bit. Once you’ve built a little rapport, you can come a little bit closer and eventually might be able to tap them on their shoulder with the back of your hand. If you jump to that first, you’re going to be viewed as creepy and not as attractive. 2) this one has to do with tonality. Make sure that you pause occasionally before answering a question, and you’ll be viewed as a lot more attractive. Posted Saturday, April 20, 2024.
An Illustrated Guide to Mouth Gestures and Their Meanings Around the World: An Excerpt from Francois Caradec’s Dictionary of Gestures, Francois Caradec, TheReader MIT Press, May 29, 2023.
François Caradec (1924–2008) was a French writer and a member of both the Collége de ‘Pataphysique and the Oulipo. His voluminous oeuvre includes biographies of Raymond Roussel and Alfred Jarry, as well as an encyclopedia of practical jokes and a dictionary of French slang. Caradec was a devoted specialist in Alphonse Allais, compiling and editing his collected works, and was one of the first historians of the bande dessinée in France. This article is excerpted from his book “Dictionary of Gestures.”
BODY LANGUAGE
Joe Navarro.The Dictionary of Body Language: A Field Guide to Human Behavior, Joe Navarro, 2018.
What Every Body Is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Spead-Reading People, Joe Navarro, 2008.
“4 Everyday Behaviors With Ancient Roots,” Joe Navarro, Psychology Today, September 26, 2022.
“How to Use Body Language to Be a Better Leader,” Bruna Martinuzzi, June 6, 2023.
“One of the things we understand universally,” says Navarro, “is that a leader exercises control by how they enter a room, how they look around, and so forth. And, of course, how they dress and the manner in which they walk and carry themselves.
“Leaders don’t do anything hurriedly. They don’t have to. They’re leaders. So, we say that they have temporal control.
See Joe Navarro.
Of course, don’t miss The Behavior Panel, started by Scott Rouse who teamed up with Greg Hartley, Mark Bowden, and Chase Hughes.
Body Talk Animated: The Big Kid’s Course in Body Language. FUN–Fundamentals in Your Life and In Animated Movies, James O. Pyle, May 23, 2023.
Postures: Body Language in Art, Desmond Morris, 2019.
MIRRORING
Take the test.
Feet pointing towards someone is generally a good sign of mutual attraction or interest. In large group settings, the most charismatic person will usually have the most feet pointing towards them.
However, if a person feels uncomfortable or disinterested and wants to leave, the feet may be pointing away toward the exit.
#4
Tilting the head exposes the neck, and is a gesture generally used by women when they are flirting. Preening the hair is also done to make women appear more attractive.
#6
Biting the lower lip is also a sign of sexual attraction. Biting invites attention to the lips and brings blood to the surface, making them appear redder and fuller.
Also, when a woman hikes up her skirt, it might not be just for comfort. She may want to show more skin, increasing her sexual attraction.
Winking can be associated with friendliness, but coupled with other body language cues such as an eyebrow raise and a smile, it can be a strong sign of flirtation.
Lastly, men who roll up their sleeves are displaying their forearms, a sign of strength and sexual attraction.
#8
genuine smiles typically have an indicator that is known as the “Duchenne marker.” This is what causes the corners of the eyes to form wrinkles, otherwise known as “crow’s feet.” If a person is smiling but lacks this indicator, they may be smiling just to be polite or even faking it.
#9
people put objects in or near their mouth when they are anxious, tense, or stressed. This gesture mimics the same behavior of seeking comfort at our mother’s breast when we were infants.
#10
Crossed arms is a body language cue for many different things— it can mean someone is angry, in deep concentration, feeling cold, or simply resting their arms. It does not necessarily mean someone is closed off.
#11
The old cliche, “touching the heart” certainly rings true here. Touching the chest with both hands is a body language cue that shows sincerity, honesty, and sympathy.
#12
Their body language signals frustration, fear, tiredness, and shame.
Blading, or turning the body away from someone, is a universal sign of disagreement or frustration. Blading is common when people disagree, such as in negotiations when an agreement is not mutually agreed upon.
Heads and shoulders slumped downwards is a universal sign of defeat, shame, tiredness, and closing off.
Crossed legs and arms are an indicator of closed-off body language.
Eye rubbing could be a sign of tiredness, being uncomfortable, or stress— blocking the eyes has been shown to stimulate the vagus nerve, slowing down heart and breathing rates during times of stress or fear.
The man is also covering his private area, which indicates he is feeling anxious or vulnerable.
Along with his hand supporting his head, it shows he is in a dejected posture.
STARING
What to do when someone stares at you? You’ve got a few options.
1. Acknowledge them. Don’t look sheepishly away. 2. Tap a tactical pen. Remind them thay they don’t want the pain that you’re hinting at. 3. Walk with confidence past a predator.
The 1st tip is good; the other two are questionable.
AND OTHER EYE CONTACT
Eye contact is in fact a social/cultural phenomenon that is practiced differently around the world. In New York City we are, by social convention, allowed to look at each other for 1.68 seconds. In other cultures, especially in Latin America and elsewhere, your time window for gazing at others may be quite extended so long as it is not threatening. Eye aversion is practiced by many cultures to show respect to those in authority.
I look at the eyes principally to tell me when someone is comfortable and relaxed. I also look at the eyes to tell me when someone is suddenly troubled by a subject or an event. Immediately I will see the orbits narrow, what I call the Clint Eastwood effect (remember in those Italian Westerns right before he was going to shoot, he always squinted). Squinting or the narrowing of the eye orbits indicates, very accurately, discomfort, stress, anger, or issues. I have capitalized on this behavior in negotiations as opposing counsel read each paragraph out loud; we could see which articles in the document were going to be problematic by the squinting of the eyes.
Former FBI Agent Answers Body Language Questions From Twitter #techsupport https://t.co/CmGxN9AoOq via @wired
— St. Michael, the Archangel (@aveng_angel) August 26, 2023
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Eye contact is intimidating for most primates.
NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
Joe Navarro, The Power of Nonverbal Communications, 2015.
Thumb displays are high-status displays. He learned as a young refugee that the nonverbals were more truthful than the verbals because people will say things but they don’t always mean them. You can’t really fake the nonverbals.
7:55 How many have been told that crossing your arms is not a good behavior to do? There’s a clinical term for that, but the term for that is “crap!” It’s a self-hug. It feels good. That’s why we do it in public more so than in private.
Sometimes we don’t see the nonverbals because we’re busy with a device. No matter how many devices we have, we as a species have evolved to communicate non-verbally. A text will never supplant a hug or a kind smile or a head tilt. It just won’t. Whether people will abide by that, that’s not my responsibility.
9:23 There are some things that you can master here today that you can take away. That they can use immediately: focus on COMFORT/DISCOMFORT. From the moment we’re born, we are doing pacifying behaviors. We do pacifying behaviors in utero just as other animals do. Elephants suck their trunk in utero. Biting lips, smoking, touching our faces, tugging our ears, splitting hairs, these are pacifiers. This is our body saying, “Chill. Relax. Calm down.” Two canceled flights, people are standing there, and they’re biting their lips, and it dawned on me that we bite our lips because we can’t suck our thumb any more. Because at his age this looks bad. He wants to but he can’t. So we have all of these behaviors, repetitive behaviors–foot bouncing, leg jiggling, all these little behaviors that we dislike that are repetitive. These behaviors reveal that the brain is dealing with some sort of distress.
1) Eye-blocking behavior. He knows this because in 1974, he studied children who were born blind. They had never seen. And when they hear things they don’t like, they don’t cover their ears, they cover their eyes. Part of our paleo circuits. This is millions of years old. And when you hear somebody say something, you ask them a question, and they go, “Oh, thank you for that question” and they’re covering their eyes, you know they didn’t like that question.
2) And then there’s the nose. We wrinkle our nose when we don’t like something. We do this all day long, whether we’re reading a contract or somebody suggests a restaurant or a movie. Interesting to see how often this betrays our negative sentiments as do our lips. Ever wonder why when you’re asked a question, you go “Hmm . . . I don’t know,” and you purse your lips? It means I am thinking something alternatively or I disagree. Imagine being in a conversation with this person, what a great opportunity to say, “Wait, what do you think?” because I know you’re already disagreeing with me. We know that when the lips disappear, something’s wrong, which means that anytime you see someone testifying in Congress, they have no lips. Their lips are sucked out of their mouths.
3) And then there’s the neck. Why do we touch the neck? Neck issues mean insecurities. “Oh, my gosh, there’s that guy. Oh, he’s gone. Oh, wait, he’s back.” And we cover this area called the super sternal notch. And we do it because since the time of Australopithecines, what has mankind witnessed? Large felines. And so we adopted these behaviors that when there’s a threat, something negative, we freeze, we cover our mouths, or we cover our necks because of large felines.
And we ventilate. Somebody asks, “Is that going to be done by July,” and we adjust the collar around our neck, and we go, “Yeah.” No, no it’s not. And how do we know that? Because they ventilated with their clothing, creating more space between your collar and neck, between your belt and your waist. And we only ventilate when something’s wrong. Not deception.
4) And we do funny things with our hands.
San Gabriel Tutor 