In ancient time, ancestors communicate in primitive ways, using body language or expressions. However, with the development of human beings, the language plays important parts in the communication gradually instead of the nonverbal ways.As the educators, we could use nonverbal cues to help us to guide students or help ourselves.
With the success of the American drama “lie to me“, which based on the famous psychologist Paul Ekman. more and more people are beginning to realize the importance of micro-expressions.
What are the Nonverbal Cues?
Hogan is the most famous American expert in persuasion psychology and interpersonal communication. giving us a definition of nonverbal communication. The nonverbal communication represents two-thirds of all communications; nonverbal communication can portray a message both vocally and with the correct body signals or gesture. Body signals comprise physical features, conscious and unconscious gestures and signals, and the mediation of personal space. (Hogan,2003)If you want to learn more about the sustainability degree, check here.
Why the Nonverbal Cues are important?
Daily communication
Nonverbal cues build contribution to daily communication. According to the studies from Australia body language experts, the couple Pease, mention that “when the other person or group is absorbing the message, they are focused on the entire environment around them, meaning the other person uses all five senses in the interaction: 83% sight, 11% hearing, 3% smell, 2% touch and 1% taste.” (Pease B. & Pease A.,2008).
On the one hand, Nonverbal information can sometimes substitute for some linguistic information, people use the language to communicate, expressing feelings. However, it is difficult to communicate with people only via languages, so people need to use nonverbal behavior at the same time for auxiliary, making the intentions which have full and perfect expressions.
On the other hand, a person’s understanding is largely based on the perception of their nonverbal behaviors, nonverbal cues could help us to express ourselves appropriately in the presence of the others, as well as to help us understand the information of the others, such as age, identity, status, interests, hobbies and emotions, these all can be expressed in nonverbal behaviors.
For the student-centered classroom, the teacher would use prior knowledge to give student question via communication to make sure student is under control, the way how teacher express would play an important role, so the teacher could use nonverbal cues to contribute discussion.
Adapt to the environment
The most obvious role of nonverbal cues is to enhance people’s relationships thus it could help people adapt themselves to the environment. The teacher could teach students how to use nonverbal cues to contributes adaption of environment.
In the study Children‘s facial and gestural decoding and encoding: Relations between skills and with popularity（ Boyatzis & Satyaprasad, 1994）. This study examined preschool children‘s decoding and encoding of facial emotions and gestures, interrelationships between these skills, and the relationship between these skills and children’s popularity, the researchers selection 34 preschoolers (eighteen 4-year-olds, sixteen 5-year-olds)with an equal number of boys and girls. they test four tasks(1. Decoding emotions, 2.Decoding gestures,3.Encoding facial emotions, 4. Encoding gestures.) via teacher ratings to measure the consequence. The multiple regression analyses indicated that encoding emotions and decoding gestures were marginally predictive of popularity.
Modify personality
The nonverbal language also shapes the personality via body languages, which is one of the more common ways of communication, we normally use in consciously or unconsciously. As Amy Cuddy who is an American social psychologist eloquently pronounces behaviors from animals which could explain the reasons for human behaviors.
In the animal world, when they want to expand their field or face threats, they stretch their bodies and increase their size to show they are powerful. It means that stretching body could make people more powerful. She points out the body movements which are low-power poses and high-power poses, this two kind of poses could change the brain, simulating brain to produce some hormones and then driving a reflection of people.
The poses which need stretch bodies call high-power poses, and the opposite poses call low-power poses; the high-power poses could change the two hormones which are testosterone and cortisol. The highly successful people usually have high-level testosterone that increases feelings of confidence and low-level cortisol which can decrease anxiety and be an improved ability to deal with stress.
If people do high-power poses at a high frequency, they hormones in their bodies will continue to maintain a certain level, which is high-level testosterone and low-level cortisol. Cuddy points out an assumption that the nonverbal movements could help people improve themselves, people could grain the information that the high-power posts could produce hormones which impact the physical part, then drive the mental part. (Cuddy,2015).This means that the change in behavior can change the hormones produced in the brain, and the changes in hormones keep behavior in a state, thus changing the personality.
“Fake it till you become it, do it enough until you actually become it and internalize, tiny tweaks can lead to big changes.”
Cuddy,2015
It is obvious that the nonverbal cues impact people life tremendously，since the nonverbal cues could help people to communicate well, mortify personality and dissimilate the atmosphere of the environment. It is no doubt that the nonverbal cues would be an indispensable part of people, so we could apply them in real life to improve relationships.
For the educator, nonverbal cues could give teachers a help ,which means teachers utilize nonverbal cues to upgrade their teaching approaches in details ,and let they are confident about decision, thus it could make the progress of student-centered classroom smoothy.
If you want to know more about the speech of Amy Cuddy, please check the video.↓↓↓
Sources:
- The epic opening scene of Lie To Me.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWyhsqh_e9s&
- Hogan, K.; Stubbs, R. (2003). Can’t get through:8 barriers to communication.Grenta, LA: Pelican Publishing Company, ISBN 978-1589800755
- Pease, B., & Pease, A. (2008). The definitive book of body language: The hidden meaning behind people’s gestures and expressions.
- Boyatzis, C. J., & Satyaprasad, C. (1994). Children’s facial and gestural decoding and encoding: Relations between skills and with popularity. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 18(1), 37-55.
- Cuddy, A. (2015). Presence: Bringing your boldest self to your biggest challenges. Hachette UK.
- Dr. PaulEkman, PaulEkmangroup,2018， https://www.paulekman.com/about/paul-ekman/
- Amy Cuddy,2018,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Cuddy
- Your body language shapes who you are – Amy Cuddy,TED,2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks-_Mh1QhMc
Yanxi SHEN 