The marvels of body language: How nonverbal behaviour helps us as well as others

Introduction

Last year I wrote a blog called “The myths of body language" and, as you may have guessed from the title, I’m afraid I was a bit downbeat about what our body language can actually do. So, if you thought that it was possible to get an instant read of somebody just by looking at them, or that standing in a power pose could somehow turn you into a superhero, you probably would have been a bit disappointed. I want to remedy this now and show that, despite the myths, there are some marvellous things our body language can do, and that it can benefit you in ways you may never have thought possible.

Let’s get started.

Marvel #1: Our eye gaze can help us think

This may not come as a complete surprise to you, but closing your eyes may help you think of things. If, for instance, someone was to ask you “how much did you spend the last time you went to a supermarket?”, you’d probably remember a rough region (perhaps between £20-30) but, if you were to close your eyes, you’re more likely to remember an exact number (e.g., £23.47). There’s a couple of reasons for this.

First, what’s in front of us is usually really distracting (faces, plants, trees, cars, buildings) and processing all that information can take focus away from remembering something specific so, by cutting it out, we free up the cognitive resources we need to think of something specific. Second, closing your eyes simply encourages you to visualise a blank canvas where you can rebuild an image of something you saw previously (Vredeveldt, Baddeley, & Hitch, 2011).

If you’re ever in a situation when it’s really important you remember something accurately, you may find that closing your eyes is worth doing. For instance, police forces have been known to encourage eyewitnesses to close their eyes during interviews so they remember what they saw accurately and in more detail. This is a great example of psychology research having some powerful real-world benefits.

Marvel #2: Our gestures can help us talk

I imagine you’ve spoken on the phone to someone before and found yourself waving your hands around frantically as you describe something to them. Don’t worry; that’s completely normal. We see people do this all the time and it’s actually quite funny to watch, particularly when they’re pointing out to someone what direction they need to go when there’s absolutely no way for them to see it. So, why on earth do we do this? Well, the simple answer is that we’re not gesturing for their benefit; we’re doing it for ourselves. Let me explain.

Gesturing can help get ideas clear in our mind. Lots of research has taught us that, when we have lots of complicated information to visualise (like the directions from one place to another), it’s helpful to us to store that information on our hands, because it makes it a bit easier to digest. This, in turn, makes it easier for us to talk because, once we have that information represented on our hands, we can focus on talking about it (Alibali, Kita & Young, 2000).

Another example of gestures helping us to talk is when we’re in a ‘tip-of-the-tongue’ state. We’ve all been there; being absolutely sure that you know what a word is, but not quite being able to remember it. Well, gesturing can sometimes help us out in this situation. This is largely because of the way we encode words; even from a young age, we’re taught that certain words have links to specific movements (e.g., raising an imagery cup to our face can mean “drink”) and performing that action can trigger the link to the word in our vocabulary (Frick-Horbury & Guttentag, 1998).

This system benefits us as adults as, when someone asks you what musical instrument is formed of metal keys that you hit with small mallets, you might find yourself performing little ‘hammering’ motions with your hands to help you think of the word – and then you remember, of course, it’s a glockenspiel!

Summary

I hope I’ve helped convince you that there’s a bit more to our nonverbal behaviour than simply communicating to other people. Not only does our body language help us communicate with people directly, but it can also help us communicate with others indirectly by helping us focus, and making us better thinkers and better speakers.