Body Talk

The Science Bit

So how do we know that our observations on body language are correct? What studies have been done and for how long that let us draw these kinds of conclusions about something which is, after all, a secret language?

Ancient awareness

As long ago as the Roman civilisation, the statesman and philosopher Cicero (c.106-43 BC) noted that the 'action of the body' expressed 'the sentiments and passions of the soul'.

He recognised that body language wasn't individual or random, but was a behaviour common to everyone:

Nature has assigned to every emotion a particular look and tone of voice and bearing of its own; and the whole of a person's frame and every look on his face and utterance of his voice are like the strings of a harp and wound according as they are struck by each successive emotion.

It is over 2000 years since Cicero lived, but science has been slow to follow up his observations.

An English idea

In England, it was not until the scientist John Bulwer chanced upon Francis Bacon's remark that, 'as the tongue speaketh to the ear, so the gesture speaketh to the eye' (The Advancement of Learning, 1605) that the idea of body language as an area for scientific study was born.

Bulwer went on to publish the first English works on the subject, Chirologia: or the naturall language of the hand (1644) and Pathomyotamia: or a dissection of the significative muscles of the affections of the minde (1649).

Darwin does it again

But it was 200 years later, when Charles Darwin published the seminal work The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), that the idea of body language was finally brought to the public's attention.

Darwin inspired people across disciplines ranging from archaeology and linguistics to psychiatry and zoology to investigate nonverbal communication, giving rise to a significant body of research.

The last 50 years

Still, it was not until the 1950s with the work of Ray Birdwhistell, and more properly, since the 1960s through the work of scientists like Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen, that nonverbal communication has been studied on any scale.

In 1967, the psychologist Albert Mehrabian found that in spoken communication only 7% of the meaning was conveyed through spoken words; the other 93% was conveyed nonverbally. His results fascinated his colleagues, thrilled the media and wowed the public.

The same year, Desmond Morris published his best-selling book, The Naked Ape, a zoologist's study of the human animal, which was translated into 24 languages worldwide. The public were hooked on body language.

The tech effect

The big boom in body language is closely associated with the development of sophisticated recording apparatus, which made close study of people's behaviour possible. Most contemporary studies are now based either on film or on video tape, and using computers scientists can decode body language with increasing efficiency and objectivity.

Technology in the form of television has also played its part in popularising body language with the general public. Not since the era of the silent film have people paid so much attention to the nonverbal behaviour of others. But in a TV culture where reality shows reign supreme in the listings, watching our fellow humans and their curious behaviour has become a national pastime.

On Big Brother, the mother of all reality TV shows, psychologists analyse the contestants' behaviour on screen. With the modern benefits of replay and freeze-frame they demonstrate how the contestants reveal their feelings and thoughts through their deliberate gestures and their unwitting body language.

The way you wear your hat...

Nonverbal communication has come of age. It's on TV. It's at work in training programmes. It's in magazines as ways to win your man. It's a game played by statesmen on the world stage and it's the amateur psychologist's speciality. It's helping us learn not just more about others, but more about ourselves.

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