The Definitive Book of Body Language - Barbara Pease [10]
Baring the teeth and nostril flaring are derived from the act of attacking and are primitive signals used by other primates. Sneering is used by animals to warn others that, if necessary, they'll use their teeth to attack or defend. For humans, this gesture still appears even though humans won't usually attack with their teeth.
Human and animal sneering—you wouldn't want to go on a date with either of these two
Nostril flaring allows more air to oxygenate the body in preparation for fight or flight and, in the primate world, it tells others that backup support is needed to deal with an imminent threat. In the human world, sneering is caused by anger, irritation, when a person feels under physical or emotional threat, or feels that something is not right.
Universal Gestures
The Shoulder Shrug is also a good example of a universal gesture that is used to show that a person doesn't know or doesn't understand what you are saying. It's a multiple gesture that has three main parts: exposed palms to show nothing is being concealed in the hands, hunched shoulders to protect the throat from attack, and raised brow, which is a universal, submissive greeting.
The Shoulder Shrug shows submission
Just as verbal language differs from culture to culture, so some body-language signals can also differ. Whereas one gesture may be common in a particular culture and have a clear interpretation, it may be meaningless in another culture or even have a completely different meaning. Cultural differences will be covered later, in Chapter 5.
Three Rules for Accurate Reading
What you see and hear in any situation does not necessarily reflect the real attitudes people may actually have. You need to follow three basic rules to get things right.
Rule 1. Read Gestures in Clusters
One of the most serious errors a novice in body language can make is to interpret a solitary gesture in isolation of other gestures or circumstances. For example, scratching the head can mean a number of things—sweating, uncertainty, dandruff, fleas, forgetfulness, or lying—depending on the other gestures that occur at the same time. Like any spoken language, body language has words, sentences, and punctuation. Each gesture is like a single word and one word may have several different meanings. For example, in English, the word “dressing” has at least ten meanings including the act of putting on clothing, a sauce for food, stuffing for a fowl, an application for a wound, fertilizer, and grooming for a horse.
It's only when you put a word into a sentence with other words that you can fully understand its meaning. Gestures come in “sentences” called “clusters” and invariably reveal the truth about a person's feelings or attitudes. A body-language cluster, just like a verbal sentence, needs at least three words in it before you can accurately define each of the words. The “perceptive” person is the one who can read the body-language sentences and accurately match them against the person's verbal sentences.
Scratching the head can mean uncertainty,
but it's also a sign of dandruff.
So always look at gesture clusters for a correct reading. Each of us has one or more repetitive gestures that simply reveal we are either bored or feeling under pressure. Continual hair touching or twirling is a common example of this, but in isolation of other gestures, it's likely to mean the person is feeling uncertain or anxious. People stroke their hair or head because that's how their mother comforted them when they were children.
To demonstrate the point about clusters, here's a common Critical Evaluation gesture cluster someone might use when they are unimpressed with what they are hearing:
You're losing points with this man
The main Critical Evaluation signal is the hand-to-face gesture, with the index finger pointing up the cheek while another finger covers the mouth and the thumb supports the chin. Further evidence that this listener is having critical thoughts about what he hears is supported by the legs being tightly