The Definitive Book of Body Language - Barbara Pease [18]
The Submissive Handshake
The opposite of the dominant handshake is to offer your hand (striped sleeve) with your palm facing upward (as below), symbolically giving the other person the upper hand, like a dog exposing its throat to a superior dog.
The submissive handshake
This can be effective if you want to give the other person control or allow him to feel that he is in charge of the situation; for example, if you were making an apology
While the Palm-Up handshake can communicate a submissive attitude, there are sometimes other circumstances to consider. As we have seen, a person with arthritis in their hands will be forced to give you a limp handshake because of their condition and this makes it easy to turn their palm into the submissive position. People who use their hands in their profession, such as surgeons, artists, and musicians, may also give a limp handshake, purely to protect their hands. The gesture clusters they use following their handshake will give further clues for your assessment of them—a submissive person will use more submissive gestures and a dominant person will use more assertive gestures.
How to Create Equality
When two dominant people shake hands, a symbolic power struggle takes place as each person attempts to turn the other's palm into the submissive position. The result is a viselike handshake with both palms remaining in the vertical position and this creates a feeling of equality and mutual respect because neither is prepared to give in to the other.
Communicating equality
How to Create Rapport
There are two key ingredients for creating rapport in a handshake. First, make sure that yours and the other person's palms are in the vertical position so that no one is dominant or submissive. Second, apply the same pressure you receive. This means that if, on a firmness scale of 1-10, your handshake registers a 7 but the other person is only a 5, you'll need to back off 20 percent in strength. If their grip is a 9 and yours is a 7, you'll need to increase your grip by 20 percent. If you were meeting a group of ten people, you'd probably need to make several adjustments of angle and intensity to create a feeling of rapport with everyone and to stay on an equal footing with each person. Also keep in mind that the average male hand can exert around twice the power of the average female hand, so allowances must be made for this. Evolution has allowed male hands to exert a grip of up to 100 pounds for actions such as tearing, gripping, carrying, throwing, and hammering.
Remember that the handshake evolved as a gesture to say hello or good-bye or to seal an agreement, so it always needs to be warm, friendly, and positive.
How to Disarm a Power Player
The Palm-Down Thrust is reminiscent of the Nazi salute and is the most aggressive of all handshakes because it gives the receiver little chance of establishing an equal relationship. This handshake is typical of the overbearing, dominant person who always initiates it, and their stiff arm with palm facing downward forces the receiver into the submissive position.
The Palm-Down Thrust
If you feel someone is giving a Palm-Down Thrust to you on purpose, here are several counters to it:
1. The Step-to-the-Right Technique
If you receive a dominant handshake from a power player—and it's mostly men who do it—it is not only difficult to turn his palm back up into an equal position, but it's obvious when you do it.
This technique involves first stepping forward with your left foot as you reach to shake hands. This takes a little practice, as stepping forward on the right foot is the natural position for 90 percent of people when shaking with the right hand.
The power player attempts to control
Step forward on your left foot
Next, step forward