Neuroscience
When you're deep in conversation, how aware are you of your body language? All those nods, smiles, and gesticulations – you do know you do that, right? According to a new study in Personality and Individual Differences, how much insight we have into our body language is a kind of trait that can be measured from person to person. And what's more, if you do remember your body language in detail, this may say something about the kind of person you are – specifically, you're more likely to be anxious and neurotic in temperament.
Nora Murphy and her colleagues filmed dozens of undergrads as they had a five-minute chat with a stranger about any topic of their choosing. Afterwards, the students completed various psychological measures and they rated how much they thought they had engaged in various non-verbal behaviours during the chat, including nods, smiles, gestures and eye-contact. Meanwhile trained coders watched back footage of the chats and counted all instances of the students' non-verbal behaviours. The researchers then simply compared the students' estimates of their body language with the objective counts.
Overall, the students' estimates of their different non-verbal behaviours correlated with the objective counts more than if they'd just been guessing, which suggests that most of us do have some insight into our own body language (zooming in on individual behaviours, nodding was the only movement where this insight seemed to be lacking).
But some students were better at remembering their body language than others, and the researchers found that this greater awareness correlated with a number of other personality measures. Summing up these patterns, Murphy and her team said "the results paint a portrait of a person with high non-verbal self-accuracy as an anxious, highly self-aware of his/her own mannerisms individual who is less willing to express positive emotions and sensitive to detecting anger in others." This last point suggests people with more awareness of their own body language may be "especially sensitive to interpersonal cues of disapproval," they said.
--Nonverbal self-accuracy: Individual differences in knowing one's own social interaction behavior
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Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
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Neuroscience
We all differ in how much insight we have into our own body language
When you're deep in conversation, how aware are you of your body language? All those nods, smiles, and gesticulations – you do know you do that, right? According to a new study in Personality and Individual Differences, how much insight we have into our body language is a kind of trait that can be measured from person to person. And what's more, if you do remember your body language in detail, this may say something about the kind of person you are – specifically, you're more likely to be anxious and neurotic in temperament.Nora Murphy and her colleagues filmed dozens of undergrads as they had a five-minute chat with a stranger about any topic of their choosing. Afterwards, the students completed various psychological measures and they rated how much they thought they had engaged in various non-verbal behaviours during the chat, including nods, smiles, gestures and eye-contact. Meanwhile trained coders watched back footage of the chats and counted all instances of the students' non-verbal behaviours. The researchers then simply compared the students' estimates of their body language with the objective counts.
Overall, the students' estimates of their different non-verbal behaviours correlated with the objective counts more than if they'd just been guessing, which suggests that most of us do have some insight into our own body language (zooming in on individual behaviours, nodding was the only movement where this insight seemed to be lacking).
But some students were better at remembering their body language than others, and the researchers found that this greater awareness correlated with a number of other personality measures. Summing up these patterns, Murphy and her team said "the results paint a portrait of a person with high non-verbal self-accuracy as an anxious, highly self-aware of his/her own mannerisms individual who is less willing to express positive emotions and sensitive to detecting anger in others." This last point suggests people with more awareness of their own body language may be "especially sensitive to interpersonal cues of disapproval," they said.
--Nonverbal self-accuracy: Individual differences in knowing one's own social interaction behavior
_________________________________
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
Our free weekly email will keep you up-to-date with all the psychology research we digest: Sign up!
- Your Anxiety During Public Speaking Is Probably Made Worse By The Audience Members You Look At
We already know from past research that people with social anxiety seem to have a bias towards negative social signals. For instance, they're more likely to notice a frown of disapproval than a smile, which of course only fuels their anxiety. But...
- No Need To Look At The Score - Athletes' Body Language Gives Away Who's Winning And Losing
In a bruising encounter with an aggressor, signalling "I give up!" via your submissive body language can be a life saver. At least that's the case for our primate cousins, and likely too for our human ancestors. For a new study Philip Furley and Geoffrey...
- It's The Way They Move - Politicians' Personalities Inferred From Their Motion Patterns
People form impressions about the personality of politicians simply from the way they move, according to a new study. This isn't your typical body-language investigation into double-armed hand-shakes, bitten lips and fidgety fingers. Rather Markus...
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We trawl the world's journals so you don't have to: Team Innovation, Knowledge and Performance Management (European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology). Prisoner's Mental Health (International Journal of Prisoner Health). Activism...
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