Fundamentals of communication, P.R. and leadership
Many social and behavioural scientists and communication experts
accept the idea that, as mammals, we humans do transmit and receive
non-verbal messages. The underlying basis of this position is that if
properly trained we can be able to decipher received body language
messages. The validity and the reliability of this theory have not been
properly established and tested but the idea is still worth thinking
about in more detail. In this article, Dr Georgios P. Piperopoulos,
professor of communications and public relations will analyse the use of
‘non-verbal communication’ among humans by focusing on our face. Don’t
miss this.
What our smiles are all about
Erwin Goffman (1969) coined and introduced the interesting concept of
‘public smiles’. In all human cultures, in what appears to exist at a
universal level, the human smile expresses a good sense of humour. It is
also commonly accepted that our smile often involves elements of
apology, especially in cases where some act or some verbal statement on
our part could be interpreted as an attack or insult to the receiver. In
such cases we smile and, obviously, we do politely apologize without
uttering any relevant words. Finally, as most of us know from
experience, there are instances in everyday life where we smile despite
being angry, we smile despite feeling bitter, and we even proceed to
swallow our disappointments with a smile.Our face carries specific meanings
In body language our mouth and lips, eyebrows and eyes each alone, or operating in combined fashion, dramatize their own role in the process of our communication with others. Thus, pulling the lip or focusing on one area of the mouth carries specific meanings and so do specific movements of the eyebrows along with contractions of our forehead. Furthermore, although our eyeballs are only organs which carry light from visual stimuli through the optic nerve to the brain, in body language our eyes, with the help of the general area of the face around them, seem to be significant transmitters of specific and meaningful messages to others we are interacting with. This materializes and is conveyed through the intensity and persistence with which we look at the person or persons standing or sitting opposite to us.
The eyes as the mirror of the soul
It is already fairly well established, as a result of relevant psychological research, that when we see something delightful the pupils of our eyes dilate, apparently with the aim to collect as much as possible of the intensely pleasant stimulus, whereas when we see something unpleasant, the pupils of our eyes constrict minimizing the inflow of the unwanted stimulus. Indeed, it is a given in world literature that the human eyes are often
