Mehrabian's moans about the myth

The debate about the Merhrabian myth has been going on for a few weeks now, and Olivia Mitchell deserves congratulating for prompting so much discussion – and, if you want to know where I stand on the issue, you can catch up on some of my earlier posts about it from the links below.

If you missed the interview on BBC Radio 4, where Dr Mehrabian is to be heard bemoaning the way his statistics have been misinterpreted, it should still be available HERE (23 minutes into the tape).

He took a very similar line to that in an e-mail exchange I had with him seven years ago when I was writing the chapter ‘Physical Facts and Fiction’ for my book ‘Lend Me Your Ears’ and the relevant section went as follows:

In some cases, there is a huge gulf between the originators of the research and their disciples, both in the amount of confidence shown in such ‘facts,’ and in the extent to which they hold them to be generally applicable. This is certainly true of the 93% claim, which first reached a wider public with the publication of the book Silent messages: Implicit communication of emotions and attitudes by Dr Albert Mehrabian, a social psychologist at the University of California, in 1981. But, as he pointed out to me in an e-mail, the research on which it was based dates from more than a decade before that, and was actually concerned with feelings and attitudes:

“This work of mine has received considerable attention in the literature. It was reported originally by Mehrabian & Weiner (1967) and Mehrabian & Ferris (1967). Silent Messages contains a detailed discussion of my findings on inconsistent and consistent messages of feelings and attitudes.
Total Liking = 7% Verbal Liking + 38% Vocal Liking + 55% Facial Liking.”
(Albert Mehrabian , personal communication, e-mail, 16 October 2002).

A key point to note here is that Dr Mehrabian’s original percentages refer to different types of ‘liking’, and not to communication in all its forms. And, as one of the originators of these numbers, he writes with far more caution about their general applicability than is ever shown by the popularisers of his work:

“Please note that this and other equations regarding differential importance of verbal and nonverbal messages were derived from experiments dealing with communications of feelings and attitudes (i.e. like-dislike). Unless a communicator is talking about their feelings or attitudes, these equations are not applicable.” (Albert Mehrabian, personal communication, e-mail, 16 October 2002).

Unlike Dr Mehrabian, those who recycle these percentages with such confidence have few qualms about generalising way beyond anything he ever intended. Their cavalier disregard for the details of his research is also a matter of some concern to him, as he indicated in the reply to an e-mail in which I asked him what he thought about his findings being so widely used to mislead people about the relative importance of verbal and non-verbal communication:

“I am obviously uncomfortable about misquotes of my work. From the very beginning, I have tried to give people the correct limitations of my findings. Unfortunately, the field of self-styled ‘corporate image consultants’ or ‘leadership consultants’ has numerous practitioners with very little psychological expertise.” (Albert Mehrabian , personal communication, e-mail, 31 October 2002).

(From Max Atkinson's Lend Me Your Ears, pp. 343-345).

Related posts on body language and non-verbal behaviour:

• Body language and non-verbal communication
• Another body language & non-verbal communication cartoon
• Non-verbal communication
• Body language, non-verbal communication and the myth about folded arms and defensiveness
• Margaret Thatcher, body language and non-verbal communication
• Non-verbal communication and height
• Presidential heights
• Impersonators as masterful analysts of non-verbal communication
• Eye contact, public speaking and the case of President Zuma’s dark glasses
• Hair today, win tomorrow: baldness and charisma?
• Body language and non-verbal communication video

Body language news from Germany

Followers of previous discussions of body language and non-verbal communication may be interested to know that the news from Germany about Angela Merkel's recent election poster might be about to force me to revise some of my previously expressed views on the subject.

After earlier posts on baldness, height, folded arms and dark glasses (see below), it now looks as though I might have to address the delicate issue of breasts.

I've already written about femininity and charisma in the case of Margaret Thatcher, Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin, but the question of breasts had obviously escaped me completely. Looks like a case for further research!

Anyone interested in catching up on previous posts on body language and non-verbal communication can do so by clicking on any of the following:

• Body language and non-verbal communication
• Another body language & non-verbal communication cartoon
• Non-verbal communication
• Body language, non-verbal communication and the myth about folded arms and defensiveness
• Margaret Thatcher, body language and non-verbal communication
• Non-verbal communication and height
• Presidential heights
• Impersonators as masterful analysts of non-verbal communication
• Eye contact, public speaking and the case of President Zuma’s dark glasses
• Hair today, win tomorrow: baldness and charisma?
• Body language and non-verbal communication video

Impersonators as masterful analysts of non-verbal communication

The recent debate on various blogs about some of the myths about body language and non-verbal communication (on which see HERE and HERE) has reminded me of a minor frustration from my days as a full-time academic.

When I worked in Oxford during the 1970s-80s, there were quite a few social psychologists doing research into body language and non-verbal communication.

Although they were always good company and interesting to talk to over lunch, they knew and I knew that there were some quite important methodological differences between their approach and that of conversation analysts like me.

Put briefly, and from my point of view, they didn't seem to let empirical data constrain their claims to the same extent as we did.

Invite an impersonator to give a seminar?
Some of the people I knew used to arrange for visiting academics to speak at their regular seminars, and I was continually trying to persuade them to invite Mike Yarwood. He wasn’t an academic, but was the top showbiz impersonator at the time (and, if I were still there today, I’d no doubt be trying to get them to invite Rory Bremner, for the same reason).

As for why I thought Yarwood would have some interesting things to say, it was because, for his impersonations to convince the mass television audience so successfully, he must have developed some very effective techniques for observing the way celebrities speak and behave – and for analyzing at such fine levels of detail that he was then able to reproduce instantly recognisable versions of them in his own performances.

In fact, as far as I could see, he must have been better at it than those of us who were supposed to be ‘experts’, and should therefore be able to teach us a thing or two that would help us to improve our own observational skills.

What's the point?
My conversations with the psychologists about this always ended in failure, so we never did get to hear Mr Yarwood revealing any of his secrets.

In retrospect, I suspect my argument may have too threatening, or perhaps too undiplomatic, for them to agree to invite him to a seminar.

When they asked “Why?”, “What would the point of that be?”, etc., my reply went along the following lines:

“Because his observations and analyses have to be accurate enough not just to describe their behaviour in detail, but to be able to reproduce it so effectively that anyone can recognize who it is. If Yarwood gets it wrong, his shows will fail and he’ll be out of a job, whereas academics can be wrong for the next 30+ years and still get paid.”

Such were the luxuries of the academic life.

How many numbers can you get into a minute?

A few months ago, I made the point that Gordon Brown tends to pack far too much information into his speeches and still has to take notice of a crucial tip from Winston Churchill about simplicity.

In his final press conference before the Summer recess, he was at it again. At one stage, as you can see below, he managed to mention nine numbers in less than a minute.

The trouble is that a lot of people glaze over when numbers come at them so thick and fast – a problem that’s even worse if, as in this case, they’re delivered in a flat monotonous tone of voice.

And the importance of speakers conveying enthusiasm for their subjects cannot be overestimated – for the very obvious reason that, if a speaker sounds bored by his or her subject matter, why should the audience feel any less bored, let alone be inspired by it?

Add to this Mr Brown’s earnest facial expression and it's hardly surprising that he’s so often referred to ‘dour’.

More on body language & non verbal behavior

A few weeks ago, Olivia Mitchell got quite a debate going on the blogosphere about some of the more ridiculous claims that have been circulating as 'facts' about the allegedly overwhelming importance of non-verbal factors in communication.

I've found the way the debate has been going very encouraging, not least because I've been banging on about these myths for years and had a go at debunking some of them in my book Lend Me Your Ears: All You Need to Know about Making Speeches and Presentations, which included some email exchanges with the originator of the myth discussed by Olivia Mitchell and in a video that's just appeared on YouTube (see below).

Whether or not what I wrote five years ago had anything to do with inspiring others to start addressing such issues, I don't know. Nor do I really care, because what really matters is that the tide finally seems to be moving in a more sensible direction - which might help to save thousands of people from being mislead into a state of needless anxiety by so-called 'experts' in the field.

If you're interested in the subject, related postings on this blog, including various cartoons and video clips, can inspected by clicking on any of the following.

• Non-verbal communication
• How to use video to study body language, verbal and non-verbal communication
• Margaret Thatcher, body language and non-verbal communication
• Body language and non-verbal communication video
• Another body language & non-verbal communication cartoon
• Body language, non-verbal behaviour and the myth about folded arms and defensiveness
• Body language and non-verbal communication

You might also enjoy the following video that's just been posted on YouTube about one of the most preposterous myths of all.

Non-verbal communication

Here's another cartoon on non-verbal communication (others can be seen HERE & HERE):

Non-verbal communication and height

Charles Crawford's blog has alerted me to some intriguing news about image-management in Moscow, that looks as though it was a cunning plan to make President Obama (6'1'') look uncomfortable sitting in a very low chair alongside Prime Minister Putin (5'7").

As you can see from the picture I posted a few weeks ago, President Sarkozy certainly has no qualms about rising to the same height as President Obama, even if it does mean standing on a box.

But, though we may know less about what image-handlers get up to in Russia than in the West, it shouldn't be thought that it's anything new. I have newspaper clippings from the Reagan years with reports from Moscow that Gorbachev was having smiling lessons, presumably to compete with the cheerful countenance of the Great Communicator in Washington.

A while back, I expressed surprise that the Republicans had taken such a risk as to nominate a candidate (McCain) who is six inches shorter than Obama - because there's some research suggesting that the most powerful predictors of success in US politics are height (the taller the better) and a record of sporting achievement (the sportier the better).

I've also suggested that, at least since the television age began, baldness may be a disadvantage for male politicians.

So no one should think that, just because I think that some of the claims about the importance of body language have been grossly over-stated, I don't think it matters at all. But I do think there are some difficult methodological problems in being more precise about it, however much agreement there may be between Messrs Putin and Sarkozy on the question of height.

How to use video to study body language, verbal and non-verbal communication

If you've been following the recent debate about some of the more outrageous claims about non-verbal behaviour and body languge (e.g. HERE and HERE), you may have been wondering why I think that so much research in this area falls short of the methodological constraints associated with the approach of conversation analysis.

There’s a long version, that has to do with the theoretical debates taking place within sociology during the 1960s–70s that I certainly don’t intend to get into here.

There’s also a much shorter version that has to do with the way conversation analysis offered a viable alternative for any researcher with doubts about sociology’s heavy reliance on surveys and official statistics, psychology’s equally heavy reliance on artificially contrived experiments and linguistics’s use of invented examples, and/or denying that there’s any point at all in looking at how language actually works (e.g. Chomsky).

What conversation analysts did was to move away from the previously dominant hypothetico-deductive model of science towards a much more inductive alternative of the kind that had given birth to ethology in biology/zoology.

This was made possible by what I believe will eventually recognised as having been as important for our understanding of talk and interaction as the invention of the telescope had been for understanding astronomy: by the late 1960s, high quality audio and video recording technology meant that anyone could record real everyday talk, put it under the microscope and study it at a level of detail that had never before been possible. And the first people to do so were the founders of conversation analysis.

When I wrote Our Masters’ Voices (1984), I was aiming at more general readership than the professional academic community of sociologists, psychologists and linguists. But I still thought it necessary to say at least something about the observational methodology that had made the findings possible.

The most important elements of this approach to observation were that (a) the researcher’s claims are severely constrained by what’s there in the empirical data (so you can’t just speculate, say whatever you like or make it up), and (b) any claims that you do make can be checked out by anyone else who has access to the same data (which is about as powerful a form of verification as there is anywhere else in the social and behavioural sciences).

The following refers to speeches because that's what the book was about, But I still believe, as I did then, that the methodology can be used to study pretty well any data on human interaction and communication that’s been recorded on audio or video tape:


Once a speech has been recorded, it can be studied with all the advantages that television viewers of an action replay of a sporting incident have over those who actually saw it happening live. Unlike them, television viewers get a chance to look at it again and again. Finer points that may have been missed the first time around are brought into sharper focus as the action is replayed, slowed down, or frozen for even closer inspection.

While footballers and spectators may know who scored a goal, they often have no more than a vague impression of the events leading up to it. By contrast, viewers of the action-replay can track the sequence as it unfolds and see exactly how the different actions were organised and combined to produce the goal. They are therefore in a far better position to understand how a particular move worked than those who saw it only once.

All this applies equally to the study of any other form of human behaviour that can be preserved on video tape, including the behaviour of politicians. If, for example, the saying of something which results in applause is to the orator what scoring a goal is to a footballer, then action replays can be put to work in a similar way by looking to see how the words, gestures and other bodily movements combined together to produce the desired response.

Another well known feature of the action replay is also crucially important for the way the observations can be read and evaluated. Replays of sporting incidents are almost always accompanied by more commentary from the commentator(s) on the events we are seeing again, the object of the exercise being to supply a more detailed and informed analysis.

But viewers can also see the sequence of events just as well for themselves, and are therefore in a position to draw their own conclusions about what actually happened. This means that they can also judge the adequacy or otherwise of the commentator's description and analysis.

If the commentator’s claims about how the event occurred are out of line with what the viewers saw, the television company's switchboards will be jammed within minutes. And, if a sports commentator persists in making excessively personal, subjective or eccentric observations about what he (and everyone else) is seeing, he’s unlikely to hold down his job for very long.

Margaret Thatcher, body language and non-verbal communication

Here's a simple exercise for anyone who really believes that only 7% of communication comes from the words we actually use.

In the first of these clips, according to purveyors of the Mehrabian myth, you'll miss out on the words (7% ) and tone of voice (55%), but at least you'll get 38% of Mrs Thatcher's message from her body language alone - or will you?



Now ask yourself, whether the words alone -"The Lady's not for turning" - convey any more than 7% of her message.

Then watch the second clip and ask yourself whether her body language and tone of voice add a further 93% to the intelligibility and/or power of her message:



And, if you'd like to know more about modern myths about body language and non-verbal communication, have a look HERE, HERE or read more on 'Physical Facts and Fiction' in my book Lend Me Your Ears: All You Need to Know about Making Speeches and Presentations.

NLP: No Linguistic Proof

It's more than 40 years since I started doing research for a PhD. Ever since then, I've naively thought that you really shouldn't go around making claims about the workings of human behavior and interaction for which there is little or no empirical justification. And that means, among other things, that there have to be methodological procedures that are clear enough for any other researcher to be able to check out the validity of whatever it is you're claiming.

In previous postings, I've already touched on some of the grossly exaggerated claims about the supposedly overwhelming importance of body language and non-verbal behavior in human communication.

But however flawed the empirical basis for some of these may be, they pale into insignificance compared with what's on offer from proponents of Neuro Linguistic Programming.

If only I'd realised how much money can be made if you don't hold yourself bound by what can be established through careful observational research, I could have not only got my hands on part of the action but also, at the same time, could have saved myself huge amounts of time.

But I don't think I could have lived with my conscience - unless, of course, I'm missing out on something when I see stuff like this (which really hots up after about 60 seconds):



Now, some questions:

Q1. Did you manage to watch it through to the very end?
Q2. Can you summarise what the point of it all was?
Q3. What empirical research is 'the point' based on?

Body language and non-verbal communication video

If you enjoyed the cartoons posted recently (HERE and HERE), you might also be interested in this training video on body language and non-verbal behavior.

The challenge is to decide whether you think it's intended to be humorous or serious:

Another body language & non-verbal communication cartoon

Quite a lot of people seem to have enjoyed the cartoon I posted recently summing up the absurdity of the claim that only 7% of communication comes from the words we actually use and that 93% is 'non-verbal' (HERE).

What I like about this one is that the humour is massively reduced as soon the words 'actually used' are removed from above the door:



(If you're interested in modern myths about body language and non-verbal communication, you might also like to look HERE at my comments on the claim that people with their arms folded are on the defensive).

Body language, non-verbal communication and the myth about folded arms and defensiveness

A recent posting on Olivia Mitchell’s Speaking about Presenting blog led to a lively exchange about the absurdly overstated claims that 93% of communication is non-verbal (see also HERE for a cartoon that neatly sums it up).

The chapter on ‘Physical Facts and Fiction’ in my book Lend Me Your Ears was aimed at debunking some of these modern myths, and I’d like to know what others think about the claim that folding your arms means that you’re being defensive.

It’s one that prompted me years ago to start asking people sitting in lectures with their arms folded whether they were feeling defensive.

The immediate and invariable reaction is that they quickly unfold their arms – because they too know exactly what I’m referring to and they too 'know' that it's alleged to be a sign of defensiveness.

The commonest response is that they’re feeling quite comfortable, thank you very much.

Sometimes they point out that there are no armrests on the chairs; occasionally they complain that the room is a bit cold.

But never once has anyone among the hundreds of people I’ve now put he question to ever said that they felt on the defensive.

The body language ‘experts’ would no doubt tell me that I’m a naïve idiot for being taken in by them, that I’m failing to read what their non-verbal behaviour is really telling me, that they’re covering up what their real feelings are in order not to offend me, etc, etc.

My problem is that I see no reason not believing them. Nor, until someone provides a convincing demonstration to the contrary, do I believe that these self-appointed ‘experts’ have any evidence to support their position, or to prove that people like me have got it so wrong.

But, and this is perhaps the most depressing thing of all, I do nontheless advise people not to fold their arms when speaking, whether in a conversation, presentation, job interview or anywhere lese where they’re hoping to make a good impression – not because I believe that folded arms signals defensiveness, but because I know that there’s almost certain to be someone in the audience who’s been misled into believing that it does.

Presidential heights

If you’ve been following the debate about how important body language and non-verbal communication really are, you shouldn't conclude from one of my recent posts that I don’t think such things matter at all. 

During the Obama-McCain campaigns, I even suggested that there might be a connection between political success and a good head of hair (‘Hair today, win tomorrow: baldness and charisma?’), in which I also mentioned a study of US politicians  ‘from presidents down to the lowest levels of local government, that identified the two most powerful predictors of electoral success in American politics as being the candidate’s height (the taller the better) and record of athletic achievement (the sportier the better).’ 

On the question of height, it's worth looking at a  piece in today’s Times Online entitled ‘How Sarkozy stood up to Obama’

As can be seen from the picture, Sarkozy is clearly sensitive enough about being vertically challenged to stand on a step at the same podium as other speakers at the D-Day commemorations last weekend.

And, if height really is as important in American politics as suggested in the study mentioned above, Mr Sarkozy might have found it more difficult to get elected as president had he been campaigning in the USA rather than France.

Body language and non-verbal communication

This cartoon strip is the briefest summing up I've come across of the absurdity of the overstated claims about the supposedly overwhelming importance of body language and non-verbal communication that circulate so widely in the worlds of presentation skills and management training.

So I was pleased to see that the debate has resurfaced again HERE, as it's something I've been banging on about it for years (see, for example, 'Physical Facts and Fiction', Chapter 11, Lend Me Your Ears) and Step 7 in Speech-making and Presentation Made Easy.

One of the most widely repeated myths asserts that the relative importance of different factors in communication is even more extreme than the 80% referred to in the above cartoon, namely:

Words: 7%
Body language: 38%
Tone of voice: 55%.

But the idea that 93% of communication is non-verbal flies in the face of our common sense experience, and I've never heard any of its advocates address any of the following rather obvious questions:

1. How come it's much easier to have a conversation with a blind person than with someone who's completely deaf?
2. How come we can have perfectly good conversations in the dark?
3. How come telephones and radio have been such spectacular successes?
4. How come we have to work so hard to learn foreign languages?

To these, I would add what I consider to be quite an important lesson from my experience of doing research into political speech-making, which was originally based solely on audio tape recordings. Once video tapes became available, however, none of the audio-based findings had to be rejected or seriously revised, though the added visual dimension did help to extend our understanding and, in some cases, to explain apparently 'deviant' cases.

The same applies more generally to research in the field of conversation analysis, where I know of no examples where audio-based findings had to be rejected, or even significantly modified, in the face of video recorded data.

In other words, most of the core observations were originally derived from audio evidence alone, and were robust enough to survive the more detailed scrutiny that becomes possible with access to video-recordings.

That's why I'm so convinced that what is said is far more important than the 7% brigade make out. Otherwise, the forum speech in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar would presumably have started with the words 'Lend me your EYES' - and I wouldn't have been so stupid as to publish a book entitled Lend Me Your Ears.