Conference turris::womannotes-v2

    	Doug,
    	  I agree with you, I am not that great at non-verbal
    communication and tend to take what people say at face value unless
    I know them well.  I don't really see a difference in my ability
    to pick up on it from men or women.
    	Linda

    Doug,
    
    Thanks for starting this topic. You're right that communication is
    always between two individuals. However, certain patterns do sometimes
    emerge, and I think it behooves us to pay attention to those patterns.
    Dawn's comments certainly fits my experience. 
    
    In my own personal experience, there are very few men whom I completely
    trust. The reason is that I almost always perceive a threat (sometimes
    a very mild one) of violence when I'm around a man. I just haven't felt
    that same fear (and I recognize this fear may be totally irrational)
    when I'm around women. I believe that this perception on my part does
    color the non-verbal communications that I have with people. 

    I'm sure other people have different understandings of Dawn's
    observations, and I look forward to reading about them.
    
    Liz

    I would say that Dawn is right. True, the communication is
    between individuals, but being of the same sex brings to the
    interaction a commonality of experience that colors the
    communication. In general, I think a woman will understand
    better where another woman is "coming from" than would a man.
    This is part of the very essence of non-verbal communication.
    
    --- jerry

    Another aspect of it is that certain non-verbal speech mannerisms,
    such as dropping or raising the voice at the end of a line, are
    culturally conditioned according to sex roles.  Women generally
    raise the voice at the end of a line, while men generally drop
    it; the raised voice in American English is generally interpreted
    as asking a question and hence a man is likely to think that
    a woman is asking a question when she's in fact making a
    statement.  Women seldom make this mistake.
    
    There are piles of books and reams of research on this aspect
    of non-verbal communications, especially as they relate to
    business.
    
    --bonnie

    	Well... Yes and No.
    
    	Yes, there are patterns that many people follow, but you gotta
    be careful about the generalizations.  All the articles that I've
    seen (including Bonnie's comment about raising your voice at the
    end of a sentence) about "body language" list as "male"  many
    characteristics that I display.  I often have problems with people
    misinterpreting my words/actions based on such things.
    
    	For instance, I'm constantly having to deal with the fact that
    many people find me very intimidating.  Now objectively speaking,
    I don't do or say things that differently than several men in the
    department, yet they are not perceived as being nearly as "dominating".
    Perhaps this is because people are culturally conditioned to expect,
    for example, the "raised voice" from me and not the men and so a 
    "statement" from me has double impact - the impact of any statement
    plus the impact of the "surprise" of a strong statement from a female. 
    
    	I'm rambling a bit here, but I guess what I'm saying is that like
    any sterotype, it's useful to get along in the main and make quick
    decisions about people in general (which is how stereotypes get started
    after all), but as soon as you get down to individuals and individual 
    actions, they are more damaging and misleading than not.  
    
   	I also think that as the cultural stereotypes about gender change
    in other ways, our "body language" will change as well.  So as time
    goes on, think the statement in .0 becomes less and less true.
    
    tlh
    

    I think the one example that almost everyone can relate to is the
    following:
    
    You're out with a mixed-gender group. Something happens, or someone
    says something, and the guys in the group fall down laughing. The
    women have no idea what's so funny.
    
    Same group different place. Another event/comment - and the women
    are helpless with laugher. The guys stand around wondering what's
    so funny.
    
    There is some commonality of experience among members of the same
    sex that causes some certain number of experiences to be shared
    and *understood*. Women often understand how another woman is
    feeling without being told. Same for men. And even the SO's of
    those folks, if they are opposite sex, can't understand.
    
    How often do people tell their best (same sex) friend about situations
    in which their (opposite sex) SO can't understand *why* they feel
    "that way" - when the same sex friend understands completely?
    
    And this is only one small part of the varieties of non-verbal
    communications we deal with every day - look at the different
    faces of it we've seen in just the last few notes.
    
    --DE
    

    Re: .6
    
    Hmm.  I would think of that as verbal communication, not non-verbal.
    However, the idea of commonality of experience might translate to
    non-verbal communication, though I have a harder time imagining.
    (Then again, it's just after 5 and I'm still feeling unimaginative.)

re .4

    Bonnie, could you come up with titles or authors for any of
    the books you mentioned?  I realize there's a subject index
    in the card catalog, but I'd sure appreciate a little initial
    separation of the wheat from the chaff.

    -- Linda

    re: .7? The reply questioning verbal/nonverbal, anyway.
    
    In communications studies, "Verbal" communication refers to the
    message that is conveyed by the words -- the message you would get
    simply reading a transcript of a conversation, for example -- and
    "nonverbal" communication refers to the information that is
    conveyed in other ways -- by the tone of voice, inflections,
    facial expressions, body positions, etc. etc.  In most situations,
    more than 60% of the communication occurs nonverbally. 

    In this sense, common assumptions aren't part of communication,
    verbal or otherwise, but the verbal and nonverbal cues that one
    uses to trigger recognition of a common assumption are part of it. 
    
    re: .8 
    
    Linda, unfortunately it's been years since I took the course
    that used these books and I don't think I saved the bibliography.
    One book I remember was called something like "The Communication
    Gap:  Women and Body Language in Business."  It was neither
    the newest nor the best of the things we read, but it was pretty
    popular and would probably be the easiest to get hold of. 
    
    If your DEC facility offers DME courses (DIGITAL Management
    Education) you might be able to take a course in how women's
    nonverbal cues work in a business situation.
    
    --bonnie 

       Touch is often a form of dominance as we have discussed in other
       notes in this conference. But it can be a powerful means of
       suggestion that changes the meanings of words when used in
       conjunction with them. 

       Think of the difference in this scenerio. A man and a woman are
       in the hall talking. She makes a joke at his expense, sees it's
       caused a problem, glances at him and says I'm sorry. Now think of
       her saying I'm sorry while placing her hand lightly on his arm
       and looking briefly into his eyes. This happens in seconds and
       the touch is withdrawn immediately. But look at the difference. 
       I'm willing to bet the man would respond much more strongly and
       in a more positive manner to the second event.

       In another instance of "I know I read this somewhere" I seem to
       remember reading that even in day to daya interaction with strangers
       (such as store clerks) that we respond more positively if we
       touch briefly, as in when we pass money from hand to hand. liesl

    RE:.10
    
    You're right - touch creates more positive interaction.
    
    Now, I don't have to define touch, and mention that there are
    ways of touching that are demeaning and offensive, do I?
    
    Dawn-who-studied-the-psychology-of-touch-in-massage-school
    

    RE:.11, rE: 10
    
    The second 'graph should have a few more blank lines between
    it and the first line - which was addressed to liesl.
    
    The second 'graph was not addressed to anyone in particular.
    
    Paranoid in Peoria
    

> I submit that the non-verbal communication between members of the
> same sex is (so) different (as to be 2 different things) from the
> non-verbal communication between members of the opposite sexes.

Been looking at this string since Wednesday and *finally* discovered 
some of what I think.  (Fascinating subject. Good work Dawn and Doug!)

First, our common experiences differ, so our reading and sending 
non-verbals differ.

Second, the ability to read and send differs according to the 
comfort level one has towards a different sex -- or race, nationality, 
education level, etc. (For instance, *all* my antennas malfunction in 
the presence of Old Money. I could not utter a 100% natural "Good 
morning, Mrs. Vanderbilt" if the life of this file depended upon it.
[Lee T. you must sometime give us the daughter of the "money" note 
we had to leave in Volume 1.])

Third, the ability to read ... I will now lay a hot potato here.

I think most people who are honest and open are "slow learners" when
it comes to reading the non-verbals.  Honest, open people tend to say
what they think.  They also assume -- AS ALL HUMANS ASSUME FOR MANY
YEARS -- that everyone else is like them.  So they assume everyone
else is saying what they think too. Trust by default. It takes a lot
to overcome this assumption. Why bother scratching my head over the
subtle stuff when I Heard The Words? 

  An aside: When I hear an abused woman "But he always said he 
  loved me and would never do that again ... " I think she may be
  an incredibly honest, open, trusting soul who really believes
  this nonsense because he SAID it. (I was a kid-fundamentalist 
  and the words I once believed now take my breath away.)

People who are not honest and open -- con-artists and swindlers -- 
are quite good at reading non-verbals.  The future con-artist, say at 
ten years old, lies and of course assumes everyone else is sending
false messages too. With such assumptions, reading non-verbals is as
important as speaking the mother tongue -- it's part of the mother
tongue!

Soooo, after enough people have mislead you, and you realize 
that words come without a guarantee, you might start looking for 
and reading the non-verbals. 

For myself, I ignored much of the non-verbal for a long time ...
didn't want to abandon my assumption of trust in other people, and 
also found it convenient to believe what people said. Less work. 

Ran across the quote twenty years ago and I had to read the damn 
thing for days before its meaning became clear:

      Words are the counters of wise men and the gold of fools.

Meigs

Thanx Meigs!

A friend of my honey's runs a school for disturbed kids (drugs, disfunctional
families, and so on). He's aces at what he does, 'cause he can see the kids
coming. He was pretty awful when he was younger, and claims that experience
helps him (any lie they try telling he already told!). Your rundown gives me
some ideas on why that might be so.

	Mez

    As a kind of a tangent, but maybe not so much of a tangent as a
    parallel, is to look at other forms of non-verbal communication...
    
    Take sign language, for example...  The whole medium is non-verbal.
    
    Communications in sign *do* have ranges in terms of intensity -
    both in the "strength" of the sign, as well as the speed at which
    it is done, the facial expression, AND the choice of one sign over
    another which means "nearly" the same thing...
    
    [Interjection - as the first example I can think of, and don't ask
    why, there are at least 3 commonly used signs for "make love/have
    sex".  They have varying degrees of "objectivity" and crudeness...
    No, I'm not going to describe them here.  :^)]
    
    People are often disconcerted when meeting a Deaf person (note that
    I used a capital "D" - I'm not speaking of the "hard of hearing"!)
    for the first time, since all non-verbal communications do seem to
    be "amplified" beyond expectations - when they are happy, they seem
    happier, when they are mad, they seem FURIOUS.  (And, when seductive...
    :^)
    
    Kind of like the Italian, the Englishman, and personal space...
    
    Bill

    	Going further down the rathole...
             
    	I'm a "natural" at sign because of that.  I have a very mobile
    face and am quite uninhibited in expression.  I taught myself sign
    and when I went out and started signing with the Deaf, they couldn't
    believe that I was a) self taught and b) new to it.  It takes most
    people a while to lower the walls enough to really get expressive
    with your hands and body.  
    
    	Come to think of it , that might be another reason why I come
    across as intimidating...
    
    tlh