EVALUATING BODY LANGUGAE
Elangovan, October 22, 2018
Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay
A lot happens when you are thinking, making a decision or a judgment. Body movements give away the fact that the inner wheels of your mind are working. The reasons for evaluating body language is divided basically into two:
- Judging: You may be making judgments in line with decision-making. Your body movements change with what is being said to you as you try to understand it and figure it out
- Deciding: You might be faced with an important decision. There are changes in your body movements when you are close to making a purchasing decision, for example.
Just what is evaluation, though?
Intro to Evaluation
Evaluation is, by definition, making a judgment or assessing the value, amount or number of something. It is also said to be an appraisal of something as a means of determining its worth.
Being able to read evaluating body language is therefore important. It is important if you are trying to make a sale, because it helps you to gauge whether the customer is contemplating the purchase. It is also important if you want to be seen as thinking or contemplating a decision without saying as much.
There are cues for true evaluating behavior. A discussion of these follows.
True Evaluating Behavior
Steeple hands, that is to say, hands clasped together in a praying motion, is a classic sign of evaluation. Your fingers may be linked, your index fingers pointing upwards, perhaps touching your lips. Also, you may stroke your chin or another part of your face.
Other signs of evaluation are:
- Pursing your lips
- Stroking the side of your nose, or
- Peering over the top of your spectacles
Your pursed lips and intense gaze will give signs of concentration, resting your chin in one or both of your palms. You may display open or relaxed body language, and you may come across as unaware or unafraid of danger.
It is possible to fake evaluating behavior too, because let’s face it, sometime you don’t want to be rude, and therefore you want to at least be seen to be weighing your options, especially in high pressure sales situations.
Fake Evaluating Behavior
When you fake evaluating behavior, the body movements will not be as natural as they would be for true behavior. It might also not be the natural cluster of movements, because your thinking brain might only be able to compute one, or maybe two, and therefore you will only carry out these carefully constructed and remembered behaviors, to give the illusion that you are deciding or judging, that you are in fact evaluating when you are not.
With the classic finger stroking the chin motion, for example, your finger might be on your chin, but not stroking it naturally. You might exhibit additional behaviors too, anxiety for example, because you fear that you will be caught out in your deception. More natural displays of evaluations, such as stroking the side of your nose, or looking over the top of your spectacles, might be forgotten completely.
While these are more natural, they are natural because you don’t have to think about doing them. They just happen all on their own. Your conscious brain, however, will deem these as overacting, and so you will deliberately avoid them, unless you are skilled at deception.
Very few people possess this level of skill, however.
Short Examples
Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay
We are constantly evaluating, making decisions, judging. At restaurants we are faced with a barrage of decisions, from what to eat, what to drink, or what to have for dessert. We are faced with decisions at the supermarket about whether the avocados we want to purchase are ripe, or whether to take one or two bottles of wine.
When faced with salespeople, a whole other group of decisions are presented. Do we want the product being sold to us? Do we need it? How will the salesperson feel if we do not make the purchase? Are they playing us, and what about us makes them think that we are able to be played?
Let us look briefly at the example of a sales situation:
You are parked in the mall’s parking lot and a chipper young man approaches you. He is enthusiastic, and starts to pitch an aerosol product for your car. Your car smells good enough, so you know you don’t need it, but you take it from him anyway and hold it in your hands.
The salesman is obviously new to this, and you feel sorry for him. So you don’t want to break his enthusiasm. You contemplate the product, asking evaluating questions, looking at it over the top of your glasses as though this will allow you to better assess, to better judge.
This might have started out as a simple sales situation, but the longer you hold the product in your hand, and the longer you allow a context for the situation to form in your head, the more difficult it is for you to make what was supposed to be a very simple “no thank you” situation!
Conclusion
The above example might be simplistic. But we evaluate more serious situations too. For example, we take many factors into account when voting for a president. After party affiliation, for example, research shows that we evaluate a candidate’s suitability based on our gut feeling. And this gut feeling is influenced to no small extent by the body language or the candidate.
Body language plays an integral part in debates, for instance. This is because the emotional element of what is being said is actually in how it is being said!
This is why, if you are politically akin especially, you watch these debates with bated breath. You also display classic signs of evaluation behavior, steeple hands, pursing lips, intense gaze (often over your spectacles if you wear them), and resting your chin in your palms.
An awareness of evaluating behavior is therefore essential so that you are aware of when and how you are to make vital decisions and important judgments!
References
- Farouk Radwad, Body Language, In State Of Evaluation or Thinking
- Carol Kinsey Goman, Evaluating the Body Language of our Next President, (Sep 28, 2012)
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