Do silent films prove that we can communicate through body language alone?

18th January, 2012 - Posted by stellacollins - No Comments

I’ve just been to see The Artist.  You may have heard that amongst all the incredible CGI and 3D films that are currently out this is one is a bit of a throwback – it’s a black and white, silent movie.   I enjoyed it immensely so recommend it as a good evening out but also thought it had something to tell us about the skills of communication.

An oft quoted myth of communication is that we can understand 72% of what people mean by studying the body language alone – based on a study done by eminent psychologist Albert Mehrabian.  Does this film provide new evidence that this myth is actually true?  No, it doesn’t, despite the excellent acting.

First let’s be clear – the statistic is a reliable statistic – it’s just sometimes used inappropriately to explain normal communication when it was really a laboratory experiment under specific conditions.  The original research examined a particularly limited range of communications, ie video clips of one word utterances said in conflict with the body language and voice tones.  For example, in the clips someone says the word ‘sad’ but their tone and body language are ‘happy’.  When subjects saw and heard these clips of non-congruent behaviour they placed more emphasis on the non-verbal communication and dismissed the verbal message; ie they judged the person in the clip as communicating the message ‘happy’ rather than ‘sad’.

In ‘The Artist’ all the communication is congruent – the music, the acting and the very sparse dialogue (which appears in a box on the screen just like in the 1920s and 1930s) are all working to give you the same message.

You can tell what people seem to be saying – sometimes you lip-read short, obvious comments and sometimes you just know what sort of thing they are likely to be saying.    And then every now and then someone says something more complicated, you can’t hear it and you’re not sure what’s going on; until thankfully the text box appears with the words!

What has this to do with us communicating in real life?  Well,  it’s so much easier when all communication channels are open but as confident communicators we can express ourselves better by making sure our body language really matches the words we use.  If you want to express enthusiasm for a project then you need to show it as well as say it.    If you disagree with something there’s no point smiling slightly because you don’t want to upset the person, whilst saying you disagree.   Make sure your communications are clear and assertive and congruent with the message you want the other person to hear.

And there are occasions when you’re in the equivalent of  a black and white movie, ie one of the communication channels has been removed.  You need to make up for that loss with an emphasis on the channels that are left to you.

In the film the actors were very good at portraying nuances of messages and the emotions of a message through an excellent demonstration of body language – a raised eyebrow here and a droop of the mouth there.  But those images were blown up to an enormous size and lingered over to make sure we’d seen them – perhaps sometimes in real life we need to emphasise a point by making sure the body language is slightly larger than life.

Find out how even confident people can learn about effective communication on 28th Feb at Confident Communication at Harwell Oxford.  Full details at www.skills2grow.co.uk/confident-communication