Speech has an important place in human life. After all, with her help, people communicate, exchange information. But non-verbal communication also plays an important role. It is this area that kinesics is studying.
What it is
Kinesika is a science that studies the signals of non-verbal communication. What does nonverbal communication mean by itself? These are facial expressions, poses, gestures. If a person can control his speech, then with other signals it is not so simple. Often, it is from them that you can determine the true meaning of what the interlocutor wanted to say.
In psychology, everything is interconnected, and often facial expressions and gestures provide more information about the interlocutor than his speech. If kinesics studies nonverbal communication, then other types of information are studied by more specialized psychological sciences. This type of communication is studied together with the proxemic kinesics - it explores spatial relationships.
Creator of this technique
Ray Birdwistel, an American anthropologist, is the creator of the science of kinesics. It was he who decided to combine his research, as well as the research of colleagues, and, having analyzed them, came to the conclusion that people use most gestures in certain situations. In 1952, his monograph, Introduction to Kinesics: An Annotated System for Recording Arm and Body Movements, was published.
This publication was the beginning of the formation of kinesics. In his studies, the scientist tried to create something similar to a catalog of gestures, which would describe the universal meanings of gestures and facial expressions for all peoples. During his travels, Birdwistel noticed that some peoples have gestures that are used only between them, and they communicate with guests in a completely different way. And it was then that the researcher wondered about the relationship between speech and non-verbal signs.
Ray Birddistel was one of the first to be interested in the question of the relationship between gestures and pitch. Thus, kinesics is not only the science of gestures, it covers a much larger area.
What information does gesticulation carry?
Despite the fact that research on the topic of non-verbal communication has been conducted for several years, the meaning of studying gestures remains incomprehensible to most people. Why do you need to study it?
- Gestures complement the information obtained verbally. With the help of them you can understand the emotional state of the interlocutor, his attitude to the participants or the topic of conversation.
- Using gestures, you can determine how emotionally close the issues discussed are for the person.
- Usually a gesture appears before a phrase, so you can predict what a person wants to say.
What place does the gaze, posture and gait take in the non-verbal
Kinesika is also the study of gaze, posture and gait, because this also applies to the field of non-verbal communication. And if gestures and postures are easiest for a person to control, then gaze and gait are more difficult. Why so?
Eye contact is considered very important when talking with the interlocutor. By its duration, you can always determine whether a person is telling the truth, whether he is pleasant to the person he is talking to or the topic of conversation. If a person can try to control its duration, then the size of the pupils is not. Namely, they are a common reason why one can guess the true attitude.
The poses that a person takes during a conversation can tell interesting information about the interlocutor. If a person’s gestures and facial expressions are taught to control from an early age, little attention is paid to controlling poses. By the position of the person’s body, one can determine whether he is ready to make contact or not, whether he is inclined to dominate and what his emotional state is.
The gait determines a person’s attitude to life, his physical and mental state. People who are confident in themselves and look at life with optimism have a light gait, a straight posture, and when walking, they actively wave their arms. People who are depressed, tired, have a "heavy" style of movement. Their shoulders are slouching and their hands are usually in their pockets.
Therefore, when studying the field of nonverbalics it is wrong to give preference to studying only one thing - in kinesics everything is interconnected, everything is complementary, helping to draw up the correct psychological portrait of a person.
The most common gestures
Kinesika is a field that studies non-verbal communication in all its diversity. Therefore, non-verbal signals cannot always be interpreted from only one point of view. But there are gestures that have the same meaning in all cultures:
- if a person touches his ear, then he does not like what his interlocutor says;
- a person props his chin when he becomes bored;
- crossed arms and (or) legs indicate that the person does not want to communicate;
- if a person touches the neck, then he is embarrassed or unsure of himself;
- if a person covers his mouth with his palm, he tells false information;
- a person drumming his fingers on the table, looking at his watch or twitching his leg, this is a sign of impatience;
- rubbing the glasses indicates that the interlocutor is thinking.
There are many meanings of non-verbal signals; they become even greater when they are considered in combination with verbal information. Therefore, it is important not only to know what this or that non-verbal action means, but also how it can be explained in combination with other signals. This is what kinesics science does.