Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Common fucking sense with HFG :D



My favorite thing to do in Physiology when I didn't read the chapter is dissociate and start thinking about another class... or the simpsons. I was reminded about something my communications teacher brought up, as we are currently studying body language. A lot of websites (especially if it has to do with anything in management/human resources, or worst of all pickup artists) love throwing out this bullshit statistic that 93% of communication is nonverbal, you've probably heard it somewhere. But seriously, that would mean that comprehension of a foreign language would be tremendously easy, if you "got" the nonverbal communication. I can pull up the studies but the history lesson is that the idiots that inflated this statistic took it from a couple of microstudies in the 1970s where groups of men and women communicated in unrealistically simplistic terms. In some cases, only a single word like "thanks" or "maybe" in positive, negative and neutral tones. But still, a lot of people still find this statistic plausible because of the "importance of nonverbal cues." Although there is some truth to that, it couldn't possibly make up for that high of a percentage.

Educate your friends....or troll them

17 comments:

  1. I just read about that somewhere, actually. I can understand what they mean about how non verbal communication can dominate a conversation but I agree that the percentage is far too exaggerated

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  2. Try telling me that 93% of communication is non-verbal through non-verbal communication. Hehe.

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  3. oh my god i hate "presentation" class
    its all about nonverbal bla :(

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  4. As a writer, I've always kinda been miffed by the notions that words don't really mean that much. So I've kinda always hated that statistic.

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  5. Trollollollol
    makes me wonder actually.

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  6. I ALWAYS WANTED TO READ SOMETHING LIKE THIS AND I JUST DID WHILE I WAS AT THE ARCADE I BEAT THE HIGH SCORE ON YOUR CARROT GRINDER WHICH I NEED BACK K THANKS :)

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  7. Wow
    My dad always used to tell me (he was a salesman at the time) that the key to get a sale is to use non-verbal language
    I've always wondered whether he did it because he wasnt that great at speaking English, or because it really works
    After reading this post, I think it was a mixture of both ;p

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  8. kinesics are definetely intergral to getting the right message across

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  9. Facial expressions and body gestures are the key ingredients to telling how a conversation is going, but the conversation itself is more important. For obvious reasons.

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  10. trolling them. but I really like this post. more scientific and factual than i thought it would be! thanks for the post

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  11. "But seriously, that would mean that comprehension of a foreign language would be tremendously easy, if you "got" the nonverbal communication."

    That's a great point. I know someone who speaks seven languages and he says the trick is how they sound.

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  12. I never really thought about it like that... You offer a very interesting point of view my friend.

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