The Ultimate Body Language Book

Chapter 3 – Cultural Differences
Adaptors
Is he hot under the collar or is the collar simply uncomfortable?
Adaptors are movements or gestures that are used to manage our feelings or control our responses.
Adaptors include movements done to improve comfort or reduce stress and often happen at such a low
level they usually escape awareness. Adaptors include movements such as shifting in a chair or postural
changes, crossing the legs, pulling at a shirt collar, adjusting a tie, loosening clothing and so forth.
What is interesting to researchers is that some adaptors serve a real purpose and others indicate stress.
For example, sometimes our pants really are uncomfortable so we scratch our legs, other times the
stress from outside pressure causes us to scratch in an effort to displace energy and distract us. Crossing
the legs toward your date might be read as an indicator of interest, but might instead serve to alleviate
numbness from loss of circulation. Children will rub their eyes repeatedly when tired, but this is not
because they become itchy!
Scratching the nose is another example of an adaptor and could be misread as an indicator of a lying or
might actually serve to relieve an itch. Another common adaptor used by adults is the head-grooming
gesture where the hand messages the back of the neck or head to relive stress. This gesture is not an
authentic gesture motivated by a physical purpose. Rather it used as a method to achieve comfort when
facing discomfort applied from the outside. Just about every cue related to body language can be an
adaptor. Arm crossing, leg crossing, scratching, fidgeting, twitching, rubbing the eyes, and so on, are all
part of the human repertoire and not all have hidden meaning all of the time.