The Ultimate Body Language Book

to be compare to a baseline as they tend to be innate and not learned. These gestures will give us clues
as to whether actions are currently on their natural baseline or are as a result of some other underlying
stress. Some things to consider when formulating a baseline includes a catalog of how often a person
gestures and which direction their eyes stare when they are thinking and analyzing (can be an indicator
of creative thought or recalling as we shall cover in a later chapter), how do they act when they are
successful and what do they do when they are stressed? It is difficult and probably unnecessary for me
to offer help in establishing baseline techniques since it’s a natural process that we all do daily.
However, the take home message has more to do with protecting ourselves from thinking that all
gestures in body language are universal and ubiquitous across all people. This book will help determine
cues that fall in and around the baselines of the people around you and provided educated guesses as to
their meaning, but this is not to say that each cue means the same thing for everyone.
A final word on proper establishment of baselines is to place most emphasis of a person when they are
relaxed or when they are in a normal mood and state. Don’t baseline someone when they are getting
ready to go on stage to speak in public or if they are going through a divorce, or have had a recent
death in the family. Their body language will be misleading and uncharacteristic. Definitely take
culture and intuition into your baseline, but avoid things like projecting and making assumptions.
Assumptions clog our ability to see what is really happening because we are putting our thoughts and
feelings which we have inside ourselves on someone else. Our life history and experiences do play
some purpose when we read people, but they can’t be the dominant force, so don’t let your biases
control how you read people. Keep in mind too that almost every other person will look at body
language naively. They will think that “A” means “B”, when in fact it might mean “C”, “D” or nothing
at all. As an aside, you might want to be careful about using body language to influence others, since
your signals might be misread or simply go unnoticed altogether.
So the message here is, just because so and so does this or that, it doesn’t mean one hundred percent
this or that! Compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges and him or her to his or her baseline!
This will produce a much more accurate read.
Chapter 2 – The Basics Of Understanding Body Language
Intuition Versus Perception In Body Language:
Seeing What We Want To See
Research by Harvard Robert Rosenthal conducted in the 1960s showed how people see what they want
to see, instead of what’s really happening. In his study, he had set up two groups of students with a
maze constructed for their subjects – rats. One group of students were told that their rats where “dumb”
and the other group was told that their rates were “smart”, specifically bred to run mazes better then the
other rats. While both sets of rats performed equally as well, the students with the preconceived notion
that their rats where dumb catalogued behaviours supporting their initial impressions. The students with
the “dumb” rats found that there where lethargic and dull. The rats of the group who thought they had
smart rats documented how bright, alert and efficient the rats where as they made their way through the
maze. Clearly from this study, our preconceived notions are potent and misleading. The same pitfalls
can arise during the analysis of body language. If we truly wish to see nervous, emotional or confident
body language, we will. But if we open our minds, we might see something completely different from
what we initially expected to see.