The Ultimate Body Language Book

present, the Japanese more than the Americans tended to mask their negative expressions with the use
of smiles. While being watched the Americans were more likely to be expressive and the Japanese
tended to try to hide their disgust.
Very little research into emotional language by the body, face exempt, has been conducted thus far. It is
however clear that gestures such as giving the thumbs up or the victory symbol with the index and
middle finger extended, are particularly cultural, it is not clear yet if body posture are particularly
cultural or innate. The research does show that cultural differences in expressiveness of body language
tend to vary greatly across culture. Studies using blind children as subjects have shown that smiling and
embarrassment gestures like hiding the face with the hands, occurs regardless of learning or copying,
indicating that they are indeed genetic. There is still a fair amount of work that needs to be done before
any real conclusion can be made about the origins of nonverbal signals.
Chapter 3 – Cultural Differences
Emblems, Illustrators, Affect Displays, Adaptors
And Regulators
Gesticulating is the original form of communication between humans.
Gestures are used in speech to convey information more efficiently or to express attitudes or emotions
and as a body language reader they give us clues as to the speakers mental framework from which they
speak. Beneficial byproducts of gestures include making speech occur more smoothly and increased
liking between speakers and listeners. In the following section we will cover “kinesics” which is the
subclass of nonverbal body language that is related to movement. Kinesics is probably the most talked
about and most common type of body language but also the most easily confused cross-culturally.
The first full length study on gesture was published in 1644 by John Bulwer. He catalogued dozens of
gestures and produced a guide on how to increase clarity and eloquence in public speaking. Further