Unintentionally, your gestures can betray you during your exchanges. Be careful before scratching your nose, a gesture that can have a very specific meaning…
“Interpersonal communication is 7% verbal, 38% vocal, and 55% bodily. That is to say 93% non-verbal.” This quote is repeated throughout coachings, seminars and other training courses, to emphasize the importance of gestures and intonation when speaking. Albert Mehrabian, a renowned psychologist and professor who created it, has already said how he was “very uncomfortable” with his work being misinterpreted: “From the beginning, I tried to “explain to people the limits of my discoveries”, he explained to his students at the height of his popularity.
It must be said that his observation initially came from an experiment with only ten participants, all female. Despite everything, it would be abusive to scrap his entire theory. Our non-verbal language is indeed a valuable indicator, not always reliable, but often evocative of our state at the moment we speak. After all, many politicians are accompanied by “gesture coaches who teach them how to hold themselves and what postures to adopt on the platform to supposedly win the votes”, underlines with irony Pascal Lardellier, in The Tribune.
Unconsciously, our postures, gestures and facial expressions betray our inner state. For some, a shifty look is synonymous with modesty, shyness, or even lying. For others, crossed legs are a sign of resistance or closure. And when it comes to people scratching their noses, there’s a meaning too. This gesture has long been associated with lying. In reality, this popular belief has no scientific basis. In fact, in the majority of cases, it is caused by an allergy or an itch.
However, for psychologist Jack Schafer, scratching your nose is, when there is no itching, a sign of anxiety or discomfort. All our emotions have repercussions on our body, like when we smile out of joy. Emotional stimuli manifest themselves in various ways, so it is more or less difficult to decipher them.
When it comes to someone scratching their nose, just look for signs of nervousness or avoidance. If the subject looks away and appears uncomfortable, they are more likely to lie. In addition, according to former FBI agent Joe Navarro, it is more relevant to identify “sensitive topics” generating symptoms or gestures related to stress to know the true intentions of our interlocutor.