Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are Analysis

On September 12, 2008, I observed two people; Person A and Person B. The observation took place at Applebee’s, a local restaurant, beginning at 7:21 p.m. and ending observation at 8:06 p.m. I was serving their table for the evening, enabling myself to observe them closely. The restaurant had died down from the dinner rush, leaving them one of three tables in the smoking section, normally filled with eight. Along with the outside light fading, the lighting indoors was dim, making the dining experience feel more quiet and intimate. The background noise was filled with a light roar of other group’s conversations, and a jazz station played quietly from the speakers overhead.

For video 1, I was not very comfortable. It was hard for me to imagine that my classmate is a real client. I felt better, after a while. When I watched myself on video, It was like, I wish I looked more in the client’s eyes and I regret that I looked at my paper more than him. Also, I looked at the video and I felt it is not really me. I thought that, I could do better than this.

I decided to go to Panda Express at 5:30 pm for my observations, while there I was able to observe just how much people rely on nonverbal communications to get their point across. Although I witnessed several encounters of unique body language, there were also a few actions that reoccurred several times in several different people. For example, when a customer would approach the counter where employee served the food, the employee would raise her eyebrows and smile at the customer. The employee’s smile, however, did not reach her eyes suggesting that while it is her job to smile and be welcoming to the customer, she most likely did not want to be at work. Additionally, I noticed that when customers approached the counter about 90 percent of them had their arms crossed. The act of crossing ones arms usually means that a person is trying to put a barrier between them and a situation that they either don’t like, or are uncomfortable with. This may mean that the customers were displeased with having to wait in line to get their food, on the other hand it may be that they were simply comfortable folding their arms. Once they reached the front of the line, every customer pointed to the food they wanted along with verbally telling the employee. This made their communication more effective as it helped to overcome the barrier of sound because the restaurant was noisy.

Although Jeff Hirsch’s civil war over a deadly religion in The Darkest Path, and William Golding’s stranded boys on an island in Lord of the Flies seem to have barely have anything in common, both of their underlying themes are that humans have a propensity to fall into savagery when they are excluded from society. Part of this is due to a natural survival instinct to abandon societal norms; similarly people are forced, in such situations, to re-evaluate their values. They need to decide what they are willing to abandon in order to save themselves or others. Furthermore, in this state of acculturation; transitioning from living under societal norms to individual savagery, people will try to force others towards their own values to “save” them,

Social psychologist, Amy Cuddy in her persuasive/ informative Ted talk, “Fake It till You Make It,” argues that changing our posture for two minutes can have a significant and positive impact on the outcomes of our lives.She develops her claim by first stating what her speech was going to be based on,then goes more in depth by showing statistics and talking more about her research, then talks about the experiment she tried by making people try the power pose for two minutes, and finally she makes a personal connection by talking about her experience with feeling like an outcast. Cuddy’s purpose is to persuade/inform her audience on her research in order to prove how effective the power poses can actually be.She establishes an informative tone for the educated adults who enjoy learning.She succeeds to convince her audience because she shows her credibility, she connects with the audience, and she shows proof to back everything up.

1. Identify which types of body language could be interpreted as "negative." Types of body language could interpreted, such as your face is frowning or tight. Maybe you have a wrinkle between your brows or one of your brows is raised in annoyance or disbelief. This clearly states that you are not interested and do not have time, eye contact is in constant motion when speaking to others. Its one thing to look and watch the room but its another to constantly be focusing on everyone else instead of your client. You are distracted, and uninterested in the communication you should be participating in or that your self confidence is low, if you force a smile, its going to be transparent. In short you will be pegged a faker. Things that people will

Thesis Statement: Body language expresses emotions and actions unconsciously and differs between men and women depending on their brain type, emotional experience and culture.

What really got to me while reading, 'Body Language vs. Micro-Expressions' by Joe Navarro was when Navarro wrote in his essay "no single behavior is indicative of deceptions." I had to reread the sentence multiple times to make sure that I fully comprehended what it is that I was reading.

Gaze and body language are visual conventions which help text two to shape the viewer’s understanding of American teenagers in the sixties.

It is difficult to come to the exact number of births every day since not all births are registered or recorded.

One important thing I learned this week is that literacy appears in many different forms, each form being unique and essential to communications, in different ways and in different cultures. The perceptions you make of other people are influenced by visual cues from their body language, the language they speak, and your own ideas and experiences. I found the video by Mark Bowden (2013) extremely interesting and noticed that during the changes of his body language I did in fact begin to change my opinion of him. I can relate this to my life experiences by thinking about people I have come across who displayed different signs of body language, and why I would be more likely to approach those displaying the “friend” signals in a social situation

Expressions are very valuable, as they can prompt us regarding opportunities and threats in individuals and scenarios that we encounter. Happiness indicates an approachable person while anger signifies someone to stay away from. These two decisions are the most basic and simplest behavioral decisions.

In my presentation, I think my strengths were that I’ve used some good body language because at first try for my presentation, I didn’t used much eye contact which means that my audience wouldn’t be properly focusing on me. I had to redo it so then I tried to make some kind of eye contact with my audience. Eye contact is important because I had to keep them engaged and made sure that they were listening to me. I also used body gestures such as hand gestures to look appealing to my audience and to keep them entertained. If I didn’t do it and just had my hands in pocket or side of my body, they would wander off and stop listening to me. I used a bit of verbal exchanges because I greeted the audience at start of my presentation by saying hello and then went into the presentation. I could’ve extended it by asking them a question in middle of the presentation about their opinion.

The body in performance is an important tool. In many naturalistic plays, dialogue is just as important as the actions and body language which go along with it. In non-naturalistic plays, the emphasis on the body can be heightened through the abstraction of the piece. More focus can be placed on the body and its action by separating it from dialogue, or by removing dialogue altogether. In Samuel Beckett’s ‘Not I’, dialogue and action are separated, and given to two different characters. The Auditor in this play is a character with no dialogue in the play. Its only form of communication is a movement of “helpless compassion” which it repeats. Mouth, however, is a character whose body has been completely removed from the stage. In Pina Bausch’s ‘Café Muller’, the dialogue is removed completely, leaving the performers with only their bodies to convey emotions, stories, and meanings. In this essay, I will consider how the bodies (or lack thereof) function as a sign for Mouth and the Auditor in ‘Not I’, and for the performers in ‘Café Muller’

I remember teaching a men’s workshop and a gentleman raised his hand and said, “What do we do, man? Our wives and children, we’re doing this, they’re doing the other. They won’t work with me ...” And he keeps going on and on and on. So, I let him get it all out. When he was done, I simply said, “Well, now you know how God feels.”