Research by communication scholars found that when we communicate, 75% of the effect comes from the content of the speech, 38% depends on the voice (volume, pitch, rhyme, etc.), and 55% depends on the body language (facial language). expression, body posture, etc.). Therefore, when interpreting other people's thoughts, what is important is not only what he said, but more importantly, how he said it. In addition, we have also found that body language is often more credible than spoken communication content. In other words, it is easy to disguise verbal symbols, but it is much more difficult to disguise physical symbols. This also explains why in the previous example, an eq master should pay special attention to the information revealed by the body. So, if you and I can't read other people's faces, we can't even hope to read each other's thoughts. In the process of interpersonal interaction in the workplace, the ability to understand how to "read people's faces" is even more important. Whether you are asking for a salary increase from your boss, or negotiating prices with customers, you need keen observation to interpret the other person's mind in order to Know where to go and what to do, and accomplish your mission successfully. So, how can we read the other person’s emotions? Let’s talk about facial expressions first! Did you know that psychologists have discovered that humans are born with at least six primitive facial expressions: joy, sadness, disgust, anger, surprise, and fear. Typically by the age of two, we are able to express these primitive emotions with the same facial expressions (a child who is blind and mute will still have these emotional expressions). The ability of you and me to "read faces" has been developed since childhood. When we are four or five years old, we can recognize half of the facial expressions. By about six years old, the accuracy of reading faces has reached 75, which is very high. Amazing, right? ! As for the trick to identify expressions, it lies in analyzing several important lines on the face: corners of the mouth (raised or dropped), mouth shape (open or closed), eyebrows (raised or dropped), corners of the eyes (raised or dropped), eyes (open wide or slightly squinted), and the forehead (the eyebrows are raised until there are horizontal lines between the foreheads, and the eyebrows are clustered and there are straight lines between the eyebrows). And we can distinguish between these emotions because we know that certain areas of the face are particularly important for recognizing certain emotions. For example, for sadness and fear, the eyebrows and forehead are particularly important; for the emotions of disgust and joy, the expression of the mouth is the most meaningful. What’s interesting is that since we have learned to “read faces” since we were very young, and our skills in this area have only increased as adults (based on my experience of doing exercises in classes at three to four hundred companies, everyone interprets The accuracy of facial expressions is astonishingly high), so why is it still a vexing problem for many people to "observe expressions" in the workplace? The reasons include: ● Not paying enough attention: When you are only busy talking and forget to pay attention, you will of course turn a blind eye to other people's expressions. ● The other person is very good at modifying: The veteran person I met in the workplace is very good at modifying his emotions. His joy and anger are invisible, so of course it is difficult to understand. There are too many messages around us: Perhaps the most important thing is that in addition to facial expressions, we also receive other body movements from head to toe, as well as clues from the surrounding environment. To be honest, what we do in the workplace to observe appearance is usually not a detailed scan in order, but a package project that takes shape at a glance. There are so many body clues about a person from beginning to end that it is not easy to analyze them in an instant, so kinesics emerged to study body language specifically. When "body language" written by Julius Fast came to market in 1970, people began to adopt the straight-line practice of "when the other person crosses their arms, it means they object; and if they don't look directly, it means they are lying." As a result, everyone began to have wrong ideas, hoping that they could decipher each other's thoughts with just a few tricks. In fact, the author fast has always emphasized, please stop dreaming, it is not that simple to recognize body language! To correctly interpret body language, you need to understand several principles: (1) Body language usually reflects a physical state (such as back pain) or a temporary mental state (such as depression), rather than a more normal state of mind. Personality traits.

Therefore, it is actually very risky to use body language to judge the personality of a person you have just met (Is he curling up because he has a stomachache today, or is he very unconfident?) (2) Different emotions may often be reflected through similar behaviors For example, poor eye contact may indicate dishonesty, boredom, nervousness, anger or arrogance, so don't memorize the meaning of each individual action, but look at the overall behavior of the suit to make judgments. (3) "Consistency" is the key to interpreting body language. When the US FBI trains investigators, it emphasizes that what they need to look at is not just "what he did" but also "what he changed." If the other person has been keeping his head down as if frustrated, and then suddenly raises his head excitedly due to a certain issue, then this change is worth interpreting. (4) Once you know the characteristics you want to find, you can determine the direction of interpreting the message. First determine what you want to see is "honesty or not" or "ability to withstand stress", and then collect clues. It will definitely be more effective than aimless analysis. Well, after talking about the basics of body language interpretation, let's finally take a test to test your ability to detect words and colors. Are you ready? Match the following emotions: boredom, nervousness, anger, hostility (defensiveness), doubt! Red face, tight lips, crossed arms or legs, speaking quickly, stiff posture, clenched fists, tight lips, frowning eyebrows, squinting, raising one corner of the mouth, shaking head, eyeball movement Cross arms or legs*, avoid each other's eyes, quicken breathing, body movement