“I am obviously uncomfortable about misquotes of my work. From the very beginning I have tried to give people the correct limitations of my findings. Unfortunately the field of self-styled ‘corporate image consultants’ or ‘leadership consultants’ has numerous practitioners with very little psychological expertise.” (31 October 2002, email to Max Atkinson, reproduced in Max’s book Lend me your Ears)

On your points about Mehrabian’s studies, I’d note that Mehrabian was not researching the likeability of the speaker, but rather a third party listener’s judgement of whether the speaker liked the person they were talking to. Mehrabian labelled this “liking” in his equation:

Total Liking = 7% Verbal Liking + 38% Vocal Liking + 55% Facial Liking

I explain this in more detail in this post: http://speakingaboutpresenting.com/presentation-myths/misinterpretation-mehrabians-research/. Nor does his equation mention feelings.

I tend to agree with your point that mistakes in content are more important than mistakes in delivery, but I don’t think we can use Mehrabian’s research to back that up. Mehrabian’s studies did not look at the impact of mistakes in any of the channels he studied.

Olivia

To be fair, there are also supporting studies that indicate the non-verbal cues may dominate (to varying extents) when the communication is more artificial (planned, organized, rehearsed, and manipulated to meet an objective). In addition to Mehrabian-1967,1971, these include: Onwuegbuzie-1997, Crumbley-2001, Hulsmeyer-1986, Caso-2006, Ambady-1993, Rosip-2004, Coulson-2004, Smith-1979, Babad-2003, Meijer-1989, Khuwaileh-1999, De Gelder-2006, Gorham-1988, and Argyle-1965.Argyle, AIkema & Gilmour, 1972; Argyle, Salter, Nicholson, Williams & Burgess, 1970; Burns & Beier, 1973; Graves & Robinson, 1976; Haase & Tepper, 1972; Scherer, London & Wolf, 1973; Walker, 1977.

Thus, presentations, speeches, classroom lectures, webinars, and even plays, movies TV shows, news editorials, and other preplanned public communications are likely to carry a persuasive intent that is less camouflaged by nature (conversation) and more streamlined to meet a particular need (presentation). It is in these settings that the non-verbal cues appear to dominate.

Finally, Mehrabian does mention “feelings” as part of the equation leading to likeability (approachability). In my experience, the impact of a presentation can be highly emotional and does involve “feelings” on the part of the sender and the receiver. Therefore, the Mehrabian “myth” is quite plausible if one ascribes to the notion that content is preplanned, and meant to be persuasive in some way.

I tend to use the Mehrabian figures as a wakeup call to let presenters know that if only 7% is the content, then the margin for error is tiny, so it has to be the RIGHT content (a single typo will be noticed). If 93% is delivery, there is some margin for error (an accidental turn away, a filler of “um”, a poorly spoken phrase, etc.).

Regardless of the percentages, even a well-crafted speech, well-written play, or well-constructed story is subject to visual performance and vocal tones.

I hope that this adds some more light to the topic.

Tom

Part of the problem is that it’s actually quite difficult to explain the original experiments in a short and simple sentence (I know ‘cos I tried in my previous posts on the topic).

Yes, it’s good having other sources.

And of course, although we may be fascinated by it this issue is not nearly as important as climate change or economics!

Olivia

“The issue is far more complicated than Mehrabian’s figures lead us to believe.”

Allow me to use a decidedly non-academic term here: Duh. Once the conditions of Mehrabian’s original experiments are explained, anyone with a lick of common sense can easily see/hear/comprehend that those numbers have so little value as to be nearly meaningless.

Thank you for doing the digging to find additional research. As you point out, the issue of verbal/non-verbal communication, much like other highly debated issues (like global climate change and economic recovery) is indeed quite complicated.

I am glad to have other sources to cite. Thank you sincerely.

(Or am I kidding? Did you read the real intent of my post that my fingers transmitted through the keyboard?)