Posts tagged as:

mehrabian myth

After Mehrabian: Nonverbal communication research

August 18, 2009

In the communications and presentations industry there are generally just two research studies that are quoted when talking about the importance of nonverbal communication. They were carried out by Albert Mehrabian and his colleagues in 1967. Forty-two years ago.
Mehrabian misinterpretation
In the second of those studies, Mehrabian proposed the 7-38-55% formula. He suggested that the perception [...]

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Mehrabian’s research: The secondary misinterpretation

June 6, 2009

Bert Decker has written a comprehensive reply on his blog to my first post on the Mehrabian myth. However, I disagree with his interpretation of Mehrabian’s research and in a moment I’ll show you why.
But before I do, I want to say that I greatly appreciate Bert and his contribution to the presentation and public [...]

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Mehrabian and nonverbal communication

June 2, 2009

Mehrabian is often quoted as saying that the meaning of a message is communicated by:

Your words 7%
Your tone of voice 38%
Your body language 55%.

This interpretation of Mehrabian has been comprehensively debunked many times, but still it persists. In this post, I’m going to:

Describe the experiments Mehrabian carried out, and
Identify the limitations of Mehrabian’s research

Mehrabian’s experiments
The [...]

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The three benefits of gesturing – it’s not what you think

June 20, 2008

Why is it, that when you’re speaking in front of a group you suddenly become aware of these great clumsy appendages at the end of your arms – your hands?
Why do you suddenly wonder what to do about them?
Gesturing is natural
In normal one-to-one conversation you never think “What shall I do with my hands?”. In [...]

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