Posture
Posture or a person's bodily stance communicates a variety of messages. Posture can be used to determine a participant’s degree of attention or involvement, the difference in status between communicators, and the level of fondness a person has for the other communicator, depending on body “openness”. Studies investigating the impact of posture on interpersonal relationships suggest that mirror-image congruent postures, where one person’s left side is parallel to the other person’s right side, leads to favorable perception of communicators and positive speech; a person who displays a forward lean or decreases a backward lean also signifies positive sentiment during communication.
There are many different types of posture. Some of these postures include: slouching, towering, legs spread, jaw thrust, shoulders forward, and arm crossing. These nonverbal behaviors can indicate feelings and attitudes toward another person.
Posture can be situation-relative. “A nineteen-year-old college student from New York will use different postures than a Mid-western housewife, and a construction worker in the state of Washington will use different postures than a salesman in Chicago Another example of posture being situational on more of a daily basis can be described in Driver’s book: “Four situational norms of posture would be, Flirting, where the norm is 60% eye contact, Job Interview with a relaxed and open body language, Business Negotiation where the norm is leaning back while steeping and Buying a Car where most have hands on hips with feet more than ten inches apart.”
Read more about this topic: Nonverbal Communication
Famous quotes containing the word posture:
“The Dada object reflected an ironic posture before the consecrated forms of art. The surrealist object differs significantly in this respect. It stands for a mysterious relationship with the outer world established by man’s sensibility in a way that involves concrete forms in projecting the artist’s inner model.”
—J.H. Matthews. “Object Lessons,” The Imagery of Surrealism, Syracuse University Press (1977)
“If one’s posture is upright, one has no need to fear a crooked shadow.”
—Chinese proverb.