The Pros And Cons Of Nonverbal Communication

“Body speaks what the words cannot”

It is true that communication is more than just speech. The thoughts, feelings, and the messages we send through nonverbal body language, tell a more genuine story than the words we speak. People often make mistakes about communication is that when we think of speaking to the others, we tend to only focus on how we exchange information using words but we forget there is so much that we can communicate through our body language, or better known as nonverbal communication. Nonverbal communication is a process of generating meaning using behaviors other than words, for example body movement, gestures, eye contacts, facial expressions, postures, and tones of voice (Andersen, 1986). According to Mehrabian (as cited in Andersen, 1986), nonverbal messages makes up approximately 93% of the meaning in human interaction, while only 7% is from the verbal messages. We can reveal a lot without even saying any words. For example, we can know whether a person is happy or upset just by their facial expressions. In the same way, it is easy for us to know if someone is nervous just by reading their body language.

One cannot not communicate. Nonverbal communication experts found that all nonverbal behaviors communicate information (Adler et al., 2007). Even uncontrollable behaviors can convey a message. Research shows that more than half of all human communication takes place nonverbally (Andersen, 1986). We are constantly sending out messages about