From the category archives:

Evolutionary Psychology

Today we are going to talk about how to increase congruence in your body language display and the message you want to send. I will cover 3 of the most often used emotions on a daily basis so that you can see how to work with these on your own. Now there are 8 basic emotions per Robert Plutchik’s Psychoevolutionary Theory and they are: Fear Anger Sorrow/Sadness Joy Disgust Acceptance Anticipation Surprise Robert Plutchik developed what is known as the Psychoevolutionary Theory of emotion and this has turned out to be one of the most influential classification systems for categorizing [...]

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In following yesterdays post on manipulation of information delivery, let’s get right into the subsequent 2 categories of event prediction and sensory acuity… 1. Prediction of Events: When I say “prediction of events”, what I mean is the ability to assign a probability to whether someone is going to follow through on their assertions one way or another. Again, reading body language can only give you a view into one or both areas of congruence and general mental states. So although you won’t KNOW exactly what they are thinking, congruence or incongruence in their informational message and their nonverbally communicated [...]

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Incongruence literally means “not harmonious” per Webster’s dictionary (from incongruous). For our purposes this refers to the system of communication and the term system comprises many things… Language, content, abstraction level, tonality, etc… and last but certainly NOT least is body language. Let’s talk a bit further about how and where incongruity happens and how we vet this out… Incongruence/congruence in body language communication happens in five major categories: Parts of this post are protected. Please login or register for Level 2 Access – The Insider’s Club or Level 3 Access – The CGP Certification Program to view the complete [...]

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There is quite a bit of controversy wrapped around body language… Lie detection, mind reading, fortune telling… you name it; I have heard or read it. But what can we believe? Where do myth and fact part ways to help you learn a skill that is indeed viable for providing accurate information? Let’s chat a bit more about what body language really does tell you and why it is so darn telling… To be accurate, body language will not and can not tell you the “truth” per se. It can tell you that there is incongruity between someone’s language and [...]

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Body language is a fairly broad and complex topic. It is a fascinating subject and the most alluring aspect seems to be the concept of detecting deception. The term deception has a very negative connotation from a linguistic standpoint. When we think of deception we think of lying, cheating and black alley dealings with no other intent but to injure the other party in one way shape or form. Deception though is simply a misrepresentation. Although it can hurt someone, it can also prevent them from being hurt. Take the following example… Your wife asks you if you think it [...]

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Today we are going to finish our series by putting this knowledge into action for us. There are 2 active and 1 passive ways to implement values during the course of your effective communication. Passively: 1. Surveillance – You can simply keep an eye and ear out for values based content in someone’s speech. If you are talking to someone and they continue to talk about all of their wild adventures… It is safe to say that they value stimulation. Also, based on the Basic Human Values theory it is safe to say that they probably also value hedonistic and [...]

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