The myth of the “55% body language, 38% tone of voice, 7% actual words” rule!!! You’ve probably heard the above many times before. It’s one of the longest standing study results that has become a synonym for how language works. Only in recent years have people explored again what the contents of that study were. The study which dates back to 1967 had a very different purpose and wasn’t at all about defining how we process language: “The fact is Professor Mehrabian’s research had nothing to do with giving speeches, because it was based on the information that could be conveyed in a single word.” Here is what actually happened that triggered the above result: “Subjects were asked to listen to a recording of a woman’s voice saying the word “maybe” three different ways to convey liking, neutrality, and disliking. They were also shown photos of the woman’s face conveying the same three emotions. They were then asked to guess the emotions heard in the recorded voice, seen in the photos, and both together. The result? The subjects correctly identified the emotions 50 percent more often from the photos than from the voice.” The truth, so famous author Philip Yaffe argues is that the actual words “must dominate by a wide margin”.
Posted on: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 04:01:32 +0000
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