Busting The Myth 93% of Communication is Nonverbal
The idea the vast majority of communication occurs nonverbally is quoted everywhere from advertising to popular psychology articles. In fact the original experiments from which these findings derive only applied to communicating attitudes and feelings. That hasn't stopped them being applied universally. Even just considering attitudes and feelings though, these studies have been questioned.
53% face, 38% voice, 7% words?
Some of the most influential studies to claim high importance for the nonverbal component of communication were carried out by Albert Mehrabian (Mehrabian, 1972). In one study participants had to judge the positive, negative or neutral content of various words. Three were chosen to be positive - 'dear', 'thanks' and 'honey' - three neutral - 'oh', 'maybe' and 'really' - and three negative - 'brute', 'don't' and 'terrible'. Each was then read in either a positive, neutral or negative tone of voice.
In a second study participants had to judge if the word 'maybe' was positive, negative or neutral from looking at a photograph of a person with a positive, negative or neutral face. From these, and similar experiments, Mehrabian claimed the face conveyed 55% of the information, the voice 38% and the words just 7%.
The criticism of these experiments is pretty obvious. Although they are interesting, they don't provide an effective analogue for real social situations. This is what psychologists call a lack of ecological validity. It's not often we use just one word on its own (unless you count swearing).
12.5 times more powerful?
A social psychologist, Michael Argyle, tried to address the problems with Mehrabian's work. In his studies whole passages of text were acted out in positive, negative and neutral tones. The actual methodology was more complicated than Mehrabian's work but also led to the conclusion that nonverbal channels are 12.5 times more powerful in communicating interpersonal attitudes and feelings than the verbal channel.
The same criticism comes to mind again. Why should the reading of a paragraph be considered an analogue for spontaneous forms of speech?
Demand characteristics
Perhaps an even stronger criticism of these studies relates to their 'demand characteristics'. Demand characteristics is a term psychologists use when they are referring to participants in an experiment acting in ways they think the experimenter wants them to act. People generally want to please, they want to go with the flow. So if they can work out what the experimenter is after, they'll often try and give it to them.
So, when watching videos in these experiments it will be obvious to participants the speeches are acted, not spontaneous. Participants pick up on what the experimenter wants from the social cues provided. Indeed, one study has found that when the purpose of the experiment is actually well-camouflaged from the participants, the dominance of nonverbal communication disappears (Trimboli & Walker, 1987).
» This post is part of a series on nonverbal behaviour.
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I believe it's quite obvious where the flaw in these experemiments is. Verbal communication is not for transmitting moods, it is for transmitting ideas. Moods are deducted from the opposite's behaviour and this is what the mentioned studies would have proven.
I haven't read the papers myself, but if they stated 93% of all communication was non-verbal, they are at least drawing the wrong conclusions.
You could see it this way: if only 7% of communication was verbal, sub-titles would never have been invented.
Hi dhreutter, good point about subtitles! Also, you make a really interesting point which actually pre-empts my next post. So stay tuned for why the nonverbal channel isn't just about communicating moods...
I am fascinated by the other research seeming to point to non-verbals being 12.5 more powerful than verbals.
Traditional psychology tends to be either anti-spiritual or non-spiritual, i.e. can't let itself consider the possibility of the non-linear as totally valid. I personally believe that there is a whole OTHER level of communication that takes place energetically between bodies. For example Pearsall's research into the "Heart Code" shows that the heart's electromagnet field is around 50,000 times more powerful than the brain's. In similar research that he refers to he quotes other researchers that have found that the heart has around 60,000 neurons just like those in the brain. The heart can be called the other thinking organ.
In light of this, we sense people, their mood, their feelings, etc. through more than just the VKA gates (visual, kinesthetic, Auditory). There is more there. We love with our "hearts." We sense through our "heart." We are hurt in our "heart." And I say what is non-linear is more wonderful and powerful than what we can imagine.
Dr Sam
http://www.DrSam.tv
You missed an important point. The papers stated 93% of all INTERPERSONAL communication is non-verbal. That means one-to-one, eye-to-eye communication. A professor addressing 200 students can't make eye contact and give non-verbal signals to each and every student so the ratio of verbal to non-verbal is going to shift. Interesting though that speakers that are considered "gifted communicators" are those that do make eye contact, do make use of body language, do make use of verbal tone, and manage to give the impression that they are speaking to you personally.
I am sorry you are wrong; non-verbal elements consist of speech; tone; rythm and stress but stress is relating to annunciation.
There in lies proving the point of course! Like on the phone, what you cant see in body language you make up for tone by moving your hands that will carry through to your tone; motion causes emotion increasing your percentage.
My two sense (cents) lol