How on earth do you learn nonverbal communication?

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I found out that it exists yesterday and found a list, and well, my brain hurts. It's different in different countries, and the distance you stand from someone, what you do with your fingers, your hands, you arms, your feet, your legs, how you stand, how you sit, your head, your eyebrows, your eyes, and you mouth all can apparently, so I'm told, be read by people, so people can read minds. How do I learn all this? All the facial expressions, tones of voice, body language? Since I never knew it existed my knowledge is... basic. So how do I learn all this from scratch? I can read some facial expressions on cartoons but not all of them. I know smiles are happy, but I don't know all the different smiles and some of them are evil and faked which I never knew. I know crying is sad, but you can also cry from being happy which is confusing. Frown means angry, red cheeks means embarrassed, wide eyed is shocked, plain face means bored... that's my entire knowledge of facial expressions. I can't tell on people, only cartoons. People's faces are too subtle. How do I make that better? I have no idea what to do. How important is this stuff? Do people really always read you? Only recently came to terms with different wordings, still haven't got that completely yet. I don't mean to be rude but sometimes it looks like I am.

(Not sure if this belongs here or in the general, I think nonverbal communication is a social skill, right?)

My best suggestion would be to try and focus on a smaller set of people. Rather than trying to learn how people do things in every country and culture all at once, I mean no one knows that unless they are an experienced world traveler. Thats a very overwhelming task!

People vary from person to person so it's hard to generalize at times. Focus maybe on any people that are around you, that you interact with. Try learning how they look when they feel certain ways. Try watching TV that isn't scripted so the people are having genuine reactions you can practice watching instead of some fake acted ones that may confuse you. Ultimately, who cares how things are done elsewhere if you dont plan on ever going there? Worry about how people physically communicate in your immediate world because thats where you live and thats whats most important.

People are typically always reading body language. It's another data point they subconsciously (or even consciously) gather to help evaluate others around them, whether they are a threat, etc. Unfortunately the subtleties of social interaction take this basic instinct and turn it into what can be a very confusing mess. Some people may use this to judge you, but often it is just innocent data mining, even if no one calls it that.

I think it's best to not overwhelm yourself with how important or prevalent non verbal communication is, but rather try to look at it as an opportunity to understand people better. And do yourself a favor and dont try to force yourself into making faces and gestures that dont come naturally, because that would look very odd to people, thats something they can tell most of the time I think.

Hope thats not just more confusing, its a hard thing to really explain the way Id like to. Im not the best communicator in the world, but I do get it most of the time I think.

So about the TV thing, how do I tell what they're feeling? So like, I'd watch it, see their face and body and whatever, but how would I know "oh, so that's happy" or whatever to base it on? Because, well, people don't say "I am (emotion)" because they (mostly) subconsciously expect people to be able to tell. So I can look but I have no way of checking my answers if that makes sense.

I never even considered looking at the eyes, but now I tried and it hurts. How do I stop it hurting my brain?

Sorry if these seem like dumb questions.

The previous poster gave you some very good advice. To that I would add that, although there are certainly cultural differences between individual countries and parts of the world, most non-verbal communication is pretty standard everywhere. So once you've learnt it for, say, your own country, then you've got a fairly large 'reference library' to work from.

If you really want to learn the different ways that people communicate non-verbally around the world, it's probably best to start by finding the areas where they are the same or similar. After that you could focus on those where they differ - and there will be fewer of these. Why not begin by doing a comparison between your own country and one other, probably one that is culturally very different from yours? If that works you could gradually compare other countries.

I wouldn't learn it if I were you. NT people don't look at the position of peoples facial features to judge emotion and studies have shown they are no better at judging feelings from facial expressions than people with autism. As you have pointed out very different emotions like elation and sadness can look very similar visually. The best way to judge what people are feeling is from the context. If someone has lost a loved one they will likely be feeling sad whatever their face looks like. If someone has been talked to for a long time about a subject that doesn't particularly interest them they will likely be bored. If someone is sitting in a dull meeting for hours they will likely be bored. If someone is expecting to be whisked away to Paris for their birthday and their boyfriend buys them a hoover they will probably be upset and perhaps angry. No-one can judge emotions correctly all the time but I think context is more reliable than looking at expressions.

Not dumb at all. Even though Im lucky enough to kinda get this stuff naturally, it doesnt make anyone dumb for not being that way. I didnt make myself the way I am any more then you did, whatever "way" that might be. Im sure theres things in life you know that I dont too. Just what makes us different, and interesting.

I would say by following the context of what happening on the show and starting with the more obvious emotions. As was said my another poster, if someone loses a loved one, they will likely be very sad, maybe the saddest they can be. You can use that to work backwards. You know logically that someone feels this way, now observe how they hold themselves, how their faces look. While this may not be the same for everyone, it will serve as a good starting point to build your own "database" of non verbal communication.

Or if you're watching something where someone gets cheated on by a girlfriend, boyfriend or spouse, you know they are angry and betrayed. So you can work backwards because you have a constant. You can KNOW that someone feels this way because 99% of the time that how people feel when facing that.

Also if you have family or other close people you trust, ask them. Like, hey why did you make a face like that? How are you feeling right now?

And about the eyes thing, it less about the actual eye and more about the shape of the eyelids and muscles immediately around the eye. The eyeball itself is kinda just what it is. Its also way more subtle. Id focus more on peoples mouths because it shows more I think and is easier to tell.

There is scientific information about this kind of stuff too. Professional interrogators, investigators etc, have a whole way of looking at key points of the face to see what someone may be thinking or if they are lying. That may bee too technical and overwhelming at first, but may be helpful as you get to a more intermediate level of understanding.

My answer is choose someone you admire for having what you think are good social skills. Try to mimic what they are doing with their facial expression and body position. It will feel fake for a while and if you're persistent it will start to be less of a conscious effort.

In doing it this way I went from nonverbal/nonsocializing to being a good sales person and customer service agent, but it took around ten years to get that good at it and it still tires me out to do it for very long and I need to take breaks.

I think it would be practically impossible to learn how even close friends and family stand and where their eyebrows, mouths etc are when they feel various emotions. And it's likely to vary each time as well. Also I don't see how it would be particularly productive. If someone is in a situation where you would expect them to feel sad assuming they feel something else due to some subtlety in their expression or posture that you don't feel fits would, in the main, lead you to the wrong conclusion in my opinion.

Well, perhaps you don't see the value in non-verbal communication, but there is value and someone asked for insight on what may be helpful. I dont know if what I said would be helpful to them. Maybe it will not. But its certainly more helpful than telling someone that basically there is no point and they should not try. If you personally believe this, then that is 100% your right to. But dont be discouraging to others. Overcoming social obstacles is hard enough, even harder when it's discouraged by your peers.

Also people's words, both spoken and implied constantly change. Expected reactions can always be different. There ARE no rules. You cant establish a set of rules for ANY human interaction. Does that mean we don't try to get them? If you dont feel the need to, cool. But theres nothing wrong with trying to understand the world around you better. A learning process implies failure. Or else there would not be a process. So if he/she (sorry original poster, didnt check your gender, dont mean to offend) misinterprets along the way, thats ok, its part of a process. One that can be intimidating but rewarding.

And Im sorry if Im coming off as attacking or being mean to you, Im not. you're entitled to your opinion, and you may even be right. Its hard to not be negative for some of us. I usually am really negative so I relate to an extent. But it's better to not share that with others when they are trying to be positive because its destructive to them. When someone is trying, dont point out how they may fail because Im sure they already know and have spent plenty of time in panic attacks thinking about it. Dont make it worse for them.

I'm a girl, sadly, they're usually better at nonverbal stuff and very judgmental creatures Other girls scare me when they start making faces at each other, it's like their own language

There's lots of conflicting ideas here, but there is a common theme - this is going to be hard Which is going to be the easiest to start on? Or should they all be learnt at the same time?

I really wasn't trying to be discouraging. Quite the opposite. I imagine attempting to develop some kind of system for predicting peoples emotions based on visual data you have collected would be extremely difficult and absolutely exhausting. I was pointing out that, in my opinion, I really don't think it's necessary.
I sensed from the op that they were finding the prospect of undertaking such a huge and confusing task distressing and daunting so was attempting to be reassuring. If I was off the mark there I apologise.
The way I see it is that if someone was pleased about something you would expect to be upsetting there would generally be no expectation for anyone to guess that from body language when they didn't have any sort of privileged information to lead them to the correct conclusion.
There would be a few exceptions like if someone burst into (clearly not happy) tears unexpectedly obviously.

Last edited by Rabbers on 09 May 2015, 11:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

Well clearly it is a daunting task, just like taking any kind of course would be. Like I said it took me ten years of constant effort to get pretty good at it, and even now it still makes me tired to do it -- but at least now I can if I want to...

You sense right I can get emojis/smilies but I can't see them on the human face. I can them on some cartoons.

But I can't understand things like soap operas. I guess facial expressions play a huge part here because I can't follow what's going on at all. I'd really wanna be able to follow the plot - I can't tell if someone is lying, being deceptive, or if there's a hidden meaning. In those you're expected to read between the lines and I can't. Cartoons are obvious with exaggerated facial emotions and more targeted at kids so they make their stories easier to follow.

And those 10 years of effort, that's a big commitment.

So you modelled your own expressions, posture etc on someone else is that right? What about the other side of things - how do you judge how others feel? Do you use context or do you look for subtle facial/postural clues?

I think on tv it's probably different again because a lot of following it will be to do with the devices that the producers/directors use - close ups/long pauses etc that don't happen in real life.
I don't think anyone can tell for sure if someone is lying unless they know it (like they trip themselves up on facts or something). You might suspect it if someone tends to lie a lot but the whole thing that people blink/scratch their nose etc I don't think helps a lot. Some people are really good liars and fool can fool partners, the police, judges etc.

I still can't recognize faces or follow the plots on tv shows or movies. Strangely though, I've gotten good at reading emotions and even quite complicated emotions.