Body Language (Part-IV)

                     BODY LANGUAGE (Part-IV)

In this article i am going to discuss about the body language relating to limbs as well as face, their meanings and how they are delivered.

1. Hand to face gestures:

(i) The mouth guard-- The mouth guard involves the hand covering the mouth with the thumb pressed against the cheek, implying that the person wishes to suppress something being voiced. A person using this particular gesture while speaking is telling a lie while if he/she uses this gesture when someone else is speaking indicates that he/she feels that the other person is lying. Some people camouflage their gesture by faking a laugh.

(ii) The eye rub-- When a men lie, they rub their eyes vigorously; if the lie is a big one, they will often look away, generally towards the floor. Women, on the other hand, conscious of their looks, use a small, gentle rub just below the eye; they generally avoid eye contact with the listener, preferring to look up at the ceiling.

(iii) The ear rub-- A person wishing not to head what the other person is saying, discreetly puts the hand around or over the ear. This body language is seen mostly in young children as they shut out both ears what they don’t want to hear. When a person pulls at his earlobe or bends the entire ear forward to cover the ear hole, it indicates that he had heard enough or want to speak now.

(iv) The collar pull-- When a person realizes that his lie has been caught, he tends to pull his collar, probably to ease the stinging sensation in his neck caused by the lie. This gesture is also used when a person is angry or frustrated and by pulling at the collar away from the neck, he hopes to allow cool air to circulate around his neck to calm himself down.

(v) Fingers in the mouth-- A person under pressure invariably put his fingers in his mouth, unconsciously trying to relieve his stress. This body language is an external expression for an inner need for reassurance.

(vi) Cheek and Chin gestures-- A person supporting his head with his hand, indicates his boredom, lack of interest or attempts to not fall asleep. The continual foot tapping and finger-drumming on the table are signs of impatience and not boredom. When a person has negative or critical thoughts, his thumb supports his chin while his index finger points vertically up the cheek. While making decision, his hand will move to the chin and begin a chin-stroking gesture.

(vii) Decision making gestures-- A bespectacled person might remove his glasses from his face and put one end of the frame in his mouth, instead of using chin-stroking gesture. A person may put his pencil tip or fingertip in his mouth while making decision, any objects in his mouth suggesting that he is unsure and needs assurance in making a quick decision. When a person is making decision, his hand may be stroking his chin but as he begins to lose interest in the speaker, his head begins to rest on his chin.

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Applying Psychology-II

      Applying psychology (Inner Life Personality-II)


Fundamentals of life: Personality, then, is concerned with some of the big questions about the human condition. A prime example is the topic of human nature. What is it that makes us human? Do we have instincts? Do we have free will? Do we have genuine choices in what we do socially? To what extent is what we are dependent on what we inherit? It should be
said that at present there are no final answers to this question. Certainly, we differ from one another in temperament, some basic characteristics that are there from birth and that seem to endure. Many parents know that their children are quite different from one another from the start, for example, in how active they are, or how afraid they are in new situations or how easily they can be soothed or even in how much they smile and laugh. But there is far more to personality than temperament and there are huge complexities in the links between the infl uence of environment and genes. Think of the many examples you know of very different people who have grown up in the same families. To ask another fundamental question: are you you or are you the situation?
In other words, do you have your personality because of traits or characteristics that are somehow within you or because of the influences of your environment? Over the years, various theorists have taken all possible standpoints on this question, but the received wisdom nowadays (as in most areas of psychology) is that the answer lies in a very intricate mixture of both sources of influence.
There are many more such questions, but probably the most important of them is about integration. It is basic to psychology to break down or analyse human functioning or behaviour into its parts, but personality is concerned with what all the parts are like when they are put together. How do we become integrated? When considering the ‘whole’ person, does something extra merge that is somehow more than the sum of the parts? Relevant here is the idea of self. Our own notions of our selves are important to the way in which we are integrated as entire persons.  

Ways of looking at personality: As might be expected in an area as huge as personality, there have been many varied ways of looking at it. What follows is a very brief introduction to a few of the major types of theory of personality. Each of them emphasises something in particular and each of them is ‘right’ – in its own way. Each provides something significant to consider about personality and would be interesting to apply to people that you know as you think about them.

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