A lot of this may seem very obvious, but it’s important to start on the same page…
For every point that you feel is evident pause and ask yourself how often you are truly aware and in control of these factors during your day-to-day interactions. While our “folk understanding” of these ideas is often not bad, we rarely take the time to actually reflect on putting our understanding into practice.
A good place to start is how we define communication
We can refer to the actual content of our interactions, the topics of conversation and specific word choice, as what we say. How we say it is no less important.
Any interpersonal interaction includes a breadth of simultaneous events— some fairly conscious and others essentially nonconscious. Recall the last sentence you said to someone: what were the words? How would you describe your tone of voice? Did your voice rise or fall? How would you describe your posture at the time? Did you smile? Were you expressing or suppressing an emotion? Was the topic important? Were you rushed?
You could probably recall some of those aspects more clearly than others. Reconsider your answers: How many were you inferring rather than remembering? For example, “Well, I was talking to my friend about the weekend, so I must have been smiling.”
To grapple with the basics, one must try to make all of this more open to introspection
Let’s dig into visual cues a little more…
This is a reasonable list, but not exhaustive! As social beings these four visual cues convey a lot of information and will tend to be noticed by people you are speaking with. If you’ve ever had a conversation that felt, for lack of a better word, “a little off,” it’s likely the person you were speaking with was not conforming to your expectations in one of these dimensions.
Eye contact is one of the strongest signals you can give to another person— it conveys attention and interest in both the interaction in general and the specific topic. This “perception of being seen” is usually considered a positive social signal. Individuals who make eye contact are generally judged as more pleasant, competent, and attractive than those who do not (Heitanen, Peltola, & Heitanen, 2020). That said, eye contact also demands significant cognitive resources to maintain (see gaze direction, below). One can learn to be thoughtful about when to maintain eye contact and when, and how, to look away.
Attempting to distill this complex topic into straightforward rules of thumb is challenging. Three suggestions offer a starting point for more effective eye contact:
Make eye contact to convey interest and attention;
Try to have this eye contact feel natural rather than forced;
Understand it is okay to break eye contact when pausing to think or the conversation takes a natural break.
Too much consistent eye contact can appear intimidating, so take advantage of those natural pauses to give your gaze a break. Remember, you can gesture with your eyes as well— such as rolling your eyes, expressing surprise, or using your gaze to indicate someone or something of interest. As social beings, humans are good at following cues from gaze direction (Davidson & Clayton, 2016).
We’ll talk more about this in the advanced section.
Closely linked to eye contact is, of course, the rest of your face. For all the jokes out there about “resting bitch face” it recently received some unexpected scientific support. It can be helpful to test out two things: first, what is your natural “neutral” facial expression? Second, what it your natural expression when attentively listening to another person? Is it the same as your neutral expression? Is it closed (negative emotional valence; skeptical) or more open and inviting? Can you feel a difference if you try ever so slightly smiling? How do you think your natural expression would be perceived by another person?
It's important to understand how another person could perceive your natural expression. Some people in important meetings find they are attending so intently it results in a blank expression that a the speaker might interpret as disinterest or boredom.
Conversations are not static and faces shouldn’t be either. Do not attempt to work out some sort of “ideal listening face” and then keep it plastered on in perpetuity— genuine emotional reactions are important for conveying attention and empathy.
In some contexts, however, it is just as important to avoid reacting. If you have been in such a situation before, were you successful in regulating your response? Why or why not? How does one decide what level of reaction is appropriate?
This links to the concept of emotional intelligence, which we will also talk about in the advanced section.
Congratulations, you’ve lasted long enough in conversation to be asked a challenging question. What do you do?
Research has shown that if you really need to think about the answer, you should free up some cognitive bandwidth by breaking eye contact (Kajimura & Nomura 2016; Phelps, Doherty-Sneddon & Warnock 2006). In doing this, there are two things to consider:
Do you just move your eyes, or do you move your whole head?
In what direction do you direct your gaze?
Folk-literature is awash with theories of lie detection and many include assertions that gazing up & right is associated with lying (it’s likely not— Wiseman et al 2012). Similarly, gazing up versus to the side or down can be perceived as different degrees of uncertainty. In contexts where conveying confidence is critical, it is important to consider where to gaze when a longer pause is needed (e.g., to formulate a response to a complex, multi-part question). Consider what combination of a short or long pause, gaze direction, and posture might be best suited to your context. For example, one could glance downwards for a brief pause or turn one’s head slightly to the side and down for more time (and mental space) to think
See this research digest from the British Psychological Society for further sources (Jarrett, 2016).
While also visual, posture is salient enough it’s worth breaking down independently of facial expressions.
Again, a reasonable list, but not exhaustive! What we typically refer to as body language conveys a wealth of information, both intentionally and non-consciously. Take a moment to consider two habitual behaviours:
How do you tend to stand when in conversation?
How do you tend to sit when in professional conversation (such as at a table during a work meeting)?
Most people have at least one (or several) default postures that will convey information to other people. Also, consider whether you tend to adapt your posture to different situations. For example, how does your conversational pose differ from how you might stand if you were giving a presentation to a small audience? What difference might this make in how other perceive you?
Taking simply posture (and leaving aside gestures for a moment), one can see how cues cover several kinds of information: from one’s authority, to interest in the subject, to level of engagement in the dialogue, to confidence in what is being said. While specific topics like “power poses” have proved as captivating of wide audiences as they are controversial (Carney, Cuddy & Yap 2010; Ranehill et al 2015), being aware of your posture and a basic idea of what it conveys will facilitate more effective communication (see further sources). As a minimum, consider how to stand or sit in a manner that presents both confidence and your undivided attention in the interaction. You may find that some postures also make you feel more poised and confident— try a few different options to see what feels best for you.
Are you a “hand talker?”
The answer to that question can play a significant role in how you interact with others. The use of gestures in communicative interactions has been widely studied, with hypotheses ranging from:
It resolves lexical ambiguity (miming something with wings when saying “bat”)
It cues the speaker (helps them remember key points in a story)
It conveys intentional information (e.g. size)
It primes the audience to pay attention to speech
It conveys emotion to the audience
It is reactive to the emotion of the audience itself
In general, speakers who use gestures effectively are considered charismatic and authoritative. Be consistent— if you repeat gestures they should have a particular meaning. Do not overwhelm— constant hand motion can be distracting; consider a limited set of gestures tailored to the content and audience. Make every motion count— use gestures to emphasize or draw attention to the most important points.
Take a moment to consider just how much information can be conveyed by your voice alone…
Gender
Country (or in some cases even the city) where you grew up
Age
Confidence
…
What else could be on this list? Be aware that people may make assumptions about you from the moment they hear your voice, and while you may not be able to influence them it is important to consider how these factors may shape the interaction.
The first thing to consider is the tone and pitch of your voice. While most people don’t deliberately attempt to modify the natural tone and pitch of their voice (a notable exception may be Elizabeth Holmes), recognizing what it “gives away” is important and in some cases you may find yourself working to shape how you sound (for example, preventing the pitch of your voice from rising too high in an emotionally charged context).
Vocal effort is related to how you recruit your body to produce sound, and can also be reflected in whether (to an observer) it sounds effortful. For example, consider how actors or musicians with vocal training can project their voices without sounding like they are straining or yelling— producing sound recruits your whole body. Try speaking clearly and loudly (as if to someone in another room) while sitting hunched versus sitting straight. Try again while standing. Did the quality of your voice change? Did a particular posture seem to take more effort to produce the same volume?
Try speaking at different volumes (without shouting) in different postures to get a sense of how you can project more clearly without sounding strained or as if you are shouting. Understanding how to project your voice without it appearing effortful will help you appear more confident and authoritative.
It is unlikely that you speak in a total monotone, but take a moment to consider how your speaking voice sounds over time. Do the pitch and volume rise and fall? Is this related to highlighting key points, conveying emotion, or emphasizing certain ideas? Consider how you can modulate your voice to be engaging for a listener.
Uptalk— also referred to as a “high rising terminal”— is a tendency to finish a sentence with a rising intonation. This trait exhibits some regional dependency, including prevalence in parts of the USA, Canada, and Australia. It is particularly associated with the west coast of North America, from Southern California to the Pacific Northwest. While a fairly common mannerism in some regions, it is often perceived as being associated with younger speakers and is regarded very negatively by some audiences.
A typical objection to uptalk is that it results in declarative sentences being uttered with a rising intonation at the end— as if they were questions (Rhodan, 2013). Thus, the speaker may be judged as uncertain or immature. There is a significant generational difference with this perception— for younger audiences, uptalk will often pass unnoticed.
Moving from how you speak, no less emphasis should be placed on what you have to say and how you structure the information you wish to convey.
Take a moment to reflect on the relative fluency of your speech (or, better yet, listen to a recording of yourself speaking). A speech dysfluency is anything that interrupts the flow of your speech— unnecessary pauses, false starts, repeated use of “like” or “non words” such as “uh” “um” or “huh.”
We can also try to identify habitual words or phrases that can become distracting, such as repeated use of “really” or a tendency to respond with “nice” or “yeah, but” in a repetitive fashion.
It is certainly possible to train yourself out of some of these bad habits, but it can take significant effort (and a friend to call you out). You might also find some degree of context dependence— many people may, with practice, stop interjecting “like” into a conversation with coworkers but still find it peppering speech with old friends from college.
And while it should go without saying…
Swearing, slang, emojis, and informal language should all be considered context-sensitive.
“Profanity and obscenity entitle people who don't want unpleasant information to close their ears and eyes to you.” ― Kurt Vonnegut