Podcast
Supercommunicators | 2. How to Communicate Without Words
How To!
- Nonverbal Cues for Warmth
- Use nonverbal cues to project a warm personality.
- Certain cues can make you more likable and approachable. (Time 0:08:32)
- Confidence Posture
- To appear confident, maintain distance between your earlobe and shoulder.
- The greater the distance, the more confident you appear. (Time 0:09:55)
- Encouraging Others
- Use the “three nods” and “eyebrow flash” techniques to make others feel more confident.
- Nod your head three times slowly and raise your eyebrows briefly every few minutes. (Time 0:10:12)
- Mirroring and Connection
- Mirroring others’ nonverbals creates connection and trust, as long as it is genuine.
- Mirroring can make people feel in sync and understood. (Time 0:10:50)
- Car Salesperson Mirroring
- Car salespeople often mirror customers’ body language to build rapport.
- This tactic increases trust and openness to persuasion. (Time 0:11:43)
- Emotional Mirroring
- Effective mirroring focuses on reflecting the other person’s feelings, not just actions.
- This genuine empathy fosters connection and trust. (Time 0:14:01)
- The Power of Nonverbals
- Nonverbal cues are powerful enough to convey entire storylines.
- Even without dialogue, viewers understand emotions and plot points through nonverbals. (Time 0:15:51)
- Nonverbal Communication in The Big Bang Theory
- The Big Bang Theory writers used nonverbal cues to convey characters’ emotions and awkwardness.
- By varying intonation and vocal syncopation, they communicated feelings without explicit dialogue. (Time 0:17:39)
- Vocal Syncopation and Connection
- Matching vocal syncopation and tone signals connection between characters.
- The audience understands that characters are beginning to bond when their nonverbal cues align. (Time 0:20:42)
- Mismatched Nonverbals and Disconnection
- Mismatched nonverbal cues highlight disconnection between characters.
- Different tones, speeds, and rhythms of speech emphasize the lack of understanding. (Time 0:23:22)
- Building Genuine Connections
- Search for emotional similarities to build genuine connections, not just superficial ones.
- Showing empathy through nonverbals creates stronger bonds than focusing on shared appearances. (Time 0:24:31)
- Doppler Effect Costume
- Dave Goetsch, a TV writer, shared a story about his awkwardness.
- He dressed as the Doppler effect for a costume party, which helped him land a job on The Big Bang Theory. Transcript: Speaker 2 I heard about the Big Bang Theory, and I told my agent, I was like, just please get me a meeting. Charles Duhigg And I met the showrunner, and I told him, you know, I love nerds, and I am so passionate about this. This is Dave Goetsch, and these days he’s a very successful TV writer. But two decades ago, when he was essentially completely unknown, he was trying to get a job on a sitcom about a group of characters who were very, very awkward. Speaker 2 So it was helpful that he was a little awkward himself. And then I told the story that when I was in college, I had a costume party dressed up as the Doppler effect. And so I had, I was like in all black and I had these white stripes that got tape that got farther apart and they ran around the room going, wow. (Time 0:00:01)
- Sitcom Challenge
- Sitcoms rely on clear emotional expression for audience understanding.
- The Big Bang Theory’s humor comes from characters’ conversational awkwardness, making this challenging. Transcript: Charles Duhigg So to clarify here, by dinner, I mean supper. Supper? Or dinner. But the problem for the show’s writers was that sitcoms like this only work if the audience knows what each character is thinking and feeling the second they appear on screen. It’s essential that characters telegraph their emotions, whether they’re feeling happy or sad or frustrated or something else. Their emotional expressions cannot be awkward or muddied in the slightest, or else the audience gets confused about what’s going on, about what these characters are feeling. And it’s essential that the audience knows when characters are connecting with each other or when they’re at odds. I think that for me, emotion is the center of it all. Speaker 2 Every joke, every scene, every episode is a chance for the audience to fall deeper in love with these characters. And that’s the goal. Charles Duhigg But for the people creating the Big Bang Theory, that created this significant problem. Because how do you write a sitcom where it’s clear to the audience what each character is thinking and feeling as soon as they walk onto the screen, when the fundamental idea of the show Is that these characters are really, really bad at communicating what they’re thinking and feeling. (Time 0:02:23)
- Actors Enhancing Emotions
- Actors sometimes enhance scripted emotions through nonverbal cues, adding depth to the scene.
- They use improv techniques to amplify emotional expression. Transcript: Charles Duhigg And this was something that the writers and actors did very deliberately. Jessica Radloff, the senior editor at Glamour Magazine, wrote a book about the Big Bang Theory, and she talked to almost everyone who worked on the show. Sometimes something wasn’t even written in the script, but the actors would find a way to bring an emotion to life because they recognized it in the moment. Like, okay, I see what you’re doing. And I’m going to do the yes and technique, which is what is used in improv to be like, okay, let’s take this to the next level. And they did that. And the same tactic can also be used in reverse, such as when the writers and the actors want to show that characters are very much not connecting with each other. For instance, a few minutes later in that same episode, Penny comes over to Leonard’s and Sheldon’s apartment to eat with them. And she sits down in Sheldon’s special place on the couch. As you listen to the scene, notice how differently Sheldon and Penny are speaking from each other, how different their voices sound, how the actors are purposely refusing to match Each other. (Time 0:22:21)