 We've talked in some other videos now about the importance of nonverbal channels and the functions that nonverbal communication provides and what are some of those different channels. So I want to focus in this video on what we can do to better interpret nonverbal channels such as these. How can we go about better reading nonverbal channels and understanding them more accurately. So we're going to talk a little bit about interpreting nonverbals, how we can do that more effectively. And it's pretty straightforward. First of all when we're interpreting nonverbals we need to be sensitive to nonverbal messages. In the United States we're not always very sensitive to those nonverbal messages. We don't always look for those things. We tend to focus in more on the language that people use and so we aren't always aware of the different nonverbal messages that they're sending. So we need to first of all heighten our sensitivity to those nonverbal messages to learn to pay more attention to those nonverbal messages that accompany the verbal communication and the language that they're using and identify kind of what that is but it starts again with being more sensitive and aware of those nonverbal messages. So we need to start there and be more what we would call high context communicators as opposed to low context communicators which is common to our culture. Then we also need to work to decipher the meaning of those nonverbal messages and there are a variety of things that are involved in this so but after we're more sensitive noticing those nonverbal messages we need to work to accurately decipher the meaning of those and that starts with first being aware of the situation. We talked about the different channels of nonverbal communication different ways that things are places that things will be communicated things like territoriality though things like physical environment. What is the situation that we're in when this information is being shared or when this is being communicated to us so we need to be aware of the situation and what that might imply is this a real private setting or is this a public setting or is this a workplace a professional setting or a personal one. So be aware of the situation and how that might inform what we're hearing in the context that that may bring along with it. We also need to keep culture in mind. I've mentioned throughout these videos on nonverbal communication that culture has a major role in nonverbal communication. Nonverbal communication is very ambiguous first of all it has a variety of different interpretations each type of nonverbal message has a lot of ways that it can be interpreted that's even if you're in the same culture. Then when you start moving from culture to culture those meanings can expand even further for example eye contact in the United States is considered appropriate when we're speaking with someone we should it's considered appropriate and polite to maintain eye contact with that person that signals that you are paying attention that you are interested it can also send messages related to honesty perceived honesty in that situation so eye contact is expected but in other cultures that level of eye contact would be considered rude and inappropriate it would be considered a strategy for trying to assert power over someone else so the expectation is that you look just past them and not directly at them necessarily so I mean it just depends on the culture that you're in and that's true of almost any nonverbal channel that could be affected by the culture that you're in again we look at physical space or the space between people that's gonna vary from culture to culture I mean just all of these things we need to keep culture in mind even when we're in our own culture even if you were an American here in the United States the person you're communicating with may not be may have learned things from a different culture and and so we need to keep their culture in mind as well not just the culture that we have and the culture that we're in in that moment but what is this person's culture and how might that affect how they're using nonverbals and how we should then interpret those nonverbals so we have to keep culture in mind at all times and we have to be willing to ask for clarification if we're going to accurately interpret nonverbals I mean part of that comes from familiarity part of it comes from those just being willing to ask somebody you know I'm not certain what this means or what you're indicating here can you can you clarify that for me a little bit or just you know you don't have to be that direct you can just ask some follow-up questions and and try and clarify some of that ambiguity try and you know get rid of some of that uncertainty about the situation or about what they're communicating based on those nonverbals so we need to be willing and able to ask for clarification in those situations so we need to be sensitive to these messages we need to try and decipher the meaning of these messages through the situation by keeping culture in mind and asking for clarification so our goal here again is to be a better interpreter of nonverbals really is an interpretation game for each individual that we communicate with let alone groups of people and people that we don't know as well people from different cultures it can take a lot of time and an effort to become good at this but it's well worth our our effort well worth that energy if you have questions about interpreting nonverbals or anything about nonverbal communication communication in general please feel free to email me i'd love to hear from you there otherwise in the meantime i hope that you will make that effort to become more accurate in your interpretation of nonverbal communication and understand what it takes to do so