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During a confrontation or during the period leading up to a confrontation, communication plays a large part in whether the confrontation ends or is escalated. Facing an angry person is a harrowing experience. It would seen that the person is telling you everything you need to know about his or her intent in the words he or she is yelling. However, studies have shown that 65% to 95% of a message’s meaning is communicated through non-verbal clues.

There is relatively little agreement on where exactly the boundary between verbal and non-verbal communication may be drawn. Particularly, the importance of non-word utterances, such as a throat clearing noise, is highly debated. This article considers anything other than word utterances as non-verbal communication.

As with so many other cultural factors, non-verbal communication is subject to the interpretation of the non-verbal signs by the recipient of the message. Frequently, the interpretation and recognition of non-verbal messages is subconscious, and may therefore be extremely misleading in intercultural encounters.

Non-verbal communication may be roughly divided into two groups: active behavior that is consciously controlled and passive behavior that is unconsciously displayed. Non-verbal communication may be further divided into eight main categories.

Kinesics

Kinesics is the non-verbal behavior related to movement, either of a part of the body or the body as a whole. Kinesics communication is the most obvious non-verbal communication form. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most confusing area since the various meanings communicated through body movements seem endless across cultures. Kinesics may be subdivided into five categories.

Emblems. Emblems are non-verbal messages that have a verbal counterpart. Emblems have a bewildering array of possible interpretations and meanings. For example, the British sign for Victory (forefinger and middle finger erect) symbolizes the letter V, a sign for victory. However, the same movement may symbolize the number two in the United States, and may be seen as insulting in Australia.

Illustrators. Illustrators are less clearly linked to specific sayings or words being used. Illustrators are consciously used to illustrate what is being said, such as holding the hands wide apart to illustrate something big. Again, the usage and the amount of illustrators used is different from culture to culture. For example in some Asian cultures, extensive use of illustrators is often interpreted as a lack of intelligence, whereas in Latin cultures the absence of illustrators may be construed as a lack of interest.

Affective Displays. Affective displays are body or, more frequently, facial movements that display a certain affective state, such as emotions. For example, facial expressions that show anger. Affective displays are often less conscious than illustrators and occur less frequently. The subconscious nature of affective displays and the varying degrees of their usage, make the interpretation of affective displays frequently quite bewildering across cultures. For example, the frequent and extensive subconscious usage of affective display movements by an Italian may be understood as threatening in a culture in which affective display movements are more restrained.

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