MEHRABIAN DEMONSTRATED IN PERCENTAGES HOW WORDS, TONE OF VOICE AND BODY LANGUAGE ARE EFFECTIVE IN COMMUNICATION.

Mehrabian s work was all about what he called the silent messages how people communicate implicitly their emotions and attitudes. His big insight was that when words and non-verbal messages are in conflict, people believe the non-verbal every time.

Mehrabian had an experimenter read words to an audience of college students, single words like love , in different tones and with different expressions. Then he asked the audience how it knew what the speaker really meant. Where did the audience get the clues for the real intent behind the words? He wasn t asking about the words at all, but rather the speaker s intent.

WHAT DO YOU THINK THE PERCENTAGES ARE?

WORDS

100%

% % %

TONE/INFLECTION

BODY LANGUAGE

TOTAL

Write them down on a piece of paper, then turn over to see...Try It

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