Matching and Mirroring
So how do you use your body language to create rapport? To put it simply—you mimic the other person. Or, to give the proper term, you reflect a postural echo. In other words, you observe the other person’s posture, the angle of her head, how she holds her arms, and so on, and then do the same. If she moves some part of her body, you move the same part of your own body. There are two different ways you can do this. They are called matching and mirroring, and both are based on the same idea. Which method you choose to use really only depends on how you’re standing or sitting in relation to the other person. With matching, you move the corresponding part of your body when the person you want to match moves (i.e., if she moves her right arm, you move your right arm). Matching is suitable if you’re sitting or standing next to the person whose body language you’re going to follow. With mirroring, you move the opposite part of your body (i.e., she moves her right arm, you move your left arm), as if you were her mirror image. Mirroring is used when you’re sitting or standing opposite each other.
Obviously, if you started copying someone too closely it would look very peculiar. For one thing, it would be an obvious change in your own behavior when you shift from moving as you usually would to moving the way the person you’re talking to does. And if you were to go on to mimic that person’s movements exactly, it would be extremely obvious what you were up to. Instead of creating rapport, you would give the impression of being a schizophrenic lunatic. Watch the film Single White Female if you want an idea of what not to do.
When creating rapport by adapting to another person’s communication, it’s important to do so discreetly and gradually. To start with, make very small changes and increase them gradually at a very cautious rate. How quickly or slowly you do this is determined by the extent to which you perceive that you’re getting the desired response. The more interested and involved you can make the other person feel, the more openly you can imitate her body language. This also applies once rapport has already been established.
When you adapt your own behavior to somebody else’s, you need to be subtle about it and do it gradually.
To start with, you should use representative gestures (another fancy term). In other words, you mimic the other person, but only a little. As long as you’re consistent in following the other person’s body language, you can tone the movements down. If she crosses her arms, you can put your right hand on your left wrist. You do the same thing, but on a smaller scale. In this way, you can avoid having the other person consciously begin to wonder what you’re up to.
Another good way of masking the fact that you’re adjusting to somebody’s behavior is to delay your movements. Instead of doing something directly after the other person has done it, you can wait for twenty or thirty seconds before you do it. As long as you’re consistent, this will still be registered by the other person’s unconscious mind, which will pick up the fact that the two of you have the same patterns of movement and are “alike.”
A third way of concealing what you are doing is to imitate the other person’s facial expressions. The other person’s facial expressions are a reflection of how he’s feeling inside (because our mental and physical processes are linked). If he sees a corresponding expression on your face, he will perceive that you feel the same way he does, because you look the way he does. And this makes for an extremely close connection. Because we can’t see our own faces, it’s practically impossible to discover that someone else is mimicking our facial expressions; we just get a feeling of affinity. Just be careful that whatever you’re matching is a specific expression and not just how somebody looks naturally. Some people look sad, stern, or angry when they are actually just relaxed, depending on how their faces are constructed. Make sure you know how the person you are matching looks otherwise, so you can differentiate between his ordinary face and his genuine expressions of emotion.
Also make sure that you move at the same speed, in the same tempo, as the other person. This is particularly important for any gestures that are interactive, such as shaking hands. If you’re dealing with a slow person, you need a slow handshake, and vice versa. If you notice that the other person talks quickly and seems wound up, you ought to increase the speed of your handshake. Other rhythmic gestures, like nodding your head when you agree, must also be adapted to the right tempo. Later in the book you’ll learn how to get an idea, even at a first meeting, of the sort of tempo at which somebody else speaks or thinks.
Don’t Overinterpret Things
As I wrote earlier, most of our gestures don’t have universal meanings, which are the same for all people. However, there is a dictionary of sorts for most people’s personal body language. We will often use the same gestures each time we’re in a certain mood, even if nobody else uses that particular gesture. So try not to put too much stock into your interpretations of somebody’s body language when you first meet. You should note, for instance, if her left leg moves, but avoid immediately interpreting that as a sign that she is nervous, unless there are other indications that this is the case. After a while, you will learn to associate some people’s motions and poses with specific thoughts and emotions. Perhaps that left leg was a sign of nerves after all, but that principle would still only apply to her, and not necessarily reveal anything at all about somebody else. We all express ourselves in our own special ways. Once you have some skill at reading the body language of others, you will notice that you are becoming much better at anticipating what somebody is about to say, just before she says it. You will basically be reading minds!
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By beginning to observe others in a new way, you’ll also soon begin to notice changes in them, changes that, even though you can’t imitate them, can provide a lot of information about how they feel and what they are thinking. You will readily notice things like changes in skin tone. When we are afraid, our faces often turn paler. If we blush, it doesn’t have to happen to the cheeks. Blushing can also be observed at the top of the ears, or at the forehead, jawline, neck, or chest. You will notice when somebody’s pupils dilate, a sign of interest and involvement. There will be more on this later on. I just want to let you know that you will soon start to notice things you previously wouldn’t have believed anybody could see.
What do you do when somebody is obviously using distancing body language? Do you mimic that, too? There is no consensus on this issue. Some feel that would be a terrible idea, while others recommend it. Those who recommend it claim that since one of the reasons you establish rapport in the first place is so you can lead the other person when necessary, you ought to get into rapport by adapting to another’s body language and then gradually change your own body language to open it up and make it more positive. This way, you can affect change in the other. This is a good idea, but I think you need to take the context into account. If there is tension in the air, I think you can do better than to mirror negative body language. There are so many other things you can do to get into rapport, and crossing your arms may not be the best idea. However, if there are no signs that it really is a case of negative body language (perhaps the person is just a bit cold and that is why she crossed her arms), mirroring it can make sense.
Body Language as Therapy
One of the reasons for consciously establishing rapport is, as I mentioned earlier, to allow you to lead the other person into a (desired) mental state. It works because we want to follow each other when we’re in rapport. The cost of not doing so is broken rapport, and unconsciously we’d do almost anything to avoid that. When you manage to change somebody’s blocking body language into a more open one, you’re not just changing the body language; you’re changing the person’s entire attitude. Those two things are connected, remember? What happens to the body also happens to the mind.
Another very practical use is turning around negative states in friends and loved ones. This is a classic therapeutic method that you can easily use yourself. It’s useful when your friend is a bit down for no
particular reason. Maybe it’s a rainy Monday on the last week before payday. Go ahead and mirror that person’s body language! Don’t express the negative emotions with your body to the same extent as your friend is doing; you don’t want to drag him or her down even further. You want to do just enough to establish rapport and make it clear you understand where he or she is at. When you’ve checked to make sure that you’re in good rapport, gradually allow your own body language to open up and become more positive. Straighten your back, open up your gestures, move your arms away from your body, and start smiling. At every step along the way, check that your friend joins you in the change. When you lose him or her and your lead is no longer being picked up, you can back up a step and regain rapport. Leading somebody, in rapport, is a case of two steps forward, one step back.
When you have achieved a sufficient change in the other’s body language, you will have changed his or her mood to the same extent. The blues will be blown away. You see, it’s impossible to be down if your back is straight and you keep your chin up and smile. Try it!
You just need to remember never to do this to somebody who has a real problem. A person in a state of mourning, for instance, needs to remain in it for some time. Sorrow is a state in which we conserve energy and mentally process the events that caused the emotion. If you perform this exercise with somebody who is experiencing genuine sorrow, the mental processing needed for him or her to move on will be blocked. In those cases, you’re better off leaving the person in her sad, but necessary, state. But, like I said, for someone who just has the plain old blues, it’s perfect!
OBSERVATION EXERCISES
1. The next time you’re in a restaurant, you can observe for yourself how people who are in rapport follow and lead each other. Find a couple or a group of friends that seem to have an intimate, close, and firmly established relationship. Watch them take turns following and leading each other’s body language while they speak to each other.
2. You could also try to spot people who sit the same way as whoever is next to them in the room.
3. Or try to figure out who knows each other and who doesn’t on a full bus, streetcar, or subway train. Here’s a clue: look for people who are sitting and moving the same way. Even if they’re not right next to each other, the pattern will be obvious to you.
EXERCISES FOR SHY PEOPLE
You can do these exercises if you’re a little intimdated by the idea of mimicking a person you’re talking to.
1. Watch a talk show or a debate on TV. Sit in the same position and move the same way as the person being interviewed or speaking. You will notice that you know more or less what that person is going to say before he has even said it. This isn’t particularly surprising. After all, he’s sitting the way he is because he’s thinking certain thoughts. If you follow his movements and positions, you will initiate similar mental processes and moods in yourself. Pay attention to how your emotions and your perception of yourself change as you adopt different body postures.
2. Establishing rapport from a distance. If you’re in a public space or some other social environment, you can choose somebody you’re not directly in contact with, somebody at the other end of the room, and begin adapting to that person’s body language. Don’t be too surprised if, before long, this person asks you if you know each other from somewhere. It’s only to be expected that she’d find you familiar, as you’re her own mirror image! So you should pick somebody you wouldn’t mind talking to, not somebody you’d rather avoid. This is actually a secret method for picking up people you’re too shy to actually talk to, and getting them interested in you.
3. A good way to get rid of the feeling that this person is going to “catch you out” is to make her tell you about herself. Then start mirroring her body language shamelessly while making noises of agreement, like “mm-hmm” and “yeah.” Notice how she’s not paying attention to anything you’re doing. When we’re talking about ourselves or are very angry, we shut the rest of the world out. We talk about ourselves, to ourselves, with ourselves, and seldom notice anything anybody else is doing.
When you begin establishing rapport, you may feel troubled by a feeling that the whole thing is unnatural, that it’s simply not you. That’s completely correct; in that case it isn’t you. Not yet. The unnatural feeling is just a matter of getting into the habit. When you learned to ride a bike, the connection between making a circular pedaling motion and moving forward was completely unnatural at first. But then you learned how to do it, and eventually you reached the fourth stage of learning, and cycling became one of your internalized, unconscious skills. It became a part of you. Your practical skills at establishing rapport can become a natural part of you in the same way. All you need in order to acquire the habit is to start doing it.
How Do You Really Sound?
How to Use Your Voice
The voice is another powerful tool for establishing rapport. The same principle is at play here: you adapt your own voice to the way the other person uses hers. Of course, again, this has to happen gradually and with discretion. And just as in the case of body language, there is no need for exact and perfect imitation. The fact is, even if you could get away with imitating somebody’s body language perfectly, it would still seem extremely strange if you suddenly started sounding exactly like the person you’re talking to. But there’s always some quality of the other person’s voice that you can adapt to, some trait you can at least approximate. Listen and see how he or she uses the following elements of speech:
Tonality
Is it a deep or a light voice? Many men speak in a deeper voice than their larynxes are really made for, and many women speak in a lighter voice than they really ought to. This is because of cultural impact on our behavior. We believe ourselves to be emphasizing our masculinity or femininity this way.
Fullness
Is it a rich voice with a lot of different timbres, or is it thin and airy? As a result of cultural imprints, we consider full and rich voices potent, serious, and reliable, while airier voices seem feminine and seductive. An airy voice can also make a childish impression.
Melody
Is this a monotonous voice, which remains on a single tone all the time? Monotonous voices often don’t use falling intonation at the end of a proposition, or rising intonation at the end of a question. This can often make it hard to understand what somebody with a monotonous voice really means—was the person asking a question or making a claim? Or was it a joke, even? The counterpoint to this would be a melodic voice, which uses many different tones in speech. Scandinavians, especially Norwegians, are famous for their melodic and songlike speech.
Tempo
Is this person speaking quickly or slowly? We speak at the same speed as we think and understand things, so if you speak slower than people you are talking to, you will bore them into thinking about something other than the message you’re trying to communicate. At worst, this could cause them to get restless and start waiting for you to finish so they can wrap up the conversation before it costs them any more time. On the other hand, if you speak faster than they are used to, you run the risk of losing them, and they might not pick up the important points of what you have to say. Men are commonly thought to speak faster than women, but this is a false stereotype. Researcher Tyler Schnoebelen found that women in mixed-gender settings actually slowed down their speech tempo to allow men to be those who spoke the fastest even when they really weren’t!
Strength and Volume
Adapting to somebody else’s volume is a good tactic. A soft-spoken person will appreciate you quieting your voice down. Somebody who belts his words out in speech will respect you more if you raise the volume of your voice.
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As you can see, a voice has many different properties for you to mirror. If you’re going to choose just one thing to work with, I’d recommend you adapt your tempo. Rapport is, to a great extent, a matter of mirroring the other person’s tempo, and in the case of speech it produces es
pecially good results. Some claim that adapting your vocal tempo is the most important technique for establishing rapport. I’m not sure that’s entirely true, but it is a very powerful technique. The voice is especially important, since it is sometimes the only tool we have for communication—on the phone, for instance. Zuker, whom we mentioned earlier, reports on a study performed on behalf of a telemarketing company that wanted to increase its revenues. It sold magazine subscriptions, and for this reason it was in contact with each prospective customer once, or at the most twice, before it had either failed or closed the deal. For the experiment, the sales team was divided into two groups. One group continued to work the same way they had done previously, while the other was given an extra instruction: try to pace your speech to that of the person you’re calling. Using only this difference in methodology, the latter group increased its sales by almost 30 percent, while the first group made no improvement over the previous sales figures. I’ll repeat that: all the latter group did was adapt the tempo of speech to the person the group was speaking to. Even if you’re not in sales, a positive increase of almost 30 percent is a lot, no matter what you do and what your relationships are about, especially when all you have to do is keep track of how quickly or slowly you are speaking.
We speak at the same pace as we think and understand things. If you speak in the same tempo as the person you are talking to, your thoughts are expressed at the same pace he or she is using to think.
The Art of Reading Minds Page 3