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Showing posts with label Hitler's Body Language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hitler's Body Language. Show all posts

Sieg Heil Salute.

Here is part of the Wikipedia entry on the Sieg Heil Salute.

Under a decree issued by Reich Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick on 13 July 1933 (one day before the ban on all non-Nazi parties), all German public employees were required to use the salute.[1] The decree also required the salute during the singing of the national anthem and the "Horst-Wessel-Lied".[1] It stipulated that "anyone not wishing to come under suspicion of behaving in a consciously negative fashion will therefore render the Hitler Greeting".[1] A rider to the decree, added two weeks later, stipulated that if physical disability prevented raising of the right arm, "then it is correct to carry out the Greeting with the left arm."[8] On 27 September, prison inmates were forbidden to use the salute,[31] as were Jews by 1937.[32]
By the end of 1934, special courts were established to punish those who refused to salute.[33] Offenders, such as Protestant preacher Paul Schneider, faced the possibility of being sent to a concentration camp.[33] Foreigners were not exempt from intimidation if they refused to salute. For example, the Portuguese Consul General was beaten by members of the Sturmabteilung for remaining seated in a car and not saluting a procession in Hamburg.[34] Reactions to inappropriate use were not merely violent but sometimes bizarre.[35] For example, a memo dated 23 July 1934 sent to local police stations stated: "There have been reports of traveling vaudeville performers training their monkeys to give the German Greeting....see to it that said animals are destroyed".[35]


A lone man with his arms folded as hundreds around him perform salute at the launch of the Horst Wessel, 1936.
The salute became an ordinary way of life.[36] Postmen used the greeting when they knocked on people's doors to deliver packages or letters.[36] Small metal signs that reminded people to use the Hitler salute were displayed in public squares and on telephone poles and street lights throughout Germany.[37] Department store clerks greeted customers with “Heil Hitler, how may I help you?”[36] Dinner guests brought glasses etched with the words "Heil Hitler" as house gifts.[36] The salute was required of all persons passing the Feldherrnhalle in Munich, site of the climax of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, which the government had made into a shrine to the Nazi dead; so many pedestri
Under a decree issued by Reich Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick on 13 July 1933 (one day before the ban on all non-Nazi parties), all German public employees were required to use the salute.[1] The decree also required the salute during the singing of the national anthem and the "Horst-Wessel-Lied".[1] It stipulated that "anyone not wishing to come under suspicion of behaving in a consciously negative fashion will therefore render the Hitler Greeting".[1] A rider to the decree, added two weeks later, stipulated that if physical disability prevented raising of the right arm, "then it is correct to carry out the Greeting with the left arm."[8] On 27 September, prison inmates were forbidden to use the salute,[31] as were Jews by 1937.[32]
By the end of 1934, special courts were established to punish those who refused to salute.[33] Offenders, such as Protestant preacher Paul Schneider, faced the possibility of being sent to a concentration camp.[33] Foreigners were not exempt from intimidation if they refused to salute. For example, the Portuguese Consul General was beaten by members of the Sturmabteilung for remaining seated in a car and not saluting a procession in Hamburg.[34] Reactions to inappropriate use were not merely violent but sometimes bizarre.[35] For example, a memo dated 23 July 1934 sent to local police stations stated: "There have been reports of traveling vaudeville performers training their monkeys to give the German Greeting....see to it that said animals are destroyed".[35]


A lone man with his arms folded as hundreds around him perform salute at the launch of the Horst Wessel, 1936.
The salute became an ordinary way of life.[36] Postmen used the greeting when they knocked on people's doors to deliver packages or letters.[36] Small metal signs that reminded people to use the Hitler salute were displayed in public squares and on telephone poles and street lights throughout Germany.[37] Department store clerks greeted customers with “Heil Hitler, how may I help you?”[36] Dinner guests brought glasses etched with the words "Heil Hitler" as house gifts.[36] The salute was required of all persons passing the Feldherrnhalle in Munich, site of the climax of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, which the government had made into a shrine to the Nazi dead; so many pedestri

Children were indoctrinated at an early age.[39] Kindergarten children were taught to raise their hand to the proper height by hanging their lunch bags across the raised arm of their teacher.[39] At the beginning of first grade primers was a lesson on how to use the greeting.[39] The greeting found its way into fairy tales, including classics like Sleeping Beauty.[39] Students and teachers would salute each other at the beginning and end of the school day, between classes, or whenever an adult entered the classroom.[40]

Some athletes used the Nazi salute in the opening ceremony of the 1936 Berlin Olympics as they passed by Hitler in the reviewing stand.[41] This was done by delegates from Afghanistan, Bermuda, Bulgaria, Bolivia, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy and Turkey.[41] The Bulgarian athletes performed the Nazi salute and broke into a goose-step;[41] Turkish athletes maintained the salute all around the track.[42] There is some confusion over the use of the salute, since the stiff-arm Nazi salute could have been mistaken for an Olympic salute, with the right arm held out at a slight angle to the right from the shoulder.[41] According to the American sports writer Jeremy Schaap, only half of the athletes from Austria performed a Nazi salute, while the other half gave an Olympic salute. According to the historian Richard Mandell, there are conflicting reports on whether athletes from France performed a Nazi salute or an Olympic Salute.[42] In football, the England football team bowed to pressure from the British foreign office and performed the salute during a friendly match on 14 May 1938.[43]

Military use[edit]



Dönitz and Navy officers performing Nazi salute, 1941
The Wehrmacht refused to adopt officially the Hitler salute and was able for a time to maintain its own customs.[44] A compromise edict from the Reich Defense Ministry, released on 19 September 1933, required the Hitler salute of soldiers and uniformed civil servants while singing the "Horst Wessel Lied" and national anthem, and in non-military encounters both within and outside the Wehrmacht (for example, when greeting members of the civilian government). At all other times they were permitted to use their traditional salutes.[44] Use of the Hitler salute was also permitted when in uniform. However, it is of importance to note that according to (pre-Nazi) Reichswehr and Wehrmacht protocol, the traditional military salute was not permitted when the saluting soldier was not wearing a uniform headgear (helmet or cap). Because of this, all salutes performed bareheaded, even when in full uniform and on duty made the Nazi salute de facto mandatory in most situations.[45]
Only after the 20 July Plot in 1944 were the military forces of the Third Reich ordered to replace the standard military salute with the Hitler salute, as a show of loyalty in deference to the fact that it was Army officers that had been responsible for the assassination attempt.[46] The order went into effect on 24 July 1944.[46] The use of the Hitler salute by the military had been discussed as early as January 1944 in a conference regarding traditions in the military at Hitler's headquarters. Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, head of the Armed Forces, had expressed a desire to standardize the salute across all organizations in Germany.[47]
On the night of 3 January 1942, Hitler stated the following about the compromise edict of 1933:[28]
I imposed the German salute for the following reason. I'd given orders, at the beginning, that in the Army I should not be greeted with the German salute. But many people forgot. Fritsch drew his conclusions, and punished all who forgot to give me the military salute, with fourteen days' confinement to barracks. I, in turn, drew my conclusions and introduced the German salute likewise into the Army.
— Adolf Hitler, Hitler's Table Talk

Satiric responses[edit]



"Millions stand behind me" (John Heartfield photomontage)
Despite indoctrination and punishment, the salute was ridiculed by some people. Since "heil" is also the imperative of the German verb "heilen" ("to heal"), a common joke in Nazi Germany was to reply with "Is he sick?", "Am I a doctor?", or "You heal him!"[48] Jokes were also made by distorting the phrase. For example, Heil Hitler might become Ein Liter ("One liter").[48] Cabaret performer Karl Valentin would quip, "It's lucky that Hitler's name wasn't 'Kräuter'. Otherwise, we'd have to go around yelling Heilkräuter ('medicinal herbs')".[48] Similar puns were made involving Bronn (rendering Heilbronn, a German city), and Butt (rendering Heilbutt, the German word for halibut).
Satirical use of the salute dates back to anti-Nazi propaganda in Germany before 1933. In 1932, photomontage artist John Heartfield used Hitler's modified version, with the hand bent over the shoulder, in a poster that linked Hitler to Big Business. A giant figure representing right-wing capitalists stands behind Hitler, placing money in his hand, suggesting 'backhand' donations. The caption is, "the meaning of the Hitler salute" and "Millions stand behind me".[49] Heartfield was forced to flee in 1933 after the Nazi seizure of power in Germany.
Another example is a cartoon by New Zealand political cartoonist David Low, mocking the Night of the Long Knives. Run in the Evening Standard on July 3, 1934, it shows Hitler with a smoking gun grimacing at terrified SA men with their hands up. The caption reads: "They salute with both hands now".[50]

Sieg Heil[edit]



A mass Sieg Heil during a rally in the Tempelhof-Schöneberg district of Berlin in 1935
Sieg Heil was a chant used at the Nazis' mass rallies, where enthusiastic crowds answered Heil to the call of Sieg ("victory").[51] For example, at the 1934 Nuremberg Rally, Rudolf Hess ended his climactic speech with, "The Party is Hitler. But Hitler is Germany, just as Germany is Hitler. Hitler! Sieg Heil!"[52] At his total war speech delivered in 1943, audiences shouted Sieg Heil as Joseph Goebbels solicited from them "a kind of plebiscitary 'Ja'" to total war.[53]
On 11 March 1945, less than two months before the capitulation of Nazi Germany, a memorial for the dead of the war was held in Marktschellenberg, a small town near Hitler's Berghof residence.[54] The British historian Ian Kershaw marks that the power of the Führer-cult and the 'Hitler Myth' had vanished which is evident from a report given in the little Bavarian town of Markt Schellenberg on March 11, 1945:
"When the leader of the Wehrmacht unit at the end of his speech called for a Sieg Heil for the Führer, it was returned neither by the Wehrmacht present, nor by the Volkssturm, nor by the spectators of the civilian population who had turned up. This silence of the masses ... probably reflects better than anything else, the attitudes of the population."[54]
The Swing Kids (German: Swing Jugend) were a group of middle-class teenagers who consciously separated themselves from Nazism and its culture, greeting each other with 'Swing-Heil!' and addressing one another as 'old-hot-boy'.[55] This playful behaviour was dangerous for participants in the subculture; on 2 January 1942, Heinrich Himmler ordered that the leaders be put in concentration camps to be drilled and beaten.[55]

Post-1945[edit]

Today in Germany, Nazi salutes in written form, vocally, and even straight-extending the right arm as a saluting gesture (with or without the phrase), are illegal.[56][57] It is a criminal offence punishable by up to three years of prison (Strafgesetzbuch section 86a).[57][58] Usage for art, teaching and science is allowed unless "the existence of an insult results from the form of the utterance or the circumstances under which it occurred".[58] Use of the salute has also been illegal in Austria since the end of World War II.
Usage that is "ironic and clearly critical of the Hitler Greeting" is exempt, which has led to legal debates as to what constitutes ironic use.[59] One recent case involved Prince Albrecht of Hanover, who was brought to court after using the gesture as a commentary on the behavior of an unduly zealous airport baggage inspector.[59] On 23 November 2007, the Amtsgericht Cottbus sentenced Horst Mahler to six months of imprisonment without parole for having, according to his own claims, ironically performed the Hitler salute when reporting to prison for a nine-month term a year earlier.[60] The following month, a pensioner named Roland T was given a prison term of five months for, amongst other things, training his dog Adolf to raise his right paw in a Nazi salute every time the command "Heil Hitler!" was uttered.[61]
Modified versions of the salute are sometimes used by neo-Nazis. One such version is the so-called "Kühnen salute" with extended thumb, index and middle finger, which is also a criminal offence in Germany.[62] In written correspondence, the number 88 is sometimes used by some neo-Nazis as a substitute for "Heil Hitler" ("H" as the eighth letter of the alphabet).[63] Swiss neo-Nazis were reported to use a variant of the Kühnengruss, though extending one's right arm over their head and extending said three fingers has a different historical source for Switzerland, as the first three Eidgenossen or confederates are often depicted with this motion. Hezbollah supporters in Lebanon often raise their arms in a Nazi-style salute.[64][65]
On 28 May 2012, BBC current affairs programme Panorama examined the issues of racism, antisemitism and football hooliganism, which it claimed were prevalent among Polish and Ukrainian football supporters. The programme, titled Euro 2012: Stadiums of Hate, included recent footage of Ukrainian supporters giving the Nazi salute and shouting "Sieg Heil". The two countries hosted the international football competition UEFA Euro 2012.[66]
On 16 March 2013, Greek footballer Giorgos Katidis of AEK Athens F.C. was handed a life ban from the Greek national team for performing the salute after scoring a goal against Veria F.C. in Athens' Olympic Stadium.[67]
In April 2014, the Supreme Court of Switzerland ruled that Nazi salutes do not breach hate crime laws if expressed as one's personal opinion, but only if they are used in attempt to spread its ideology.[4][5]
On 18 July 2015, The Sun published an image of the British Royal Family from private film shot in 1933 or 1934, showing Elizabeth II (then a young girl) and the Queen Mother both performing a Nazi salute, accompanied by Edward VIII, taken from 17 seconds of home footage (also released by The Sun).[68] The footage ignited controversy in the UK,[69] and here have been questions as to whether the release of this footage was appropriate.[70] Buckingham Palace described the release of this footage as "disappointing",[71] and has considered pursuing legal action against The Sun,[72] whereas Stig Abell (managing director of The Sun) said that the footage was "a matter of national historical significance to explore what was going on in the [1930s] ahead of the second world war."[73]

In popular culture[edit]

  • In a running gag in Hogan's Heroes, Colonel Klink often forgets to give the Hitler salute at the end of a phone call; instead, he usually asks, "What's that?" and then says, "Yes, of course, Heil Hitler".[74] In the German language version of the show, called Ein Käfig Voller Helden (A Cage Full of Heroes), "Col. Klink and Sgt. Schultz have rural Gomer Pyle-type accents", and "stiff-armed salutes are accompanied by such witticisms as "this is how high the cornflowers grow".[75] The "Heil Hitler" greeting was the variant most often used and associated with the series; "Sieg Heil" was rarely heard.

Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com. Also check out Patti's YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.

Hitler gave the Sieg Heil salute in two ways

Hitler gave the Sieg Heil salute in two ways. When reviewing his troops or crowds he generally used the traditional stiff armed salute. When greeting individuals he used a modified version of the salute, bending his right arm while holding an open hand towards those greeted at shoulder height. 

     

Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com. Also check out Patti's YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.

Sieg Heil, The Nonverbal Effect of Hitler's Salute.

Sieg Heil
As I prepare for the Discovery Channel Documentary Series on Hitler I am watching Videos
There is a video I have watched of hundreds of soldiers holding their hand in the Sieg Heil salute.
Sief Heil, which means, "Hail Victory!" The salute was created by holding the right arm up to at least eye level and straightening out the arm and hand. It was used as originally as a greeting then chanted on public occasions. In the video I am watching the soldiers keep the hand up in the salute. This salute is particularly interesting as it keeps the arm above the waist, we typically raise our hands above the waist when we feel elated and or victorious.  So keeping the hand raised like that can raise the energy level of the group. This relates to what I call UP body language which I describe below.

 Keep your body language “up” - Up body language includes, keeping your shoulders back, your head up (not bent over your electronic device) your gestures up. The location of your hands also affects other nonverbal behavior. Put your hands at your sides and your energy goes down your voice lowers and can become more monotone, and you tend to move less and show fewer facial expressions. Bring your hands to the level of your waist, and you become calm and centered. Bring your hands up high to the level of your upper chest or above, and your voice goes up; you become animated.

Hitler gave the Sieg Heil salute in two ways. When reviewing his troops or crowds he generally used the traditional stiff armed salute. When greeting individuals he used a modified version of the salute, bending his right arm while holding an open hand towards those greeted at shoulder height. 

     
 

Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com. Also check out Patti's YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.

The Business Benifits of Getting Angry. More money, more status, more promotions and power. Hitler used anger.

In preparation of the Hitler Documentary I am watching him be very angry in his speeches. Hitler used anger to gain power and status with his audience as well as to sway them to their primitive emotions.  Here is an article I wrote on the benefits of anger.

Getting angry can get you promoted.

Yes, surprisingly new research studies suggests that we perceive people who get angry as having more competence and leadership capability than people who are warm and nice If your one of those “nice” people you might be rather disappointed to learn that niceness is not always rewarded. If you get mad easily you may want to show this article to your boss right away! I am going to share the research and then make recommendations for the nice folks on this newsletter list.

I teach interpersonal skills. I know that I have always valued kindness in others, feel blessed to have a group of wonderfully kind friends, and see myself as a caring soul but recent events in my life have reminded me that being nice does not always pay. So I have been reading research on niceness and even a book about being a people pleaser. Are you surprised? I know I am professional speaker and I confident in so much of my life, but at my core my Myers Brigs Personality type reads “loves to be of service to others.” I just want to make sure that for all you other nice people out that your personality type never reads “are a doormat.” And sometimes reads “You need to serve me.”

In one of a series of research studies on anger by Standform researchers Larrissa Tiedens, Tieden  tested  24 employees at a Palo Alto software company. Each worker received a list of coworkers and a list of emotions. They had to rate how often their colleagues expressed anger. At the same time, the group manager filled out a questionnaire indicating how likely he would be to promote each of the employees. The degree to which people were rated by coworkers as expressing a lot of anger predicted the degree to which the manager said he would promote them—that is, the more angry, the more likely to be promoted. Oh my gosh! Start yelling right now! While you are at it stomp your foot a few times.

In another study, Tiedens had MBA students watch a video clip of a job interview. The applicant was asked to describe a negative event, such as an office presentation that went wrong. In one case, the applicant exuded anger about the event. In another tape, the applicant said he felt guilty and sad that people had been let down. The MBA students were asked if they would hire the applicant they had just seen. They were equally willing to hire both applicants, but they slotted the one who displayed anger for a higher-level, higher-paying job than the applicant who showed sadness. This is bizarre news to a professional speaker. If you want to increase your income have a bad speech, then get mad about it and stay mad all the way to the bank.

Not only did Tiedons research subjects say that angry people are more highly competent they said those expressing sadness or guilt were viewed as likable and warm, though not chosen for leadership. Why? Tiedens belives her subjects.”Are making the decisions about who will get status based not on socio-emotional characteristics such as warmth and likeability, but on competence characteristics," Anger is powerful. Anger gets its way. If you have red or been through  my DISC personality training you remember the Driver or Get it Done type doesn’t care about people only the task. The corporate world rewards results. And if Get it Dones' will yell and scream get to get things done as soon as possible. Anger gets its way fast.  It is a time saver. Being nice takes too much time! In the corporate time is money.

Think about what nice people do. They stew about it. They think inside their heads of the perfect way they will say it. They call or email their friends to discuss it. That not only takes time it does not deal directly with the person. Here is an insight for nice people those actions do not produce results.

My advice all you nice folks out there…no it’s not to get mad. It is to communicate. Use your verbal and your nonverbal communication to the person who can full fill your request. Be powerful and be fast. Quickly figure right now think of something you want. Whether it is a project from your boss, an assignment from a co-worker, more money, or a call from your sweetie now go to that person and ask for it. You can use a nice warm voice, but if that doesn’t work it is important stand strong use a slightly louder firmer voice and say it again. Use the phrase “This is important.” If it still doesn’t work insist on it. Use the phrase, “This needs to happen.” Or “This needs to happen immediately.” You nice people will think this is too radical, everybody else however thinks that this is standard operating procedure.

My life has been rich because of kindness. However I know and I want you to know that there are times when you need to take strong action. Yes, you catch more flies with honey and that true, but sometimes you get tired of flies and you want the darn honey yourself. So ask for it. And over the next week wither you have the nice guy or an angry competent person notice the people around you and how they get their way.

 I will be blogging more about vice of nice so let me know what you think.

Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com. Also check out Patti's YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.

Where Do We Feel Different Emotions in the Body? Love Make Us Warm All Over.

I am fascinated by the gestures of great speakers. I am studying Hitler's Body Language for  Discovery Channel Documentary Series. Hitler practiced specific gestures to make when he was giving speeches and many of them are expansive and weapon like gestures to make him appear large powerful and omnipotent and dangerous. In several of his practiced gestures in the famous posed Hoffman Photos one hand is at the head level or above it. Hitler used anger in most of his speeches and its interesting that anger actives the upper body, that is the head, shoulders upper chest and hands and arms.
Here is an interesting study about what part of the body is activated when we feel different emotions. The findings where self reported, so more research needs to be done. But I find it fascinating that we think we feel different emotions in different parts of are body.

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/12/30/258313116/mapping-emotions-on-the-body-love-makes-us-warm-all-over

Mapping Emotions On The Body: Love Makes Us Warm All Over

People drew maps of body locations where they feel basic emotions (top row) and more complex ones (bottom row). Hot colors show regions that people say are stimulated during the emotion. Cool colors indicate deactivated areas.
People drew maps of body locations where they feel basic emotions (top row) and more complex ones (bottom row). Hot colors show regions that people say are stimulated during the emotion. Cool colors indicate deactivated areas.
Image courtesy of Lauri Nummenmaa, Enrico Glerean, Riitta Hari, and Jari Hietanen.
Close your eyes and imagine the last time you fell in love. Maybe you were walking next to your sweetheart in a park or staring into each other's eyes over a latte.
Where did you feel the love? Perhaps you got butterflies in your stomach or your heart raced with excitement.
When a team of scientists in Finland asked people to map out where they felt different emotions on their bodies, they found that the results were surprisingly consistent, even across cultures.
People reported that happiness and love sparked activity across nearly the entire body, while depression had the opposite effect: It dampened feelings in the arms, legs and head. Danger and fear triggered strong sensations in the chest area, the volunteers said. And anger was one of the few emotions that activated the arms.
The scientists hope these body emoticons may one day help psychologists diagnose or treat mood disorders.
"Our emotional system in the brain sends signals to the body so we can deal with our situation," says Lauri Nummenmaa, a psychologist at Aalto University who led the study.
"Say you see a snake and you feel fear," Nummenmaa says. "Your nervous system increases oxygen to your muscles and raises your heart rate so you can deal with the threat. It's an automated system. We don't have to think about it."
That idea has been known for centuries. But scientists still don't agree on whether these bodily changes are distinct for each emotion and whether this pattern serves as a way for the mind to consciously identify emotions.
Basic emotions, such as happiness, sadness and fear, form the building blocks for more complex feelings.i
Basic emotions, such as happiness, sadness and fear, form the building blocks for more complex feelings.
Toddatkins/Wikimedia.org
To try to figure that out, Nummenmaa and his team ran a simple computer experiment with about 700 volunteers from Finland, Sweden and Taiwan.
The team showed the volunteers two blank silhouettes of a person on a screen and then told the subjects to think about one of 14 emotions: love, disgust, anger, pride, etc. The volunteers then painted areas of the body that felt stimulated by that emotion. On the second silhouette, they painted areas of the body that get deactivated during that emotion.
"People find the experiment quite amusing. It's quite fun," Nummenmaa tells Shots. "We kept the questions online so you try the experiment yourself." (You can try it here.)
Not everybody painted each emotion in the same way. But when the team averaged the maps together, signature patterns emerged for each emotion. The team published these sensation maps Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The team still doesn't know how these self-reported sensations match with the physiological responses that occur with emotion.
But previous studies have found marked changes in bodily sensations in mood disorders, Nummenmaa says. "For instance, with depression sometimes people have pain in their chest."
And there's even some evidence that when you change your own body language — like your posture or stance — you can alter your mind.
Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, who was not involved in this study, says he's "delighted" by Nummenmaa's findings because they offer more support for what he's been suggesting for years: Each emotion activates a distinct set of body parts, he thinks, and the mind's recognition of those patterns helps us consciously identify that emotion.
"People look at emotions as something in relation to other people," Damasio, who is a professor at the University of Southern California, says. "But emotions also have to do with how we deal with the environment — threats and opportunities." For those, Damasio says, you need your body as well as your mind.


Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com. Also check out Patti's YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.