Body Language Tips for an Expert Witness on the Stand

You are sitting in a hard chair on a raised platform being asked question after question by a hard hitting attorney while a courtroom full of people watch your every move. Welcome to the hot seat! As a physician testifying as a defendant or serving as an expert witness, your experience on the stand can be daunting.  Understanding how to use your nonverbal communication to feel confident and credible on the stand will make a difference in the outcome.

Here are the keys to ensuring that your nonverbal communication conveys the same message of impeccable integrity as your words.

It is important to know that how you hold your body can actually change how you feel. You can influence how you look and feel on the stand by consciously controlling your nonverbal cues.

Under stress the limbic brain normally makes us freeze, flee, fight or faint or give up. Your body may react by freezing in place, appear to be fleeing by pulling your body back, or folding your limbs in to look small. Other reactions to stress may be to become tense and angry, going limp and giving up. You can take steps to reduce those stress responses and increase your credibility.

You want to be aware of the dance between you and the opposing counsel, instead of being reactive to the opposing team’s attorney. Use the following tips to be an effective credible witness.

Space

You want to look powerful, like a true expert, but not appear arrogant. Instead of going still and getting small, take up space and get big. When you need a shot of confidence put your arms on the armrest of your chair, or stretch out your feet a bit. Research says that women on the stand tend to perch, on the edge of the seat arching their backs, making them look less powerful. Men tend to slouch, relying more on the backrest, making them appear disrespectful. Purposefully vary your position to be in control, but when you feel stressed, get big.

  

Openness

Imagine that there are “windows” on the front of your body, the windows of the knees, pelvis, heart, mouth, eyes, and palms of the hands. These body windows can be open or closed. You want to keep your windows open to look honest and unafraid. The most important window for credibly is the palms of the hands. The limbic brain of the viewer senses danger and dishonesty when the palms of someone’s hands are hidden. Keep your hands open and in view on the table or the arms of the chair. Gesture normally, but don’t use sharp, cutting or poking motions that can be read as symbolic weapons.

Stay Up

When you’re confident and honest your gestures move up, your head comes up, your shoulders come up and back, you sit and move in a way that directs your energy upward.

People who are afraid and or are lying have difficulty moving and staying up.

Get Grounded

When people are nervous, they tend to either move a lot or freeze. Here’s a trick: when you’re in the thick of the most difficult questions, and want to achieve the highest levels of cognition, place both feet firmly on the ground slightly apart. This placement

actually makes it easier to utilize both hemispheres of the brain — the rational and the creative-emotional. If you feel yourself freeze, move your feet apart and/or forward to feel strong.

Lean into It

We tend to pull back when we are fearful or offended by a question. Lean forward as you listen to show you are interested and confident. You can lean forward with your head, your upper torso, or your whole body to show you are connecting to what the lawyer is saying and you are not afraid. Lean in when you are being questioned by your team to show respect. But don’t overdo it, you’re not trying to “get in their face.” So don’t lean forward quickly or aggressively, just aim for gentle timely leans.

Speak with Strength

Everyone, but especially women, should be sure that their voices stay strong until the end of each sentences. Going up high in pitch at the end of your sentences makes you sound unsure of yourself. Practice answering questions with a confident voice going down in pitch, steady and strong in volume, to the end of your sentences.

Match Your Movement and Your Words

Make sure your gestures and movements match what you are saying. If you say “That is accurate” and shake your head “no” the jury will believe your body language, not your words. Be careful of being too scripted or automatic. If your emotion and facial expressions and gestures do not match you seem inauthentic.

Keep Your Hands Away From Your Face

Be careful of showing “stress cues.”  When we are feeling stressed the nerve endings fire at the tip of the nose, edge of the ears, around the mouth, and eyes. You may have an urge to touch or rub your face.  Don’t! It makes you look uncertain or dishonest. If you need to comfort yourself, briefly place a hand on your leg out of view which will help you feel anchored.

Mind Your Mouth       

The mouth is the source of truth and lies. Avoid licking your lips or pressing your lips tightly together. Keep hydrated and keep your lips relaxed.

Giving a deposition or testifying in a trial is an experience that is part of being an EM physician.   Knowing the nonverbal messages that people use to ascertain whether you are telling the truth will help ensure that you are perceived as being the credible witness that you are.

Ms. Patti Wood, MA, CSP is a body language consultant and professional speaker, and the author of eight books, including “Success Signals Understanding Body Language” and “SNAP Making the Most of First Impressions Body Language and Charisma.” She is interviewed by national media every week, including CNN, FOX NEWS, The Today Show, The History Channel, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and Psychology Today. You can contact her at Patti@PattiWood.net.

Dr. Sagan is an emergency physician and an attorney based in Woodmere, New York. He can be reached at DougSegan@Yahoo.com.

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.

Using Body Language Analysis to Understand the Decision Making Style of World Leaders Like Vladimir Putin

In Putin All the momentum and energy in Putin's gait comes from the left side; it is as if the right side is just along for the ride. Even the right side of his torso seems frozen. When he is holding a pen, his right hand appears to have only an awkward, tenuous grasp on it. Researches suggests this behavior could have come from a stroke during his birth. Body Movement analyst Brenda Connors suggests for example, that Putin's instinct to make himself whole is mirrored in his imperative to keep Russia from breaking up—but any Russian leader would feel a similar sense of duty. The notion that Putin displays reptilian qualities, however, is not as odd as it may sound; even though ontogeny may not exactly recapitulate phylogeny, modern biology does recognize links between embryonic development and the evolutionary sequences. A characteristic of reptiles, Connors says, is that "they patrol their borders, and if an alien enters, lunge reflexively." That is as good a description of Putin's behavior in res

Here is the article from USA Today.

A Pentagon research team is studying the body movements of Russian President Vladimir Putin and other world leaders in order to better predict their actions and guide U.S. policy, Pentagon documents and interviews show.

The "Body Leads" project backed by the Office of Net Assessment (ONA), the think tank reporting to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, uses the principles of movement pattern analysis to predict how leaders will act.

...

ONA has backed the work of Brenda Connors, the director of Body Leads and a research fellow at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., since 1996, records show, and has paid about $300,000 since 2009 to outside experts to work with her. Part of her work includes a 2008 report for ONA on Putin called "Movement, The Brain and Decision-making, the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin."

Connors acknowledged her work on Putin and other leaders, but declined comment and referred all questions to Hagel's office....

Movement pattern analysis means studying an individual's movements to gain clues about how he or she makes decisions or reacts to events....

Last September, Rende, Connors and Colton published a paper in the academic journal Frontiers in Psychology that detailed the uses of movement pattern analysis to determine leaders' decision-making process. Such analysis, they wrote, "offers a unique window into individual differences in decision-making style."

Brenda Conners was interviewed for this very, very interesting article in The Atlantic in 2005. An excerpt:

In First Person (2000), a collection of interviews with and about him, Vladimir Putin mentions being beaten by stronger children in his rough-and-tumble neighborhood in Leningrad. It's not clear whether he was generally the instigator of the combat or responding to taunts and insults he felt should not go unchallenged. In any case, he resolved to fortify himself. "As soon as it became clear that my pugnacious nature was not going to keep me king of the courtyard or school grounds," he said, "I decided to go into boxing." After getting his nose broken, he took up sambo, a Soviet combination of judo and wrestling, and finally settled on judo. He devoted himself to rigorous workouts and became a black belt and a city-wide champion. He fought like a "snow leopard," his coach once said, "determined to win at any cost."

The wonder is that he even made it into childhood. Two older brothers had died of illnesses, one in infancy and the other at age five. When Vladimir was born, on October 7, 1952, his mother was forty-one, and her prenatal health had no doubt been poor. A decade earlier, during the Nazi siege of Leningrad, there were mass deaths from starvation; "Mama herself was half dead," Putin recalls in First Person. His father, recuperating in a hospital from severe leg wounds caused by German shrapnel, gave her his food. After the war "Papa" went to work as a laborer at a train-car factory. He was given a room in a fifth-floor communal walk-up at 12 Baskov Lane, where Putin grew up, about a twenty-minute stroll from Nevsky Prospekt, the city's main thoroughfare. There were "hordes of rats" in the front entryway, which the young Putin chased with sticks. Once, he cornered one—only to have it rush at him. Frightened, Putin slammed the door shut "in its nose."

I recently came across an intriguing hypothesis about Putin's survival skills. Brenda L. Connors, a senior fellow in the strategic-research department of the Naval War College, in Newport, Rhode Island, is both a former State Department protocol and political-affairs officer and a onetime soloist with the Erick Hawkins Dance Company. Her field of study is a distinctive one: she is a certified "movement analyst." Because of her experience greeting Mikhail Gorbachev and other global figures and her study of modern dance, Connors became intrigued by how body movement—everything from a particular way of walking to hand gestures and facial expressions—constitutes a language for conveying not only emotion but also leadership styles and behavioral patterns. From close analysis of physical traits, captured on tape and examined with the help of experts in medicine, psychology, anthropology, and other fields, she has developed character profiles of a number of world leaders. Her work may sound esoteric, but it is endorsed by, among others, Andrew Marshall, the legendary director of "net assessment" in the Pentagon, and Leon Aron, a leading Russia specialist at the American Enterprise Institute, in Washington, and the author of an acclaimed biography of Yeltsin.

Watching a tape she had made of Putin, compiled mostly from Russian television footage. The tape rolled to a shot of Putin at his first inauguration, in the spring of 2000, at the Andrei Hall of the Great Kremlin Palace. "Here's the picture," she said, as we watched Putin enter the hall and stride down a long red carpet. I saw what she meant only when she slowed the tape—and when she did, I was taken aback. Putin's left arm and leg were moving in an easy, natural rhythm. But his right arm, bent at the elbow, moved in a stiff way, as if jerked by the shoulder, and the right leg dragged, without absorbing his full weight. When she replayed the segment at normal speed, it was easy to pick up on the impediment, and then I had no trouble spotting it in other segments. All the momentum and energy in Putin's gait comes from the left side; it is as if the right side is just along for the ride. Even the right side of his torso seems frozen. When he is holding a pen, his right hand appears to have only an awkward, tenuous grasp on it.

Connors has shown footage of Putin's walk to a range of experts, including A. Thomas Pezzella, a cardiac-thoracic surgeon based in St. Louis; two orthopedic surgeons and a physical therapist at the naval hospital in Newport; and Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, the founder of the School for Body-Mind Centering, in Amherst, Massachusetts, who is certified as something called a neurodevelopmental therapist. They offer a variety of conjectures: Putin could have had a stroke, perhaps suffered in utero; he may be afflicted with, as Pezzella speculates, an Erb's palsy, caused by a forceps tugging on his right shoulder at birth; he could have had polio as a child (polio was epidemic in Europe and western Russia after World War II). The stroke theory is consistent with what appears to be the loss of neural sensation in the fingers of his right hand. (Videotape of Putin at judo matches shows him using his fist, rather than a splayed hand, to push himself up off the mat.) Based on what she has seen and on her consultation with other experts, Connors doubts that Putin ever crawled as an infant; he seems to lack what is called contra-lateral movement and instead tends to move in a head-to-tail pattern, like a fish or a reptile.

Connors believes that Putin's infirmities "created a strong will that he survive and an impetus to balance and strengthen the body." She continues, "When we are unable to do something, really hard work becomes the way." His prowess at judo astonishes her: "He is like that ice skater who had a club foot and became an Olympic skater." Although her research sounds clinical, Connors empathizes with her subject. "It is really poignant to watch him on tape," she says of Putin. "This is a deep, old, profound loss that he has learned to cope with, magnificently." When I heard this, it was impossible for me not to think of another frail child possessed of a fierce will who turned to rigorous physical exercise and pugilism and grew up to be a head of state: Theodore Roosevelt.

Some of Connors's analytical ventures seem unconvincing. She suggests, for example, that Putin's instinct to make himself whole is mirrored in his imperative to keep Russia from breaking up—but any Russian leader would feel a similar sense of duty. The notion that Putin displays reptilian qualities, however, is not as odd as it may sound; even though ontogeny may not exactly recapitulate phylogeny, modern biology does recognize links between embryonic development and the evolutionary sequences. A characteristic of reptiles, Connors says, is that "they patrol their borders, and if an alien enters, lunge reflexively." That is as good a description of Putin's behavior in response to militants in the northern Caucasus as any political analyst has offered.

As the Chechen conflict illustrates, Putin is a ferocious, even pitiless fighter. One need not put stock in Connors's research to see that life does seem to have taught Putin that "the weak are beaten."

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.

What is Body Movement Analysis Used to Read World Leaders Decision Making Styles?

Here is the whole article. http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00658/full

Reading how people move and gesture can tell you how they will make decisions in the future. Specifically, coders read people in interviews and in videos to see if they are high in Assertion or high in Perspective.  Here is an excerpt from the article. Unfortunately, the academic writing is even more obtuse than the normal journal article. There are not specific body language movement gestures or movements mentioned just generalities. 

In the MPA framework, PGMs are used to generate two Overall Factors—Assertion and Perspective—that together represent a signature decision-making style. The core idea is that individuals have a need to balance their actions/motivations devoted to exerting tangible energy in the environment in relation to pressure, time and attention focus to get results (Assertion), vs shaping the body (with respect to the cardinal planes of three-dimensional space—horizontal, vertical, and sagittal) to position oneself to receive from the environment information to create the result (Perspective). Differences in how individuals achieve their own balance between the complementary processes of Assertion and Perspective are proposed to capture different decision-making styles. For example, individuals high on Assertion may employ a mindset of “nothing happens unless I make it happen.” They rely upon decision-making motivations that include intensively focusing to probe and classify information, applying pressure to support determination, and pacing time to implement a decision at just the right moment. In contrast, individuals high on Perspective are more strategic and get results by positioning themselves. They are receptive to a broad scope of ideas and information alternatives—they shape their bodily position to reflect on the decision's relative value or priority and use movements to strategically anticipate the stages of decision implementation to achieve an overall outcome

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.

Body Language Tips for the EM Physician About to Testify

Welcome to the Hot Seat

Body Language Tips for the EM Physician About to Testify

By Patti Wood MA, CSP and Douglas Segan MD, JD, FACEP

You are sitting in a hard chair on a raised platform being asked question after question by a hard hitting attorney while a courtroom full of people watch your every move. Welcome to the hot seat! As a physician testifying as a defendant or serving as an expert witness, your experience on the stand can be daunting.  Understanding how to use your nonverbal communication to feel confident and credible on the stand will make a difference in the outcome.

Here are the keys to ensuring that your nonverbal communication conveys the same message of impeccable integrity as your words.

It is important to know that how you hold your body can actually change how you feel. You can influence how you look and feel on the stand by consciously controlling your nonverbal cues.

Under stress the limbic brain normally makes us freeze, flee, fight or faint or give up. Your body may react by freezing in place, appear to be fleeing by pulling your body back, or folding your limbs in to look small. Other reactions to stress may be to become tense and angry, going limp and giving up. You can take steps to reduce those stress responses and increase your credibility.

You want to be aware of the dance between you and the opposing counsel, instead of being reactive to the opposing team’s attorney. Use the following tips to be an effective credible witness.

Space

You want to look powerful, like a true expert, but not appear arrogant. Instead of going still and getting small, take up space and get big. When you need a shot of confidence put your arms on the armrest of your chair, or stretch out your feet a bit. Research says that women on the stand tend to perch, on the edge of the seat arching their backs, making them look less powerful. Men tend to slouch, relying more on the backrest, making them appear disrespectful. Purposefully vary your position to be in control, but when you feel stressed, get big. 

Openness

Imagine that there are “windows” on the front of your body, the windows of the knees, pelvis, heart, mouth, eyes, and palms of the hands. These body windows can be open or closed. You want to keep your windows open to look honest and unafraid. The most important window for credibly is the palms of the hands. The limbic brain of the viewer senses danger and dishonesty when the palms of someone’s hands are hidden. Keep your hands open and in view on the table or the arms of the chair. Gesture normally, but don’t use sharp, cutting or poking motions that can be read as symbolic weapons.

Stay Up

When you’re confident and honest your gestures move up, your head comes up, your shoulders come up and back, you sit and move in a way that directs your energy upward.

People who are afraid and or are lying have difficulty moving and staying up.

Get Grounded

When people are nervous, they tend to either move a lot or freeze. Here’s a trick: when you’re in the thick of the most difficult questions, and want to achieve the highest levels of cognition, place both feet firmly on the ground slightly apart. This placement

actually makes it easier to utilize both hemispheres of the brain — the rational and the creative-emotional. If you feel yourself freeze, move your feet apart and/or forward to feel strong.

Lean into It

We tend to pull back when we are fearful or offended by a question. Lean forward as you listen to show you are interested and confident. You can lean forward with your head, your upper torso, or your whole body to show you are connecting to what the lawyer is saying and you are not afraid. Lean in when you are being questioned by your team to show respect. But don’t overdo it, you’re not trying to “get in their face.” So don’t lean forward quickly or aggressively, just aim for gentle timely leans.

Speak with Strength

Everyone, but especially women, should be sure that their voices stay strong until the end of each sentences. Going up high in pitch at the end of your sentences makes you sound unsure of yourself. Practice answering questions with a confident voice going down in pitch, steady and strong in volume, to the end of your sentences.

Match Your Movement and Your Words

Make sure your gestures and movements match what you are saying. If you say “That is accurate” and shake your head “no” the jury will believe your body language, not your words. Be careful of being too scripted or automatic. If your emotion and facial expressions and gestures do not match you seem inauthentic. 

Keep Your Hands Away From Your Face

Be careful of showing “stress cues.”  When we are feeling stressed the nerve endings fire at the tip of the nose, edge of the ears, around the mouth, and eyes. You may have an urge to touch or rub your face.  Don’t! It makes you look uncertain or dishonest. If you need to comfort yourself, briefly place a hand on your leg out of view which will help you feel anchored.

Mind Your Mouth       

The mouth is the source of truth and lies. Avoid licking your lips or pressing your lips tightly together. Keep hydrated and keep your lips relaxed.

Giving a deposition or testifying in a trial is an experience that is part of being an EM physician.   Knowing the nonverbal messages that people use to ascertain whether you are telling the truth will help ensure that you are perceived as being the credible witness that you are.

Ms. Patti Wood, MA, CSP is a body language consultant and professional speaker, and the author of eight books, including “Success Signals Understanding Body Language” and “SNAP Making the Most of First Impressions Body Language and Charisma.” She is interviewed by national media every week, including CNN, FOX NEWS, The Today Show, The History Channel, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and Psychology Today. You can contact her at Patti@PattiWood.net.

Dr. Sagan is an emergency physician and an attorney based in Woodmere, New York. He can be reached at DougSegan@Yahoo.com.

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.

Patti was featured in Custom College Visits

Making New Friends Your First Week on Campus

17 Tips for Creating a Great First Impression and Making New Friends Your First Week on Campus

For many of you, the time for your teen to head off to college for the first time is right around the corner. And while we, as parents, may show more outwardly our nervousness, many of our kids—whether they tell us or not—are nervous as well. It’s only natural for them to be raising such questions as: Will I like my roommate? How will I find my way around campus? Will it be hard to me to make friends? Patti Wood, an expert in nonverbal communication and a human behavior expert, shares with us some tips that might make the transition easier for your son or daughter. I urge you to read her article (reprinted with permission) below and share the information with your teen.   

By Patti Wood MA, CSP

Be open: You have the rare opportunity for a fresh start at your impression. Smile as you walk across campus, walk down your dorm or class hallway or enter any room. Take the initiative to make eye contact, say hello and introduce yourself. Keep your body language open.

Keep your body language “up”: Up body language means walking, standing, and sitting with your upper body relaxed upward. Instead of hunching over, keep your shoulders back, your head up (not bent over your electronic device), and open your hands and move them upward when you gesture.

Gesture: Moving your hands occasionally while you speak actually helps you think and speak more clearly. The location of your hands also affects other nonverbal behavior. When you are conversing with someone standing up, if you place your hands and arms at your sides your energy goes down, your voice lowers and can become more monotone, and you show fewer facial expressions. If you’re nervous, bring your hands to the level of your waist, and you will become calm and centered. If you gesture occasionally with your hands at the level of your upper chest or above, your voice automatically goes up, increases in volume, and has more variations; you actually become animated.

Start new habits: If you always texted your friends in high school to see what they were doing, now you can initiate face-to-face interactions. Knock on a dorm room door or catch people at the student union and invite them to do something with you. You be the one who says, “Hey you want to go get a coffee after class, hang together to study tonight, or meet at the cafeteria to eat?” If you used to study in your room with the door closed try studying in the college library or outside. Don’t bring your TV with you to college or spend hours watching Hulu or Netflix when you get to campus. People make lifelong friends in their first week of college. Put yourself out there to meet as many people as possible as soon as you step on campus.

Know a rebuff is seldom about you: If not every single person says hi back or takes you up on your offers for plans remember college is stressful. Most freshmen feel a bit insecure at times and, if they seem distant, don’t take it personally. Most body language rebuffs such as lack of eye contact and scowls are motivated by what is going on inside the person and not really about you.

Be helpful and considerate: Having roommates and being in a new living situation can be stressful at first, even if you click as friends. Before settling into your new space, offer to help your roommates carry in their belongings or bring snacks to share. Ask them about their interests. Introduce yourself to their families. Invite them to dinner with your family if they’ve arrived by themselves. Laying the groundwork for a positive relationship with your roommates can go a long way to help things go smoothly.

Help people form a positive impression of you in class: Your professor and your fellow students will respond to you and perhaps judge you by how you act in your classes. If you’re late all the time or if you don’t go to class, they notice. They also notice if you come prepared for class, slink to the back to sit, pay attention, ask thoughtful questions, doze off, or spend the class texting. In high school slack behavior might have been cool; in college it will get you ostracized. Each class has a different set of “rules of engagement,” so be aware of the size, structure, and instructor’s preferences for behavior. It is easier to set a positive impression at the beginning of the semester than try to erase a bad one.

Learn your classmates’ names and use the formal title to address your professor: For example, “Dr. MacEnulty” or “Professor Camel.” People respond to their names, so learn them! It’s a skill that will serve you well in most settings. Be aware of your last, or exiting, impression: Last impressions are critical. Excuse yourself if you briefly leave a conversation and or say goodbye if you are leaving a group of any kind. It might seem easier to just walk away or leave, but it actually feels better for everyone if you smile and say something to create a close. Sometimes it pays to stick around and/or make yourself visible. Stay after class occasionally and attend your instructor’s office hours to ask questions and initiate discussions around the class topic.

Mix it up when choosing who to talk to: Whether you’re at college in your home country or an international student beginning school in a brand new one, make friends with people from other countries, cultures, and backgrounds.International students who came from another country to attend college will especially appreciate your friendliness and that you include them in activities. Ask others about their home countries and try out their favorite foods. Volunteer, go to activities, and be a joiner: If there is a movie night on campus, a student union game night, or dorm room function, go! The first week of my freshman year I joined the fencing club, went to a freshman dance though I had been the girl no one ever asked to dance, went to the dorm watermelon eating contest, and volunteered to referee the impromptu volley ball game on the campus green. I met great new friends with each activity.

Go early rather than late: Research shows that arriving early actually reduces your nervousness in new situations. It’s easier to get acclimated. You can stand or sit near the door when you arrive and greet people as they come in. More anxiety reducing tips are in the book.

Ask to help: At parties you can ask for an anxiety-distracting task like taking coats from new arrivals or offering them drinks or food. Nervousness comes out of your body in many ways. One way is through your hands. When your hands are confidently occupied with useful tasks, that confidence message goes to your brain and affects your entire body. It also gives you an easy, repeatable script, questions such as “Would you like me to take your coat?” or “What can I get you to drink?” These types of questions open up the conversation.

Look for an “open” person: Search for people who are already speaking in a small cluster or someone who is standing or sitting with their feet apart a few inches, rather than crossed, pressed together, or in a “cowboy” defensive stance (for guys that is fourteen inches apart). Research shows that someone who is gesturing with open palms and smiling and occasionally moving their heads is more open to approach. If you are super shy, look for someone who looks happy and confident and do what they are doing.

Trust your radar: Steer clear of people who are negative or give off bad vibes. Look for people who have the top two first impression factors from SNAP. That usually means people who are warm, likeable, and make you feel comfortable. Go first and initiate conversation: I know, I know, you’re thinking, “Patti, you are insane. I hate to talk to people and you want me to initiate? I’d rather stick a fork in my eye.” Put down the fork. Research shows that when you initiate and move forward, you appear more confident and other people immediately feel more at ease. In addition, when they feel at ease, the comfort transfers back to you. A quick tip for when you feel anxious: take one small step forward; motion tricks your limbic brain into feeling more confident.

Introduce yourself: You can breakthrough any awkward silence that occurs when strangers meet by simply sharing your name as in, “Hello my name is Patti Wood.” Giving your name to someone is a form of self-disclosure that shows you’re willing to be open and be vulnerable. It gives the impression that you are nice. Purse snatchers don’t typically say, “Hey, my name is Max Brewer and I’ll be taking your wallet today.” Breaking through the silence by sharing your name may be a pretty basic suggestion, but it works. We are sometimes afraid to break the silence because we fear we will be met with silence or rejection. If you don’t get an immediate response after sharing your name with someone, ask, “And your name is..?”

Introduce people to each other: This gives you something practical to do. Making introductions is appreciated by others, and it takes the pressure off you. As you stand and move to bring people together, you are creating a visual connection between yourself and other people in the room that makes you look powerful and popular. They see you move toward people and act as a connection, and they think, “Boy, she [or he] knows everyone.”

Ask a question, then simply relax and listen: So much anxiety comes from not knowing what to do or how to do it well. One of the smartest things you can do to meet people is to make a positive statement like “Great T-shirt” or asking a gentle question such as “Did you see the concert on the student green last night?” or, “What did you think about class today?” This completely takes the talking pressure off you. You don’t have to be super funny or super hip to be a good listener. It’s amazing how cool people will think you are because everybody loves someone who really listens to them. More conversation starting questions are in my book.

Nod your head: I love teaching men this simple body language cue. Men generally only nod their heads when they agree, while women nod to show they are listening. So guys, if you’re interested, nod as you listen. Women love it and nodding your head actually releases “feel good” chemicals into your blood stream. About the Author Patti Wood is an internationally recognized nonverbal communication and human behavior expert. She has conducted years of research in the field of human behavior. The media seek her insights on celebrities, politicians and people in the news. Please check out her website for great information and tips on nonverbal communication.

Article Link:   http://www.customcollegevisits.com/making-new-friends-first-week-campus/

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.