Verbal communication uses words in writing and speaking. It is important in both your professional and personal lives. The other form of communication—nonverbal—is also important. One type of nonverbal communication is when a person’s words and behavior do not match (also called incongruent behavior). An example of this is when a person tells you he or she is happy and loves the job, but doesn’t look you in the eye and is frowning. Experts agree that the nonverbal behavior is more likely to communicate the person’s true feelings than his or her words. Keep in mind, however, that the tricky thing about all types of communication, both verbal and nonverbal, is that communication may be misinterpreted. The person may enjoy the job, but has a piece of lint in his or her contact lens.
Think about a situation in your personal, academic, or work life where you interacted with someone who had incongruent behavior. What was your interpretation at the time? Could there have been another way to interpret it? Describe the situation, your interpretation, and at least one other possible way to explain the conflicting actions and words.
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Recently a coworker of mine husband has 2 massive heart attacks in the same day. Myself and the other employees were told this by our boss who told us that Bev would not be back to work for a couple days. The next day after hearing the news I went in to do my shift and Bev was in the kitchen. The look on her face showed that she was tired, scared, and all in all worn out. I asked her how she and her husband were doing. She answered me while keeping her eyes on the floor and her tone of voice was very low which is very much unlike her. My interpretation at the time was that she was lying to me to keep herself from breaking down in front of me and her sister Ginny who also works there. I was not convinced by what she had said but I did not press the subject. Im not sure of another way to explain the conflicting actions and words.
ReplyDeleteThis January 2009, I and my wife took a trip to Thailand. On the plane to Thailand, I met a Thai couple (wife & husband) who were currently a professor at the University of Bang Chain Khams in Thailand; his name is Douai Phaun Saisava. During our flight to the Southeast Asian countries, we were seat at the same role next to each other, so he and I struck up a long conversation. After the flight, we exchanged email addresses to keep in touch. Recently, I received an email from him asking me for pictures of the city where we live. In his email, I saw that about all of these email rules have been were broken. Two of the biggest problem was wording and the tone of the email. There was some sarcasm in the email, but I understood it because the language bearer. I know that if any one else would have read this email, they would not have understood what he was talking about. I also realize that there are different ways you email friends and people at the work place too.
ReplyDeleteI was being promoted at a previous job to a much higher position and there was to be an email sent from the owner of the business, my boss, to inform the company of my promotion. I was looking forward to the recognition but more importantly excited that everyone would be on the same page at the same time. The decision of hire was made on a Friday and I was promised the email would be out before employees came to work on Monday. Needless to say, there was no email Monday morning or for the remainder of the week. My interpretation at that moment was I misread my boss' emotions and didn't feel like this was important enough for him to send the email. I also felt left out; it seemed that everyone else in the company who had received a promotion was recognized immediately. My boss had told me that he was extremely busy with unexpected family affairs and meetings during the week. Because he had incongruent behavior I did not believe him at the time. I could have interpreted this situation another way and took initiative to inform the employees of my promotion and to watch their email for further information. I also could have taken it as my boss really was busy and it truly had slipped his mind.
ReplyDeleteA few years ago, my grandmother was dying of cancer. She was on the hospice program so that her friends and family could be with her in the comfort of her own home for her last few days. I had a really difficult time dealing with this. It was my first up front experience with death and didn’t know how to cope with it. Throughout this entire time my mom kept acting like she was strong and could handle what was going on, but through her exhausted appearance and worried facial expressions you could tell she was not ok. Although she didn’t tell me until a few years later that she acted that way to be strong for me and my sister, it was very obvious at the time she was having a very difficult time dealing with the situation herself.
ReplyDeleteI use to be the laborer throughout high school working for various construction companies. My duties mostly included just cleaning up wood scraps and moving piles of lumber to places where it was needed. One summer we got a new laborer and my job duties expanded to actually doing some of the construction. On the crew we had a guy who did all of the cutting. He was the oldest guy on the crew but he was good. He always loved to boss around me and the other laborer. However, now that I was no longer just a laborer I would shout out dimensions for him to cut. On many occasions I would ask him, “Hey Gary, can cut this load of boards for me”? He would always say yes in a very enthusiastic way, but you could tell that deep down inside it bothered him tremendously that he was taking orders from the youngest guy on the crew. His non-verbal communication did not match up with his verbal-communication at all. Thus this made me feel very awkward when asking him to do things.
ReplyDeleteJust last week I needed to call an insurance company regarding a patient in our hospital. The person answering the phone answered my questions, so I eventually got the information I needed, but it was a very awkward 6 minutes. Each time before he would speak he would do a long sigh. I felt like I was interupting him from something important, or that he was angry that I called. I really didn't know what to think. I took him as being very rude and uninterested in my call.
ReplyDeleteWe could not see each other, but these sighs continued through the entire converstion. It actually began to make me angry and I wanted to bring it up to him at the end of the conversation or ask to speak to his supervisor. I did nothing, but I was still disturbed after I hung up. I calmed myself down by saying he possibly didn't feel well, or maybe he had a sick child who kept him up all night, or just had a fight with his boss. He really could have been busy in the middle of something that I interupted and was impatient to get back to his work not realizing of this non verbal act.
This incident made me realize that even over the phone we need to be careful of non-verbal communication. Our tone of voice or how abrupt we answer. Even without seeing the person we can communicate the wrong way.
Recently I was contacted by one of my high school friends' daughter. She has moved back to her mom's home town, and now living with her grandmother. She told me her mom has been wanting to get a hold of me to catch up on our lives. She gave me her mom's phone number and said for me to give her a call.
ReplyDeleteThat night, I gave my friend, that now lives in Arizona, a call. There was no answer so I left a message saying for her to call when she had time.
It took two weeks for her to get back to me. We talked for about 45 minutes before I had to leave for work. It sounded like she was excited to hear from me after 20 years.
We exchanged e-mail addresses, to make it more convenient for us to stay in touch with each other.
I have written her a couple of e-mails since then. I have not recieved any from her.
This has made me feel a little confused with what she has said, in turn with her actions.
She has said that she would like to stay in contact with me, but she has not replied by phone or by e-mail.
At first I felt not important enough for her to keep in contact with me. Then on the other hand, she could be busy with work, family or something else.
I will keep e-mailing her,now that I have her address. Some day, when she has time, she will get back to me.
I work for an ambulance and we were called to a 2 car collision 5 people. In the one car was a mother and her 10yr old son. The mother was very badly hurt lacerations all over and a broken wrist, while the son had a couple lacerations on his face from the glass he wasnt hurt to where he was a concern. However the mother kept a smile one her face saying I am fine I am fine it doesnt hurt anywhere she was saying this to comfort her son,and it was working he was crying and freaking out but you could tell just the smile on her face and her non broken arm on him was enough to calm him down. But you could see the pain in her eyes. We did put them both in the same ambulance and took them to the hospital.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was doing construction work, there seemed to be a lot of mixed messages directed at me. I went into the trade with the knowledge that there would be some that simply would not accept a woman doing this type of work. When I would show up on a job, there were men that would be brutally honest about their feelings about me working with them. There were other men who would seem to be indifferent to my being there, but I would sense they didn't appreciate it. They would tease me and ask me for tools that do not exist like a left-handed crescent wrench, or a board stretcher. When they figured out I knew a bit about construction, they stopped asking for phony tools, but would still make comments that made me feel like I wasn't welcome. They would give me the most physically difficult jobs to do and I felt they did this to get me to quit. All the while, they were all very pleasant...to my face.
ReplyDeleteBack when I was in high school, my friends and I would sit out in the hall before class because the commons were usually overfilled. One day, one of my closest friends out of our small group had came over and sat down next to me like usual but I could tell just by the look on her face that something wasn't right. She was looking around nervously and fidgeting uncomfortably. She was usually calm and relaxed. I tapped her on the shoulder and she jumped. I asked her if she was okay and told her she seemed a little on edge. She took a deep breath and made no eye contact with me as she told me everything was fine and she was just tired. I still felt that there was something wrong but I figured that if it was something of great importance she would discuss it. I found out later that her boyfriend had been calling her and harassing her over the phone for no apparent reason and she was trying to avoid him to get some peace of mind, only she obviously wasn't. She later approached me to tell me the truth.
ReplyDeleteOne of my bosses loves to be in charge and give orders that do not make any sense or are from her pure lazyness. When she comes back to the kitchen and gives one of the servers an order that she could simply do herself. We usually say yes, and do the job but you can tell by the look our face that we would love to say to her “do it yourself.” She interrupts us that we like to do the extra stuff for her because we do not have enough to do. When she asks us to do these orders usually we are right in the middle of things or have the whole dining room packed but she really does not care.
ReplyDeleteAt the locker plant where I was working before I got laid off, there was lots of incongruant behavior. When the owner of the building got a wild hair and decided that he was going to charge the guys, who I was working for more money than the building was worth when they wanted to buy it, they didn't know if they would be running the locker anymore. It was hard to get a strait answer out of anyone regarding work, and or if we would even have work to do. when one would finally get cornered enough and couldn't get away, they would have to answer our questions.
ReplyDeleteWe would get such positive feedback at first, but whenever they weren't talking directly towards us, I could see the dissappointment and depression on their faces. I know that they ware under lots of stress, and wanted to do their best, but a plain old honest answer would have been more than efficient enough for me.
When the final appraisals came in where they thought that it would be possible to purchase the place everyone was happy. We were happy at first, however, the owner wouldn't budge on his price. At that time, even when the bad news hit us and we knew that without the purchase of the building and the people we were working for would be gone, none of is would be having our jobs either. At that point when everyone was honest with everybody, and we knew what was in store for us, it was okay. It wasn't a good feeling not having any more work, but the fact that we knew, and didn't have the guessing to stress out our lives, it was all right and we all could move on.
I deal with incongruent behavior everyday at my job. I work at a gas station and to make my customers feel more welcome I will say things like "hi, how are you today?" or "how is your day going?" I dont expect a long reply because these poeple dont know me anymore than i know them. Because of this kind of job it is very easy to see or even give incongruent behavior. Its interesting because i can also give the same back. It happens often where i will ask a customer how they are doing today and i get an answer that shows they arent being honest. They usually don't make eye contact with me, they act very quick to get out, and they talk quiet with a short answer like "fine". I also can give this back because if i were to have a bad day at work I can not show that I'm in a down mad in front of customers. This usually means I will be smiling but mostly short with them.
ReplyDeleteI could be wrong with the behavior they give me but i get the impression they are in a bad mood. I could take it the wrong way. They could be acting that way because they do not know me and won't get personal which is understandable. Also they could be tierd or just in a hurry.
The only time I can think about incongruent behavior right now is this: My daughter came to visit me and she was married for over a year and just pregnant with her first baby. She seemed very happy and her husband was working at that time, otherwise they were always together doing everything and I felt that they had the best relationship,one that would make people jealous. We had a great visit, and then at the end of our visit she became very quiet and she didn't look me in the eyes like she always does and she said: " Mom I just found out that Josh has meet a girl at work and they are spending time together and he cares alot about her. He just told my daughter this that day and she needed to confide in someone and she came to me. I told her everything would turn out okay, but she needed time away she could come back home to resolve things, I was very upset with my son-inlaw but I never said anything negative to my daughter about her husband because I felt she needed to talk about it and I didn't need to add any more problems. I talked to her in a very positive way and I told her everything will work out for the best. I felt that they had such a great relationship that they didn't need interference from family members.As time went on they worked their differences on their own. I give them alot of credit for what they went through and they are still together today. Actually they have four children, Addison will be six in December and Carter turned three in August and they also have twins Klare and Kennedy who will be a year-old November 14, and also I have to mention they are foster parents and they will be adopting Ben who is thirteen and Vanessa who is ten on October 26. So this has turned out as a very happy life and I am so proud of both of them.
ReplyDeleteI have two sisters. We are all pretty close to one another, so we talked about anything and everything with each other. About five years ago my sister and I started a job on the same exact night. My sister was fine at the beginning of our shift, but as the night went on, she was complaining of really bad stomach pains. Of course she didn't want to go home sick or anything seeing as it was the first night on the job, so she made it through the whole night. At the end of work, she asked if she could stay with me. I told her it was completely ok, but I wanted to know what was going on and if she was going to be okay. She could not even look at me for more than two seconds or she would just cry. In her whole nine months, family has noticed her weight gain and came right out and asked her if she was pregnant. She always said no, but I just had a strange feeling all the time. She could never look at anyone and answer them. She was the type of person who could not lie to anyone, so I just knew something was going on. Everyone just let it go, so I never pushed the issue because it always made her feel bad. Getting back to that night she asked to stay with me, she still had pain in her stomach at around 1:30AM, only a couple hours after we had gotten done with work. I was lying in bed watching a movie and I heard my front door close and a car take off. My sister and her boyfriend ended up leaving about an hour later. I called and asked her what she was doing, and she had her boyfriend talk to me on the phone to tell me she was going home to our parents' house to be in comfort. I said that's fine just have her call when she wakes up. About 6:00AM my mother comes through the door crying and mad and tells me, "Well Melissa, you're and aunt!" It was such a surprise becasue I was hurt that my own sister chose to hide that from me. No one in our family knew she was pregnant, so it was a huge surprise. I love that little boy more than anything in this world, but he was lucky to even make it through the pregnancy. The doctor informed us that she had been in labor for 2 whole days and any longer he would have died from the fluids that were in his lungs. I really don't know any other way to conclude that or think how I could have handled it differently, but I'm sure anyone could just imagine how awkward that situation was for my family and I.
ReplyDeleteI had misinterpreted a sarcastic comment one of my co-workers had made. I asked him a question about a machine I was working on. He gave me a answer with a straight face. I was in a rush and walked away with the answer he gave me. He did not have a chance to explain he was joking. Turns out I ended up ruining a part on the machine because of a sarcastic comment. His facial expressions led me to believe he was giving me a straight answer. I shouldn't have been in such a rush and questioned him more. He would have had time to tell me he was joking.
ReplyDeleteAbout a year ago my dad had his business fail and he subsequently lost his house, the house that I grew up in. As he was going through the very tough ordeal I would frequently ask him, "Do you need my help with anything?", or “Are you doing okay?" He would always give me the same response that he was fine and didn't need anything even though I could see in his face the strain it was putting on him.
ReplyDeleteHe told me the other day that he really appreciated me asking him if he needed any help and making sure he was doing ok. He said that knowing I was there to help if he couldn't handle it any more really helped ease his troubled mind.
Things are better now. He still has a long way to go but I know he'll be fine.
When I was younger I would go over to my real dad's house every other weekend. well one weekend we went to his new wife's parent's house. It was winter time and they had a hill to go sledding down. I got dressed and ready to go play outside, at the bottom of the hill was a tree. Being a young child I didn't think anything of it at the time. I had gone down the hill a couple of times and nothing happened than all of a sudden I hit the tree my left leg being the body part taking most of the impact.I screamed for my dad. He come running out to see what was going on. He didn't say much, just took me inside to see if anything was majorly wrong. Well Oscar, my real dad, didn't call my mom because his new wife wasn't ready to go home yet. When she was finally ready Oscar called my mom and told her that he though I might have broken my leg. She asked when this had happened and Oscar said that it had happened a couple hours earlier. My mother freaked out because the one other person in the world that is suppose to be taking great care of their child wasn't. She asked him why he hadn't brought me to the hospital and he replied with that his new wife wasn't ready to leave. He was trying to act like me cared about his only daughter but deep down you could see that he didn't care. He didn't even bring me to the hospital but he had the nerve to show up there. That day I learned the people that are suppose to be there for you the most, are sometimes the ones that hurt you the most. Oscar's non-verbal communicate was stronger than his verbal communicate that day.
ReplyDeleteSeveral years ago I worked for a company in the customer service department. The supervisor I had at the time showed favoritism that was quite obvious. I work very hard and took pride in my work. There were times she would tell me what a good job I was doing and then there were times I could not do anything right no matter how hard I tried to please her. Before I left that job I had several people ask me why she was acting like that towards me. It was so obvious the way she talked to me that other people were noticing too. Looking back at the situation I think I should have went to our Humane Resources department and talked to them before leaving the job.
ReplyDeleteI had a friend and coworker ask me if i could com to his place for a poker game. I had to decline because I had plans out of town that weekend. The volume and tone of his voice lowered and he averted his eyes as he said "Its cool. No problem." This lead me to believe that he was very disappointed that i could not make it to the game. Thinking about it more, I could see that any number of disappointing events could have happened that led to his mood. He could have gotten in an argument with his girlfriend or been yelled at by a manager. His mood may very well have been reflecting something besides my inability to come to his poker game.
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ReplyDeleteIm currently unemployed, but when i was laid off from the place i worked its wasnt the boss that told us we, were getiing laid off it was someone else. Evem thought she had to give the news to us as our boss, we could see that the news effect her just as hard as it did us. Im not sure how long they had known, but we had all been workig together for sometime and could tell when something was "off"
ReplyDeleteI work at a grocery store. One day a customer was trying couple of our salads. After she tries the last salad she had this look of pain on her face. I ask her what was wrong. She said that I just broke my tooth on your salad. She demanded to see someone about her tooth, so I called up someone that could help her. I interrupted this like it was my fault because it was our salad that broke her tooth even though there was nothing wrong with the salad.
ReplyDeleteI have a great example just from the other day. My family went out to eat at a restaurant and the waitress did not look like she was having a good day. She was friendly during the meal and came back to check if our food was good. Overall with the whole experience the service was good. In reality though I could tell she wasn't enjoying herself because she was kind of slouching, tapping her pen on the pad, and didn't have a very appealing facial expression. So just from these simple non-verbal cues it was clear to me that something else was on her mind that day.
ReplyDeleteDylan,
ReplyDeleteThe waitress might have been tired or it could have been a long shift and she wanted to go home and relax.
When I was a part-time tailor, I was learning the equipment and one of the sales guys liked to scare me while I was trying to sew. I thought that was his way of making sure I was paying attention, not because he liked doing that.
ReplyDeleteI recently had a co-worker call in to work sick for the weekend, the next time I seen them I asked if they were feeling better, they were feeling so guilty for calling in that they couldn't even look me in the eyes, all they could do was shuffle there feet, play with there hands, and mumble and answer, come to find out someone from work had seen them out the weekend supposedly they were sick and turned them into the superviser. Nonetheless, she ended up getting fired, because this isn't the first time they have called in sick and then have gotten caught
ReplyDeleteMy Uncle was having complications from a serious heart surgery and while he was on the respirator could not talk. He would try to mouth to you what he wanted but you had to read his lips and that was not always easy to do. Most of the time to make sure you understood what he was saying you would have to have him spell in the air like a little kids pretends to write something. We often interpreted it as he was in pain when we couldn't understand him.
ReplyDeleteIncongruent Behaviors happen to me almost every time I speak with my boss. Any time I go to her with a problem and tell her the issues her replies are always, "Well..", eye rolling, head swaying, "ok, I guess I'll looking into that...", sighing, ect. She never does and the problems continue. It's very disheartening and staff are constantly frustrated by her actions and incongruent behaviors.
ReplyDeleteA few months ago at work a co-worker of mine lost one of her friends in a swimming accident. I believe it was in July or August when it happened. Him and his friends were cliff jumping in the Chippewa River and when he jumped off he never came back up. It took many hours of searching for him until they were able to find his body. The day after this happened during work I could tell she wasn't doing so good. Her conversations with customers were very short, and she wasn't making eye contact with anyone. When customers would ask her how her day was doing she would tell them she was doing fine but, I could just tell from her body language, and the tone of her voice that she wasn't. Her actions could have also been interpreted by whether or not she got enough sleep the night before. I was sure that she was acting like this because of her friends death.
ReplyDeleteOne night my friends and I were playing a game of poker, and I remember this one specific hand. It was just me and one other person, and I was delt a pair of nines. Eventually I ended up in a spot, where I had to make a pretty large call or fold. I had the pair of nines, but there was a chance the other player could have paired the ace or ten that was on the board. His bet seemed kind of odd, as it was pretty big for the situation. Also he was talking like he forsure had this won, but wouldn't look at me, only the other players. I made the call based on the fact that his actions didn't congruent with the situation. I thought for a while about it before I made the call and won. At first it seemed like he probably had the hand won, but I thought of my odds and his actions. For me, I feel like I can read body language pretty well; that's why I decided to make the call. If he wouldn't have talked or been looking at everyone else; I probably would have folded. Other interpretations would have been, that they actually thought he had the ace or ten. Also they might have thought that he never had either card to begin with, and made the call right away. The only way to explain his actions would have been, that he was just bluffing the whole time, and was putting on an act.
ReplyDeleteAbout two years ago I went to college for barber cosmetology. There, I made a lot of good friends. We all had our moments being, that there were pretty much nothing but girls in my class and we were together 8 hours a day! As I mentioned above, I made many friends. Well, a good year goes by and I am still talking to most of the girls here and there. There was one out of the bunch that would come off all nice to me and talk to me the most. So I did consider her a good friend of mine. Well, I few weeks later I start hanging out with someone that knows her. This person mentioned to me that he had spoken with her earlier in the week and she was trash talking me. I didn't even try talking to her about it to avoid drama. Then to top off I decided to get a volleyball team together and the other person that decided to start a team with me wanted her to be on our team. I wasn't going to say no, so I just went with it. At our first game she shows up and starts taking to me like nothing was wrong obviously thinking I didn't know she was talking bad about me. So I was really short with her obviously. She even called me later on talking all nice to me.
ReplyDeleteSo, the way I look at it she was talking bad about me and was being a back stabber or she didn't say a word and this person that told me she was may have been lying for some odd reason. So, to this day I am still lost!
Last night when I got home from visiting family,I visited my best friend to fill her in on my weekend. I was giving her all the details on my grandmother's birthday party about how we bought her internet service and a laptop. She would respond with "that's great" or "that's nice" and look at me with a smile. I went on to tell her how my cousin, who is very technical, spoke over my grandmother's head with his jargon and she still replied "that's great". I finally caught on that she was clueless to what I was saying and was distracted by something. It was not great that the jargon was too much for my grandmother and she was overwhelmed. I would watch her facial expressions and could just see that she was looking at some other spot in the kitchen. I was thinking she was being a bit rude or bored with my converstion. When I asked what was wrong, she had a very hectic weekend and explained what had happened. I learned that I didn't ask right away how her weekend was first. If I would have asked her right away, I probably would have had her attention by letting her tell her story first.
ReplyDeleteA couple of years ago my grandmother was very sick. She had been in and out of the hospital many times and we were getting use to her being there because she usually got better. Then there came a week that my mom kept going to the hospital later at night when she usually use to go during the day. After about the third night I asked if everything was ok. My mom said, "yes, of course your grandmother will get better." But when she said this she didn't look me straight in the eye. She searched the room and walked around in a hurry. I beleive she acted like this because she wanted to be strong and didn't want me to get worked up incase everything turned out fine.
ReplyDeleteAt my job sometimes the adolesants that I takw care of have negative behaviors and staff on the unit can not control. If this occure than staff will call core staff to step up to the area the ctisis is taking place to see if they can get them to calm down. When the adolesant does not coraportate they are taken down to the crisis intervention room. Once they have caled down, staff from their unit is called to go process with them. Sometimes when staff asks them of they are calmed down and ready to follow structure, they will respond by saying yes, but they will roll their eyes, say it sarcasticly or with a negative tone. At this point,staff will decided if they feel comfortable bring the resident back up to the unit.
ReplyDeleteWhen I am faced with this sititation mojority of the time I will bring the resident back up to the unit. Once on the unit, if the resident displays any negative behavior at all the above listed process stats all over again.
The negative body lanuage the resident was display could have been because, they do not want to be in the CIR room anymore or that they realized where their actions were wrong
There was this one time when I had something dear to me stolen from me. When I confronted the suspect about the object, he was very indecisive and he wouldn't keep looking me ine the eye. Thats how you know that someone is lying or nervous. It turned out that he was the culprit and the guilt made him confess.
ReplyDeleteWhenever my childs father would be lying when having a conversation with me he would laugh and smile while he spoke. He knew I knew he was lying so the conversation did not last very long and the truth usually came out when he started laughing.
ReplyDelete