Last week we introduced a new regular feature, By the Numbers, of the Minding Gaps blog. We’ll start each week (or most weeks, anyway) with a statistic that is noteworthy, alarming, misinterpreted, or otherwise deserving of explanation, comment, or clarification. We’ll accompany it with thought-provoking questions or commentary for reflection and discussion. Today, we present data on nonverbal communication that many otherwise intelligent people believe is true—but isn’t.
Over and over, in books and journals and speeches and videos and websites, some of the most well-known and widely respected experts on communication make the same error. Unintentionally, but nevertheless irresponsibly, they casually misunderstand, misinterpret, and misrepresent certain research data on nonverbal communication and body language.
They get the data correct, but they distort and exaggerate its significance. Their mistake is so common, the misstated information is all but a cliché. Even more troubling, perhaps millions of otherwise intelligent and discerning people have just accepted the mistake at face value, and they repeat it as gospel. So the error, like a viral pathogen, grows and grows into a disease of misinformation.
Everywhere you turn, you read and hear about Albert Mehrabian’s research on nonverbal communication. Mehrabian, it is said, found that only 7 percent of a message is conveyed verbally—through words. The other 93 percent is conveyed nonverbally—38 percent by tone of voice and 55 percent by body language.
Before I go any further, for the benefit of readers who only glance at the first few paragraphs of an essay like this and then move on, I must state with perfect clarity that the foregoing description of Mehrabian’s research is false. It is wrong, and anyone citing the data in such a way should stop and correct what they have previously stated. That’s a lot of experts.
It’s impossible to list all the authors and publications citing Mehrabian’s work in error. Brian Tracy, who has few peers among professional speakers, makes the error in his popular book Speak to Win. Tonya Reiman does likewise in a website on body language. So does Carol Kinsey Goman, an author and consultant, in her recent book The Nonverbal Advantage. Peter Block’s otherwise masterful Flawless Consulting cites the data in error. Daniel Goleman refers indirectly and wrongly to the study in his classic work, Emotional Intelligence. The list goes on and on, and it includes some very good company indeed.
Now common sense tells you the data cannot be true as described. If true, you would have no trouble communicating in a foreign land without knowing the local language, for 93 percent of the intended meaning would be clear. You could watch television without the sound. You wouldn’t bother listening to talk radio or a podcast. A game of charades would be over in seconds.
You would dare not sign a contract, as only 7 percent of the mutual commitments would be on paper. Historic documents and speeches like the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, and the Gettysburg Address would be almost meaningless. Laws would be unenforceable. Email? You certainly wouldn’t go there. And why would you ever read a blog like this or surf the Internet? Why, indeed, would you bother reading anything? Mehrabian's research itself, which he published in two books, would be unintelligible!
The fact is that words account for much, much more than 7 percent of a message. While tone of voice and body language undeniably carry some meaning, they rarely account for nearly as much impact as words. Indeed, many other aspects of nonverbal communication—such as punctuality, patience, courtesies, logic, attentiveness, inquiry, creativity, relevance, authority, accuracy, wisdom, sincerity, depth, research, etiquette, dignity, and interpersonal regard—are vastly more important than posture and a handshake.
The research itself was legitimate. Albert Mehrabian, now retired, was a professor at UCLA when he conducted two studies in the 1960s. The studies were quite modest, and their scope was very narrow. He found that, in personal relationships, a message of emotional commitment could easily be confused by conflictive vocal tone and facial expression. That’s the extent of his findings. Period. End of story.
In the decades since, his findings have been repeatedly construed more broadly. Today his name is virtually synonymous with the urban myth that words generally convey only a tiny fraction of meaning. Mehrabian himself has been frustrated by the misrepresentations, and also by the extrapolated meaning. He counts those two studies as a minor part of his decades of academic research, and he is quick to point out their narrow scope.
Just last week, in an interview on BBC Radio 4, “More or Less” host Tim Harford asked Mehrabian whether words accounted for only 7 percent of meaning. “Absolutely not!” Mehrabian replied emphatically. “Whenever I hear that misquote or misrepresentation, I cringe. . . . It should be so obvious to anybody who would use any amount of common sense that that’s not a correct statement.”
Mehrabian cited an everyday example of giving directions. “If I were to tell you that the pencil you are looking for is upstairs in the desk drawer of the bedroom, three drawers down, I couldn’t do that nonverbally,” he told Harford. “I mean, I could try to point, but that would hardly locate the pencil, whereas I could do that very precisely with words.”
He concluded: “There’s no question you can’t extrapolate my findings to communication in general.”
So there. Have we cleared things up? I certainly hope so.
Memo to "experts": Stop saying this!