Many gestures may be universal, but are associated verbal cues translatable?
Last week’s Olympics blog discussed the universal gesture of triumph and touched on Humintell’s research into the universal nature of many gestures. However, just knowing that many gestures are universal is not enough to effectively read people. Instead, it is important to connect them to verbal messages.
This is exactly what Humintell’s Dr. David Matsumoto and Dr. Hyi Sung Hwang attempted to do in a 2013 study. This research catalogued various gestures, including both culturally similar ones as well as gestures that vary drastically between cultures.
They asked participants from all over the world to list out gestures based on a comprehensive list of possible verbal messages. These gestures were then shown to participants from the same region in order to maintain validity in the experiment. This process allowed Drs. Matsumoto and Hwang to determine which gestures were recognizable as the verbal cue in question.
Interestingly, they found that universal and varying gestures tended to convey categorically different emotions. While many culturally-specific gestures had complex associated messages, universal gestures tended to convey pretty elemental or basic emotions.
Still, they did notice differences. Some verbal messages, such as an insulting one, occurred in every culture but with different associated gestures. Other gestures occurred universally but with different meanings, including the “A-Ok” symbol in Western cultures which conveyed a variety of meanings, including a reference to “money.”
Finally, there were some gestures which were culturally specific and who’s verbal message existed nowhere else. For instance, the gesture for “apology” only occurred in South Asia, and the signal for “hunger” was not present outside of East Asia. No other regions used these gestures or used gestures to convey these concepts.
This sort of research is critically important for those of us who want to better read people. Many gestures convey verbal messages, clarify speech, or amplify certain meanings, all of which add nuance to complex social interactions.
If we simply exclude gestures from communication, we miss a whole sphere of human interaction. Moreover, when trying to interact across cultures, especially if we do not speak a common language, a focus on universal gestures can go a long way towards bridging otherwise intractable differences.
The trick, of course, is knowing which gestures mean the same thing in different cultures. While this blog tries to help you build this knowledge, it can only do so much. Instead, we encourage you to take advantage of Humintell’s specialized cross-cultural training programs to make you a better people reader, regardless of where in the world you happen to be.