Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Not sure if this should go under this forum section or not, but it's not purely asking for writing advice.

I want to do some research on body language to get more specific details in my book. Anyone have any suggestions for this? Is this even a good idea? Not that I'm a complete social outcast, I happen to work a lot and don't get to see a lot of different social interaction, plus if I need something specific, I figure I can find something kind of book to reference.

Thank all!

The Changingminds.org Web site has a wealth of body language information and related topics, including a synopsis of Mehrabian's communication study. With reference cites for source texts to get a start on what titles to look into for deeper information.

Home page;
http://www.changingminds.org/index.htm

Behaviors page;
http://www.changingminds.org/explanatio ... aviors.htm

Body language pages index page;
http://www.changingminds.org/explanatio ... nguage.htm

The Emotion Thesaurus over at Bookshelf Muse is really helpful, as well. It can be found in the sidebar - just click the emotion you're trying to convey!

I'd recommend a search on Google Scholar if you're academically minded-- Burt Trivers has done some really interesting work on how we subconsciously judge people based on their body language (and their dancing skills!).
One BIG thing to keep in mind, though, is that body language can read differently across cultures-- for example, for English folk, eye contact means interest in the other person; for Huron people, that's totally rude and borderline agressive. Lots of African cultures hug and hold hands all the time; here in Scotland, hand-holding is PDA (and it's about as much PDA as you can do without getting glares). So picking up a travel guide (of the 'how not to annoy people in X country' types) can be really helpful.