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Prejudice and Pre-judgment in Nonverbal Communication
We live in an ontological, social, and cultural context that governs what we are, what we do, and how and why we do it (1). It is not a limitation, nor a constraint. It is a fact, inescapable, and a prerequisite for being able to understand, communicate, and interact with each other.
This context evolves over time, just as the other things around us evolve and, although this evolution takes place with local differences—social and cultural differences between different ethnicities are, for example, well known to everyone—there is a significant intersection, established by being physically similar and by being part of the same real world, and the local differences are not strong enough to shatter this fundamental common part (on the other hand, regarding the importance of physical-conceptual similarity, see Wittgenstein’s statement “If a lion could talk, we could not understand him” (2)).
Being part of such a context, even with the differences just described, on the one hand represents a sort of epistemological foundation, which sets the boundaries of what we know and can aspire to know; on the other hand, it also represents a potential constraint on our ability to move from general models to private models, which come into play when interaction occurs with specific individuals, who have their own experiences and privacy, and who act as elements of specialization and characterization of the more general models.
Every interaction, every communication, always takes place “here and now” and, although it is based on the prescriptive nature of general models - every model, inevitably, also dictates the rules that allow it to manifest itself in its extensive representation - it cannot fail to take into account the individual's experience, their emotional state at the moment, what happened before, what is happening now, and what, likely, could happen next.
Ultimately, therefore, when we interact and communicate with someone, verbally or non-verbally, we inevitably carry with us a set of information, which represents our a priori knowledge, our toolbox, which allows us to listen, observe, speak, and understand what happens in that interaction.
This knowledge, however, is not always a value, and the transition from being an enabling element for understanding to becoming a strong constraint for it lies entirely in a hyphen, which separates “pre-judgment,” a priori and inevitable, but linked to models and able to evolve with them (“it is so, but it could also be different”), from “prejudice,” a priori and inevitable like the first, but which is its ossified version, so deeply rooted in personal beliefs as to be impervious to any attempt at rational analysis (“it is so and that’s it”) (1).
Pre-judgment is what we know, which we are also willing to reconsider, and which represents a sine qua non condition for any interaction to be truly possible; prejudice is what we firmly believe in and, on the contrary, are not willing to question and which, therefore, taints ab origine any possible interaction with others.
Personally, I believe that both of these elements have as their common origin the progressive formation of our knowledge about the world and what inhabits and lives in it. Our continuous interaction with it creates a constant flow of information, and it is up to us to decide if and how to make it our own, knowing how to distill it based on who we are and who we would like to be, according to the intentionality (5) that, in each of us, characterizes our being-in-the-world (to use Heidegger's words (3)).
There is – and I would say, inevitably – a moment when the way in which this information settles marks the difference between pre-judgment and prejudice. Perhaps it depends on the consistency with which certain information reaches us, perhaps on the local context in which we live (family, friends, the parish, ...), perhaps on our experiences and the emotional state that characterized them or, perhaps and more likely, on all these things put together.
This moment, when it appears, is as if it puts into read-only mode that part of knowledge related to what is beginning to ossify and which, shortly, will lose its positive value, transforming into a sort of blurred lens, whose lack of focus will depend on the strength of prejudice, which will allow us to see and understand only partially what we will observe in the future.
If we then ask ourselves what role these two elements play in nonverbal communication, the only possible answer can only be the one that refers to the very foundations of this discipline, those foundations that remind us how vitally important it is never to lose sight of the rule of the "3 Cs" (Context, Complex, and Consistency) and to always take into account the baseline behavior (essentially, their gestural habits) of our interlocutors.
If the rule of the "3 Cs" reminds us how important it is to analyze everything our interlocutors express through the use of all their communicative tools (verbal, paraverbal, and nonverbal elements) and, in particular, the coherence between what these tools produce, the baseline behavior instead outlines a profile of our interlocutor, of what they usually do and how they do it (do they gesture a lot or a little? Do they have the facial expressions of a seasoned actor or a wax mask? And so on).
However, if the rule of the "3 Cs" has a methodological character, as it tells us how to conduct the analysis and is essentially based on what happens from the moment the interaction begins until it ends (I am deliberately simplifying, since the way each of us applies this methodology is still influenced by our individuality), basal behavior, on the other hand, represents what we know—and we might know nothing—about our interlocutors and, therefore, basically, it is in basal behavior that the risk of transforming a pre-judgment into the much more harmful prejudice lies.
The first thing we must therefore accept is that baseline behavior, representing in a certain sense the past, the history of our interlocutors, does not absolutely certify that the present (let us always remember the “here and now”) will follow in its footsteps and that, therefore, what we know about habitual gestures will necessarily manifest itself. A habitual gesturer, for example, might at that moment have joint pain that prevents them from behaving as we expect, or a person known to be not very inclined to gesticulate might frequently touch a part of their body, significant for the interpretation of nonverbal language, due to a particular health condition; or, finally, a normally smiling and open person might, due to a particular emotional state, intense and disconnected from what is happening in the interaction, assume a facial expression different from usual, serious and painful, which has nothing to do with what is being said (here, moreover, an important connection is made between the C that represents the context and the baseline behavior, a connection that tells us that the past history affects the present, but does not constrain it).Another fundamental aspect, beyond its completeness, which can range from a deep, intimate knowledge (think of how well we know the basic behavior of our partner or our children), to an absolute lack of knowledge (as is the case with someone we meet for the first time), is the way in which we have constructed such behavior, something we may have done through direct observation or, indirectly, through information acquired from people we know and, in turn, who know the interlocutors we will meet.
In the first case, theoretically, confidence is greater, even though we must not forget that we too, when interpreting what we observe, do so in light of our own interpretive filters, which are also influenced by our prejudices and our specific life experiences (education, political and religious beliefs, customs, ...); in the second case the problem becomes more complicated, since in addition to our filters, we also add those of the people who act as messengers for such behavior.
I think it has happened to everyone, when anticipating a meeting with someone we don't know but who plays an important role in what we do (a client, our children's teacher, a doctor, ...), that some friend has said something like "Oh, you have to meet so-and-so? Be careful, because he says one thing but it seems like he means something else" or "So-and-so? Oh my, he always has a superior attitude and you never know if he really means what he says!".
Finally, we must not forget the causality that exists—and which moreover justifies the importance of the non-verbal aspect of communication—between what the body communicates and what the mind thinks, so that the progressive construction of baseline behavior, regardless of how it is realized, is also a progressive focus on the very nature of the interlocutor, on their character, something that will inevitably lead us to form an idea, to create expectations, which go beyond their simple gestures. For example, if over time we observed a person who tends to shake hands with the back of their hand facing upwards, we would be led to conclude that this person is arrogant, that they feel superior to others, which would lead us, even if not entirely consciously, to approach them differently than we would if that were not the case.
All this information, plus that which we obtain from other sources, is how we build basic behavior, but they are also the building blocks that, gradually, give shape to our pre-judgments and prejudices, which will then inevitably influence the way we approach others, conditioned by our a priori judgment, which will lead us to classify them even before meeting them. Referring to the two examples given above, we might be led to label them, respectively, as devious or arrogant people, which will make us run the risk of interpreting every gesture, every facial expression, as confirmation of what we have hypothesized, giving rise to what is commonly referred to as cognitive bias.
Basal behavior, therefore, must be seen—and used—as a starting point, as a sort of Rosetta Stone that lays the foundation for understanding the body language of our interlocutors and not, on the contrary, as a hypothesis to be verified in practice during interaction. Basal behavior, in fact, is not something that can be right or wrong, that must be proven or disproven: it is simply an initial interpretative key, which gradually gives way to the flow of communication and is enriched by it with new information, which can integrate or correct what we thought we already knew.
The rule of the "3 Cs" and baseline behavior, when applied with reason, are nothing more than a way to mitigate the errors that can arise from the mere application of the theory of nonverbal language interpretation—an error that is often made at the beginning—by looking exclusively at gestures and facial expressions (6) (7), guided by rules that, as such, are necessarily general and must therefore be applied, once again, to the oft-mentioned here and now.
The slavish application of rules – here I am taking a certain interpretative liberty – is nothing more than a different form of prejudice, the kind that makes us believe in their universality, causing us to ignore that every communicative act is unique and therefore requires an immanent interpretation, which, although inspired by the rules learned, still requires their contextualization.
It all seems very complicated and, indeed, it is. But I believe it is always better to face things aware of the difficulties they conceal, rather than doing so superficially, mechanically applying rules without making the effort to contextualize them, relying on the absoluteness of causal links that connect a gesture to a meaning (“he crossed his arms, so there is no doubt that he is closing himself off and getting defensive”).
Andrea Zinno - De Corporis Voce
Bibliographic references
All Rights Reserved - De Corporis Voce - Andrea Zinno