I know that Mehrabian's 7･38･55 is a myth, or rather applicable only to very select circumstances and that Mehrabian himself denied the universal applicability of these percentages as cited in this paper. He also suggests that when giving directions the linguistic content may be 100% as is so in the case of maths (personally I think that diagrams are often used in both).
I see various percentages on the Internet but I have yet to find some research that does give evidence for the relative importance of non-verbal communication. Researchers such as Mark Knapp, Judith Hall, Terrence Horgan for example say it depends on the situation. This is true, but I would still like to know, are humans primarily linguistic or not.
I wonder if there is research on the difficulties face by aphasics as opposed to the blind for instance. I could see that there might be a way of implementing this using blindfolds and selective attention away from language.
By the way, the quote given in Professor Lapakko's paper where Mehrabian says his research is misunderstood is attribituted to "Mehrabian, 1995" but there is no such reference in the bibliography, or does there appear to be research by Mehrabian on this subject in that year. Perhaps it was a personal communication to professor Lapakko. If anyone could enlighten me on the source of this quote I would also be grateful.
Article Three cheers for language: A closer examination of a widely ...
I occasionally teach a college freshman speech class. Our book cites Argyle et al., from European Journal of Social Psychology (1971) as saying that nonverbal behaviors were 12-13 times more powerful in impact compared to the accompanying verbal message.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejsp.2420010307/abstract
Dear Dr. Marek
Thank you very much indeed. Interestingly Mehrabian's 38+55 = 93% vs 7% is also approximately 13 times more powerful, so the Mehrabian myth may not be so mythic!!
Should you or anyone be so kind as to share the paper here or elsewhere that would be terrific. tim at nihonbunka dot com
Professor Farzadnia
Thank you very much. I did not quite see the place where the paper you kindly recommenced gave a ratio for non-verbal vs verbal communication
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738399110004726
But I did find an interesting paper by Hiroshi Ota and Jiro Takai which stresses and demonstrates how important non verbal communication is in Japan.
Takai, J., & Ota, H. (1994). Assessing Japanese interpersonal communication competence. Japanese Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 33(3), 224–236. http://doi.org/10.2130/jjesp.33.224
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jjesp1971/33/3/33_3_224/_pdf
There is a Japanese version of this test included in the items of this one
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jjesp1971/33/3/33_3_224/_pdf
in case anyone is interested.
Thanks again
Tim
I regret to say that the omission of the original source in my article (the "Mehrabian 1995" reference) was an oversight--I should have caught it, or maybe the editor should have. At any rate, as Timothy speculates (above), this was a personal correspondence--I sent Mehrabian a couple examples of how his work was being cited in our journals, and I asked him to react. That should have been made clear in the references section at the end. My apologies!
As for what the "real" percentages ought to be, I am still inclined to think that there are some things in life that can't be measured, or defy measurement. That's how I feel about this specific issue. Suppose I say that 65 percent of communication is nonverbal--what does that even MEAN? If you think about it, it has a nonsensical dimension to it. I think the reality is that from moment to moment, the relative importance of the verbal and nonverbal messages can and does vary considerably--to pin it down to an exact percentage is futile, and maybe even a bit silly. (If I say I'm 12 percent happier than I was yesterday, what does that really mean? If I think my body language carries 23 percent more meaning than my words, what does THAT really mean?)
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