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?)

Dear Professor Lapakko

Thank you very much for your clarification.

Please feel free to ignore the rest.

Regarding the meaninglessness of a percentage, and riffying, perhaps there is something about verbal and non verbal communication that requires that both in some sense be present for there to be meaning. Lacan's borromean knots or rings remind me of that possibility. Peirce's semiotic triangle (sign vehicle, object and interpretant) suggests that there need be an object, a non-verbal part, that the sign is about in order for any sign to mean anything. Thus if non-verbal is taken to include not only non-verbal sign vehicles, but also the situation (as it often is) then it may be impossible to do without. The quantum uncertainty principle may also be implying the need for non-verbal information.

At the very least, I am sure a percentage would be very difficult to measure

But on the other hand, at an individual and cultural level, it seems to me that some cultures, and some individuals are more wordy, and others more non-verbal, perhaps.

Thanks again,

Timothy