Customer Reviews

Definitive Book of Body Language

5 star:		(116)
4 star:		(39)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

This book introduces body language from the point of view of business executives. The authors specialize in the use of body language for business and politics. I found the illustrations and photos that accompany the text to be very funny and appropriate. This is not a very scholarly book, so if you're looking for a very serious and academic book about the study of body language, then this isn't the volume you're looking for, but if you'd just like an introduction to body language from a practical point of view, then this is a perfect book to read. In addition, it is very easy and entertaining to read, so I can recommend this to anyone.

This is a fascinating book! What I liked most were the many illustrations demonstrating the authors' points throughout the book. Read the text though--there is so much more to this book. The author's sense of humor, though a little dry, added entertainment to an already enlightening read. I especially liked the courtship section. It is amazing that women send signals an average of 5 times before the men they are interested in respond. It just shows you how dense we men are. I found it unsettling that if you are interested in another woman at a party, the woman you are with will pick up your signal is a New York minute. And, if another woman starts flirting with you from across a room, the woman you are with will send recognizable body language to the other female: "hands off, he's mine--you're looking at trouble."

After reading this book, I guess I will never go into another meeting without subconsciously, or consciously, trying to recall the lessons in this book. I hope someone in the Harvard business school considers teaching this text in a course.

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I got this book a year ago and indeed this book is a reflection of the soul! What people say to us is different from what they think and feel! With Body language wiz by Allan Pease, one can correctly interpret other people's thoughts by their gestures. This book has quick references as 'How To' :
1. Find out if someone is lying
2. How to be more likeable to others
3. How to get cooperation
4. How to successfully conduct interviews and handle business negotiations
5. How to pick up a partner

More n more - What I like about this marvellous book of Allan is the illustrated Gestures. The eye signals and Hand-to-face gestures are simply terrific illustrated readings and Allan sure has deep roots to indepth study of Body Language, it seems. Hand and arm gestures,way of using cigars,cigerettes, glasses, head gestures, courtship gestures and signals and more wide areas are selected which is very interesting. A good Interesting read and good to explore.

This book is full of information, but it is poorly presented. The authors may know what they are talking about, but it's hard to tell. It's like that poorly written term paper your friend asked you to proofrean and you had to completely rewrite. I learned more from the Introduction of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Body Language."

My main beef with this book is that after reading it, I know a lot about the "basics" of body language, but not really how to read it. They take a lot of time to point out that you have to look at "clusters" instead of any one signal, and then spend the rest of the book interpreting individual symbols! They also tend to present most of the gestures as "absolutes" or definite, while every other book warns you that all gestures can have multiple interpretations and you must be careful.

Honestly, not a bad reference, but hardly "Definitive." don't make it the only book you read!

I became interested in a body language book after hearing about it from my prof in grad school. The title of this book made me think that it was a "definitive" or "complete" book, but it was not.

What's good about this book is that it is written from the perspective of experienced salesmen. That is very good in itself (you're paying to learn from their expertise). They cover common body language signs and explain what they usually mean. They also give practical advise on learning/reading body language for many different kinds of settings (business, dating, etc). In other words, this book is very practical and easy to read. I did learn new things about body language by reading this book. However, it did not cover some things that are important from a more purely psychological or medical point of view (such as psychomotor agitation, etc).

What I hated about this book:
1) It is loaded with questionable scientific information. The experiments were not really experiments, and the authors use scientific names and information like pharm reps would. I noticed use of weasel words and lots of sketchy information to "sell" their ideas. That is what made me lower my rating the most. It cheapened the feel of the book and made the reading less enjoyable. (-2 stars)

2) It contains extraneous information, such as sections on why laughing is good for your health. I also got annoyed at how much of the beginning of the book was dedicated to scientific information when none of them are clearly qualified or well-informed on the subject.

3) It is ultimately NOT a book that's purely on body language. Read it and you'll see why. They should add a subtitle or change the title. (-1 star)

One of the better psychological influence books I've recently purchased. Excellent insight into interactive persuasion in business and marketing. A very interesting title to say the least. It provides very detailed information and analysis on the full gamut of body language; facial expressions, gestures (hands, feet, torso, arms crossing), head movements, eye contact, postures and stances. For the learning impaired, these are accompanied with illustrations to explain body language explanations quickly. A great deal of the information is intuitive and often things you would never think of. Some of it is pure psychological speculation not backed with any scientific data or experts. All in all, you'll find the contents to be extremely beneficial in any sales career, as you can effectively recognize and decode the nonverbal messages of others. It's uses are as much for selling yourself as well as picking up on what others' body language is telling you.

Additionally you'll find some NLP influence explanations for mirroring people's actions to build rapport. Also, tips on reading people's emotions; flirtation, deceit, confusion, gullibility, excitement, etc. Teaches how to get the advantage in every social interaction.

I wouldn't vault this book up there as a scholarly piece like Robert Cialdini. There's a fair amount of pretty bold claims and leaps to judgment that cannot be backed up. But it is occasionally funny, and easy to glean the intended advice. Excellent analysis on detecting whether people are lying to you...how to be more approachable and likable. Overall an interesting, dry and entertaining read, for effective improvement of your business and marketing influence abilities.

As far as seduction, I'd couple this book with the funny psychological satire The Professional Bachelor Dating Guide - How to Exploit Her Inner Psycho to enhance your subconscious attraction, emotional influence skills, as well as improving your reading and seducing of the ladies.

As creatures of many senses, coming from different ethnic, cultural, and social backgrounds, it is a wonder that we can communicate with others as well as we do. For most of our lives, particularly in our educational system, the focus is on the words that we use. Yet studies have shown that the actual spoken words comprise only 7% of the message received by the listener. Tone of voice accounts for 38% of the message with the remainder (55%) of the message resulting from body language. Non-verbal communication drastically alters, modifies or filters the message, often resulting in a discontinuity between what is "said" and what is "heard."

THE DEFINITIVE BOOK OF BODY LANGUAGE, by Allan and Barbara Pease, provides an engaging, informative, and easy-to-read exploration of how we communicate we communicate with each other. Drawing on decades of experience, the authors show how body language originates from both biological and environmental sources. With clear and simple illustrations and photographs, individual elements are isolated and analyzed, and then are placed in a more holistic context.

Topics include the basics of body language, and then move to specific elements including hand and arm movements and gestures, facial expressions, eye signals, leg and body positioning. These areas are examined separately as well is together in general or within a specific cultural context. There are chapters dealing with the body language of power, deceit, emotions, flirtation and sexual overtones - both innate and learned. One of the most helpful chapters on improving communication is in their discussion of mirroring techniques as a means to build rapport.

This is an enlightening book from cover to cover. Its table of contents provide and effective index should the reader wish to explore individual topics or refer back to specific areas of study. The book is invaluable for all who seek to improve their interactions with others. I recommend it highly to those in counseling, ministry, business, and politics - in short, to anyone who must communicate with others (just about everyone).

This book has a lot of generalizations in it. This book almost always mentions the "what" of body language; but, I found it rarely gave the "why" or "how". When the book did give a "why" or "how", it was usually expressed as a belief strictly of the author's view. When I bought this book, I didnt want someone's opinion; but rather, I wanted the facts. The book does give statistics; however, correlation is not necessarily causation. Correlations dont always reveal absolute facts; but, maybe just patterns cluing in to possible facts. The book often stated what gestures meant for males or females; but, rarely stated that the gestures are open to ambiguity, since, males and females are not completely dictated by their hormone distributions or roles that society expects from them. Each male or female has different perceptions aside from hormone distributions and society roles; thus, all gestures are open to ambiguity; but, this book presents its beliefs pretty much on their own (presented mainly as beliefs of the author with no factual reason as to why A possibly means or does mean B), which makes me believe this book has logical gaps that could be filled to be more accurate. I would have appreciated the possible meaning for all gestures more than the believed meaning for all gestures.

This book is full of generalizations and unsubstantiated statements. Even looking at the back cover you can tell it did not get much backing from serious people (the praise comes from other authors of similar books, not from researchers or universities, and the authors are not antropologists or sociologists, just regular people). You will find many statements like "90% of all people use a palms up handshake" without any studies or anything else to back that up. In general, it's like reading USA Today, no more, no less.

I've found this book to be accurate in it's descriptions of gestures and postures and the attitudes they foster or perpetuate. The information as it applies to how a gesture cluster or posture means about the person adopting it are true. Solid from that aspect. The authors think rather highly of themselves, however, and make some pretty bold claims throughout the entire book. They actually make the statement in the beginning of the book that the world was daft of the knowledge of body language until their first book was published in the 70's! On top of the monstrous ego this book hauls around with it are some pretty far out speculations on where and how these gestures developed. The authors try to relate everything we do now as it has come about since the missing link's need for survival. To top it off the authors fancy themselves comedians of sorts. They weave in horrible jokes with the lists of meanings making the line between rest of the information and the lead-ins blurry.

So if you feel you can wade through a sense of self-importance the size of Texas, brave bad jokes and wild evolutionary and psychological speculation then have at because the information is good after you wash it off with a grain of salt.