Week 8, Question 1

1). Because nonverbal messages can be ambiguous, they are open to misinterpretation. Have you ever been wrong about the meaning of someone’s nonverbal message? Describe what happened. How can people increase the accuracy with which they interpret nonverbal message?
The most common nonverbal behavior that is misinterpreted to me the most is facial expressions. I wrote a paper on facial expressions and the universality of it. The fact that features of a smile for instance, is common throughout the world. However, I was turned on to the topic because of instances where you find that people purposely change their facial expression to omit their true feelings. Someone who is unhappy can smile to make you think otherwise. The fact that nonverbal behavior is sometimes inaccurate is something that can be fixed. This could be done if we take it upon ourselves to look further into it before assuming. I think if we think about different factors, we would be able to accurately know what the nonverbal is.