E-Book Overview
From former FBI agent and bestselling author Joe Navarro, a field guide companion to his classic What Every BODY is Saying, revealing the more than 400 essential body language indicators. A decade after his huge international bestseller What Every BODY is Saying, which has sold more than half a million copies in the U.S. and been published in dozens of foreign territories, retired FBI agent Joe Navarro offers its follow-up. The Dictionary of Body Language is a companion “field guide” to What Every BODY is Saying, expanding the original work with hundreds of additional behaviours, and presenting them all in an easy-to-reference format. Moving from the head down to the feet, Navarro explains the hidden meanings behind the many conscious and subconscious things we do with our bodies. We learn how to tell a person’s true feelings from movement and dilation in their pupils; what to watch for in the lips of a person who may be afraid, or lying; the many different varieties of arm-crossing, and what each one means; how the position of our thumbs when we stand akimbo reflects our mental state; and many other fascinating insights. The applications for readers are numerous, from the business environment to romantic relationships. After reading The Dictionary of Body Language, you’ll have a new ability to read other people’s true intentions, and to adjust your own body presentation so that you can convey the right messages.
E-Book Content
Dedication This book is dedicated to the love of my life, my best friend, and the first editor of everything I do—my wife, Thryth Hillary Navarro Epigraph If language was given to men to conceal their thoughts, then gesture’s purpose was to disclose them. — JOHN NAPIER Contents Cover Title Page Dedication Epigraph Introduction The Head The Forehead The Eyebrows The Eyes The Ears The Nose The Mouth The Lips The Cheeks and Jaw The Chin The Face The Neck The Shoulders The Arms The Hands and Fingers The Chest, Torso, and Belly The Hips, Buttocks, and Genitals The Legs The Feet Conclusion Acknowledgments Bibliography Index About the Author Also by Joe Navarro Copyright About the Publisher Introduction In 1971, at the age of seventeen, for reasons unknown to me then or now, I began to keep a journal on human behavior. I catalogued all sorts of “nonverbals”—what is more generally called body language. At first it was the quirky things people did: why did they roll their eyes when they were disbelieving or reach for their neck when they heard bad news? Later it became more nuanced: why did women play with their hair while on the phone or arch their eyebrows when they greeted one another? These were small actions, but they captured my curiosity. Why did humans do such things, in such variety? What was the purpose of these behaviors? I admit it was an odd pursuit for a teenager. My friends told me as much; they were focused on trading baseball cards, knowing who had the best batting average or kicked the most extra points that season. I was far more interested in learning the intricacies of human behavior. In the beginning I catalogued my observations on three-by-five-inch cards for my own benefit. At that time I was unfamiliar with the work of Charles Darwin, Bronisław Malinowski, Edward T. Hall, Desmond Morris, or my future friend Dr. David Givens—the giants in the field of human behavior. I was simply interested in how others acted, and why, and I wanted to preserve my observations. I never thought I would still be collecting them on index cards forty years later. Over the years, I collected several thousand entries. Little did I know back then that I would later become an FBI Special Agent and would, for the next twenty-five years, use those observations as I pursued criminals, spies, and terrorists. But perhaps, gi