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Have you heard that when we communicate, things like body language and tone of voice are more important than the words we use? The claim is words are only 7% of the whole. I’ve heard this at more than one marriage conference, and read it in several marriage books and blogs. There’s just one problem, the statement is wrong for all but one very narrow circumstance.
The original research, which has been taken out of context to get the 7% claim, was done by Albert Mehrabian. In his tests, Mehrabian looked at how accurately people guessed the feelings behind words, images, or tone of voice. Subjects did better at guessing the emotions shown in a photo than in hearing a word spoken to portray the emotion. As Mehrabain has said, “Please note that this and other equations regarding relative importance of verbal and nonverbal messages were derived from experiments dealing with communications of feelings and attitudes (i.e., like-dislike). Unless a communicator is talking about their feelings or attitudes, these equations are not applicable.”
I bring this up primarily because I’m tired of hearing this error repeated. Any advice or points based on this bogus 7% claim are questionable, and if you’re thinking of changing how you communicate because of these claims, I’d suggest you think again.
This is not to say body language and tone are unimportant! If your tone and body language conflict with the words you’re saying, you will be perceived as dishonest. The wrong tone can kill a compliment, and the right tone can soften criticism. However, tone and body language only colour our words; they do not exceed the power of words.
[This post first appeared Feb 27, 2012.]
Image Credit: © Drobot Dean | stock.adobe.com
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Bless you for this post. There is a great little book written in the 1960s called “How to Lie With Statistics” that should be mandatory reading for every high school student. So much of the data thrown around in the media by “experts” has, at its source, something like what you have found and shared: statistics are manipulative, and often totally false. Thanks for pointing out yet another example of this.
Thank you, this one is ridiculous at face value. It has annoyed me for years.
@Roy Zesch – I find it odd that so many folks who know about marriage and communication would accept this error. The first time I heard it, I thought, “That can’t be right”. So I chased it down and found the truth.