SUBTEXTreaction from their nods or lack of nods and can easily switch to
a subject the audience may relate to more.BODY LANGUAGE BLINDNESS
The inability to learn the body language that sends out definite
subtexts is not unusual, but it can be very destructive. In adults
it can lead to an inability to relate to others, and in the job
world it can be downright disastrous.
Studies have shown that this type of body language blindness
often starts in childhood. Ten percent of all children have problems
with sending and reading subtexts. Dr. Stephen Nowicki, a psychol-
ogist at Emory University in Atlanta, says that most emotional
subtexts between people are communicated nonverbally, through
body language.
The inability to read or send such messages properly is a major
social handicap. "Because they are unaware of the messages they
are sending or misinterpret how others are feeling," Dr. Nowicki
says, "unpopular children may not even realize that they are ini-
tiating many of the negative reactions they receive from their
peers."
These children feel that they have no control over the way
other people treat them, and eventually they can become emotion-
ally disturbed, anxious, depressed, or angry. What is learned in
childhood is carried into adult life. In business they continue to
misinterpret other people's subtexts and, in turn, send out incorrect
subtexts of their own.
This is the bad news. The good news is that once they do
learn to interpret subtexts of others correctly and to send the
messages they want, their defeatism disappears. In other words,