The Definitive Book of Body Language

The Definitive Book of Body Language

Dr John Kershner of Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

studied teachers and recorded where they were looking every 30

seconds for 15 minutes. He found that teachers almost ignore

the pupils on their right. The study showed that teachers

looked straight ahead 44% of the time, to the left 39% of the

time and to their right only 17% of the time. He also found

that pupils who sat on the left performed better in spelling tests

than those on the right and those on the left were picked on less

than those on the right. Our research found that more business

deals are made when a salesperson sits to the customer's left

than to their right. So, when you send a child to school, teach

them to jockey for the teacher's left side but, when they become

adults and attend meetings, tell them to go for the extra per-

ceived power given to the person on their boss's right.

Power Plays at Home

The shape of a family dining-room table can give a clue to the

power distribution in that family, assuming that the dining-

room could have accommodated a table of any shape and that

the table shape was selected after considerable thought. 'Open'

families go for round tables, 'closed' families select square

tables and 'authoritative' types select rectangular tables.

Next time you have a dinner party, try this experiment: place

the shyest, most introverted guest at the head of the table, fur-

thest from the door with their back to a wall. You will be

amazed to see how simply placing a person in a powerful

seating position encourages them to begin to talk more often

and with more authority and how others will also pay more

attention to them.

How to Make an Audience Cry

The Book of Lists — a volume that lists each year all sorts of
information about human behaviour — shows public speaking