The Definitive Book of Body Languageunconsciously assume the Steeple gesture to reflect your confi-
dence, but if you intentionally Steeple you will not only begin
to feel more confident, others will perceive that you're confi-
dent. This, then, becomes a powerful way to create a rapport
with others by intentionally matching their body language and
posture.Mirroring Differences Between Men and
WomenGeoffrey Beattie, at the University of Manchester, found that
a woman is instinctively four times more likely to mirror
another woman than a man is to mirror another man. He also
found that women mirror men's body language too, but men
are reluctant to mirror a woman's gestures or posture - unless
he is in courtship mode.
When a woman says she can 'see' that someone doesn't
agree with the group opinion she is actually 'seeing' the dis-
agreement. She's picked up that someone's body language is
out of sync with group opinion and they are showing their dis-
agreement by not mirroring the group's body language. How
women can 'see' disagreement, anger, lying or feeling hurt has
always been a source of amazement to most men. It's because
most men's brains are simply not well equipped to read the
fine detail of others' body language and don't consciously
notice mirroring discrepancies.
As we said in our book Why Men Don't Listen & Women
Can't Read Maps (Orion), men and women's brains are pro-
grammed differently to express emotions through facial
expressions and body language. Typically, a woman can use an
average of six main facial expressions in a ten-second listening
period to reflect and then feed back the speaker's emotions.
Her face will mirror the emotions being expressed by the
speaker. To someone watching, it can look as if the events
being discussed are happening to both women.
A woman reads the meaning of what is being said through