Communicating Attitudes, Emotions and Personality

Abstract

Body language sends messages — messages about emotions, attitudes and personality. Therapists have argued that it can shed new light on the dynamics of inter-family relationships: that, at times, it is a signal from the unconscious. This is because, to a large extent, we express our emotions most clearly through our body language. We do this partly because we cannot help it; we can “do no other”, because strong states such as guilt, shame, embarrassment, anger, boredom and sexual excitement have strong physiological reactions. We “leak” our emotions because our central nervous system reactions can cause blushing, sweating, pupil dilations, changes in breathing and so on.