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How Doctors Can Communicate Beyond Words to Patients

Humintell Director David Matsumoto recently appeared on the VA C20 podcast as a subject matter expert on facial expressions of emotion and nonverbal behavior.

C20 is a live interactive webinar hosted by Dr. Chad Kessler, Executive Director of Emergency Medicine for Veterans Affairs (VA).

The podcast was originally launched in April 2020 to provide up-to-the-minute COVID-19 news and resources quickly and efficiently to clinical employees across VHA. Today, C20 covers a variety of public health and medical topics and is available to all at VA.

It is designed to be a quick discussion where guests concisely present engaging and informative content to an audience of busy VA providers, clinicians, VA employees and Veterans.

What makes a good interaction between a physician or clinician and their patient?

Dr. Kessler and Dr. Matsumoto started by discussing physician or clinician body language as it relates to patient perception of their care.

Dr. Matsumoto believes it starts with the patient’s perceptions of how much the caregiver is interested in them.

We’ve all heard the term “active listening” but what concretely does this mean?

Spending a minute to sit down and make eye contact and ask someone how they’re doing can make a huge difference in perceived interest.

Dr. Matsumoto emphasizes there is a lot of nonverbal behavior that is centered around the concept of active listening and the “active” part of that term does not involve listening. It’s the engagement of our bodies with the individual.

Examples of engagement can include:

  • Sitting (getting down to the patient’s level)
  • Looking someone in the eye (pay attention to me)
  • Asking simple questions (like “how are you doing”)

In fact, there is research that shows those kinds of perceptions are related to many different things in the healthcare system such as treatment regime adherence, decreases in lawsuits, better assessments, etc.

Dr. Matsumoto emphasizes that feeling seen or heard is essential to getting any interaction off to a good start.

One Mistake To Avoid When Building Rapport

What’s one mistake you can avoid to build rapport in interactions?

Dr. Matsumoto speaks about the concept of “mirroring” which he describes as a double edged sword.

Studies have shown that when people organically start to mirror themselves, they have better rapport in interactions.

However, if a person perceives that the other individual is simulating their postures, this may have the opposite effect.

Dr. Matsumoto suggests not to try and mirror the other person’s body language. Just be genuine in the interaction; listen normally, naturally, and empathetically.

When you do so, one’s body will start to engage appropriately to the interaction.

What does building trust actually mean in an interaction?

Building trust means allowing a person to be vulnerable and that person knowing they won’t be judged, criticized or attacked.

Building trust starts with non-judgmental listening.

An important reminder before engaging in an important conversation may including taking a breath or two to calm your body and mind.

Dealing with Cultural Differences in Medicine

Doctors see patients from all walks of life. How do cultural differences fit into the connection and interaction?

Cultural differences are big in nonverbal behavior but one thing that is consistent across all people of all cultures are facial expressions of emotion.

We’re all generally pretty good at reading facial expressions in others since we learn how to do so in our every day lives.

With regard to other things like orientation, body posture, orientation and especially gaze and visual attention, there are differences.

In fact, people of other cultures may perceive healthcare workers as higher status and may avoid direct eye contact because of this fact.

While the cultural differences do exist in some behavior, they can be mitigated a lot by interest and engagement behaviors.

These interest and engagement behaviors are all the same across cultures:

  • Paying attention
  • Direct eye contact
  • Speaking nicely and empathetically
  • Using our own body postures and orientation

These behaviors will go a long way in mitigating cultural differences.

To listen to the entire episode, visit this page!

The post How Doctors Can Communicate Beyond Words to Patients first appeared on Humintell | Master the Art of Reading Body Language.

Research: Dogs Wag Their Tails To Make Us Happy

It’s amazing you can form such a strong bond with an animal who communicates with you exclusively non-verbally.

If you’re a dog owner, you know the joy of walking in through the door to be greeted by your pup excitedly wagging their tail.

But did you know that dogs are one of the few animals that use their tails primarily for communication?

Despite this fact, scientists still don’t understand exactly why dogs wag their tails. In a new paper published in the journal Biology Letters, researchers outline a few theories.

Most people equate tail wagging with a happy dog, but reality may be more complicated.

Take a look at more research out of the Canine Cognition Center here

There are many possible hypothesis for why dogs wag their tails and a couple of them are listed below.

1. Domestication Syndrome Hypothesis

This hypothesis relates to the human domestication of dogs, which began as early as 35,000 years ago.

Perhaps tail-wagging was a behavior that humans unintentionally selected for, because it was linked with other preferable traits, like tameness or friendliness toward people.

Tail-wagging may have simply been a byproduct of other specifically targeted characteristics.

2. Domesticated Rhythmic Wagging

This hypothesis suggests that humans consciously or unconsciously selected for tail-wagging during domestication, because they are drawn to rhythmic stimuli.

Tail Wagging 101

The new paper adds to the big-picture understanding of what scientists do and don’t know about tail-wagging.

The authors reviewed more than 100 studies about the behavior and summarized their findings: humans likely altered dogs’ tail wagging without realizing it.

According to the Washington Post, “the findings could flip the long-held belief that dogs are wagging their tails because they’re happy. Instead, Hersh and her colleagues suggest that dog tail-wags made people happy, so humans tended to select for that trait when welcoming dog ancestors into their lives and breeding the animal.”

Messages Conveyed by Tail-Wagging

Dogs also seem to wag their tails in different ways to convey different messages.

  • Wagging more to the right means a dog is curious and wants to approach
  • Wagging to the left is correlated with uncertainty
  • Low tail wagging—where dogs pin their tails down against their back legs—is also linked with insecurity and submission

Interestingly, a study found that dogs began wagging their tails more than wolves when they were as young as three weeks old. And another study found that dogs wag their tails faster and more often than other canines.

Domestication of Dogs

Scientists have found that dozens of dogs’ traits and behaviors changed during domestication, including the appearance of their fur, ears, body size — and even their ability to make “puppy-dog eyes.”

In fact, eyebrows give dogs a wider range of human-like facial expressions we can identify with and they play a vital role in how dogs became “man’s best friend.”

Evolutionary psychologists even believe that centuries of domestication “transformed the facial muscle anatomy of dogs specifically for facial communication with humans”.

The post Research: Dogs Wag Their Tails To Make Us Happy first appeared on Humintell.

ICYMI: Nonverbal Communication Podcast Episodes

In case you missed it, here are a collection of nonverbal communication podcast episodes featuring Humintell Director Dr. David Matsumoto. Enjoy!

Reading Nonverbal Behavior

A conversation with world-leading researcher and expert in emotion, body language, facial expressions, behaviour and deception – Dr. David Matsumoto.

This conversation was broadcast live to EIA students completing their studies for the Master of Science Degree in Communication, Behaviour and Credibility Analysis on 28th July 2022.

Dr. Matsumoto is unique in that he has his feet firmly planted in both the academic and ‘real world’ application of behavioral science.

He is trusted by many of the security and policing organizations within the US who seek his training to support their teams so they can better read and understand the people they engage with and help keep themselves and the world safe.

How to Read Microexpressions

Discover how to read microexpressions and improve your observation skills. In this episode of our series, The World’s Most Interesting People, I sat down with Dr. David Matsumoto.

He’s the Director and Lead Researcher for @Humintell and is the Founder and Director of SFSU’s Culture and Emotion Research Laboratory.

Dr. Matsumoto is a world-renowned expert in the field of emotion, nonverbal behavior, deception and culture.

He has produced over 400 academic works including books, book chapters, journal articles and conference presentations and sat down with me to discuss how to use observation skills to determine intent and deception.

Unlock The Secret to 95% of Communication

Ever wondered how much of what we say is actually not said? Join us as relationship expert Kimberly Beam Holmes dives deep into the fascinating world of nonverbal communication with renowned psychologist Dr. David Matsumoto.

In this eye-opening conversation, they uncover the power of facial expressions, micro-expressions, and body language in building attraction, trust, and deeper connections.

Discover how to navigate complex emotions like anger and contempt in your relationships, and learn the surprising truth about empathy across cultures.

The Importance of Non-verbal Communication

Is it true that there are 19 different smiles, but only 6 of them are related to happiness? What happens when we smile sadly and what does the rest of our body language convey?

In this video, psychologist and researcher, David Matsumoto, describes the importance of non-verbal communication and what “microexpressions” and “emblematic gestures” consist of as a universal language.

He suggests that non-verbal communication is learned almost innately and can be used as an educational tool to help learning.

Understanding Human Behavior

Humintell Director David Matsumoto recently appeared on the Social-Engineer Podcast: The Doctor Is In Series – where they discuss understandings and developments in the field of psychology.

In their latest episode, Social Engineer CEO Chris Hadnagy and Director of Education Dr. Abbie Marono interview Dr. Matsumoto on the topics of emotion and nonverbal communication.

How to Gather Data for Your Most Important Negotiations

How to Gather Data for Your Most Important Negotiations

The post ICYMI: Nonverbal Communication Podcast Episodes first appeared on Humintell.