The "3 Vs" for Verbal, Vocal & Visual

Verbal, Vocal & Visual

7%-38%-55% rule - Three elements of communication
de Rob McBride.

Three elements of communication

In his studies, Mehrabian comes to two conclusions. Firstly, that
there are basically three elements in any face-to-face communication:

* Words
* Tone of voice
* Nonverbal behaviour (e.g. Facial expression)

Secondly, the non-verbal elements are particularly important for
communicating feelings and attitude, especially when they are
incongruent: If words disagree with the tone of voice and nonverbal
behaviour, people tend to believe the tonality and nonverbal
behaviour.

It is emphatically not the case that non-verbal elements in all senses
convey the bulk of the message, even though this is how his
conclusions are frequently misinterpreted. For instance, when
delivering a lecture or presentation, the textual content of the
lecture is delivered entirely verbally, but the non-verbal cues are
very important in conveying the speaker's attitude towards what they
are saying, notably their belief or conviction.

Attitudes and congruence

According to Mehrabian, these three elements account differently for
our liking for the person who puts forward a message concerning their feelings: words account for 7%, tone of voice accounts for 38%, and body language accounts for 55% of the liking. They are often
abbreviated as the "3 Vs" for Verbal, Vocal & Visual.

For effective and meaningful communication about emotions, these three parts of the message need to support each other - they have to be "congruent". In case of any incongruence, the receiver of the message
might be irritated by two messages coming from two different channels, giving cues in two different directions.

The following example should help illustrate incongruence in verbal
and non-verbal communication.

* Verbal: "I do not have a problem with you!"
* Non-verbal: person avoids eye-contact, looks anxious, has a
closed body language, etc.

It becomes more likely that the receiver will trust the predominant
form of communication, which to Mehrabian's findings is non-verbal
(38% + 55%), rather than the literal meaning of the words (7%). This is known as "the 7%-38%-55% rule".

It is important to say that in the respective study, Mehrabian
conducted experiments dealing with communications of feelings and
attitudes (i.e., like-dislike), and that the above, disproportionate
influence of tone of voice and body language becomes effective only
when the situation is ambiguous. Such ambiguity appears mostly when the words spoken are inconsistent with the tone of voice or body language of the speaker (sender).



* Mehrabian, Albert (1971). Silent Messages (1st ed.). Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth. ISBN 0534009107.

* Mehrabian, Albert; Ferris, Susan R. (1967). "Inference of Attitudes
from Nonverbal Communication in Two Channels". Journal of Consulting Psychology 31 (3): 248–252.

El Poder del lenguaje:


http://hijosdelossuenos.blogspot.com/2010/08/sobre-nuestro-lenguaje.html ;


http://hijosdelossuenos.blogspot.com/2009/06/las-palabras-tienen-poder.html ;

http://hijosdelossuenos.blogspot.com/2011/04/la-iniciativa.html