Appearance

Appearance is a second important factor involved with nonverbal communication .
In today’s society, the purpose of clothing has changed from fulfilling a need to
expressing oneself. Teens use fashion to determine cliques such as prep, jock, punk,
or gangster. Clothing communication is continued later in life by identifying
someone in a suit as a businessperson, someone wearing a black robe as a judge,
doctors wearing lab coats and stethoscopes or various other positions wearing
required uniforms of dress. Adornments are another form of appearance. Wearing
expensive jewelry communicates one message while wearing ceremonial ornaments
communicates a completely different message. Appearance also takes into account
personal grooming such as cleanliness, doing one’s hair, nail trimming or wearing
make-up.
Overall appearance is the nonverbal that people are most aware of and manipulate
the most. Appearance communicates how we feel and how we want to be viewed.
Eye Contact
Many sayings hold that the eye is the window to the mind. This is very true to
illustrating the power of eye contact in nonverbal communication. Eye contact can
maintain, yield, deny and request communication between people. People who use
eye contact are viewed as confident, credible and having nothing to hide.
Some important do’s and do not’s of eye contact are:
· If you have trouble staring someone in the eye, simply focus at something on
their face
· When speaking to a group look at everyone
· Look at people who are key decision makers or hold power
· Look at reactive listeners
· Don’t look at the floor, scripts or anything that causes you to tilt your head
away form the receiver
· Don’t look at bad listeners that may distract you ,