Observations on Head Movements

I’ve noticed and interesting feature of body language the just drove me up the wall until I figured it out. Indians nod their heads to mean yes and shake them to mean no, but there is also another movement. It looks like a head shake to a casual observer, but there is more up and down motion, like they are tracing out a flat infinity symbol in the air with their nose. I looked around on Google and managed to find a forum thread that seems to indicate that this motion means “respectful listening,” which matches with what I have seen.

The one issue with this gesture is that it looks so much like shaking your head no. I first noticed it while talking to two other guys about a research problem. One of them was throwing out ideas, then the other would shake his head to those ideas and sometimes agree with them! It looked like he was shaking his head, “No, no, that won’t work.” and then saying “Oh, yes, we should try that.” Soooo confusing!

Since then I’ve noticed lots of people doing it, and the “respectful listening” interpretation seems to be spot on. I just have to consciously make the mental jump every time I see it to keep myself from thinking that it is a head shake of disagreement! I wonder what the next think that I’ll notice is! I will certainly try to keep you all posted :-).

Cheers,

Jason