Nonverbal Communication Assumptions

For the assignment this week I chose to watch the TV sitcom Raising Hope.  It is not a show that I have ever watched but I was able to access the pilot episode of it on Netflix (which also allowed me to watch the episode without sound and with and not have to record it).  In the beginning of the show I could tell that there was a family involved and I assumed that the characters were a mother, father, two sons, and a grandmother(who by her expressions seems a little out of the ordinary).  I was able to deduce from their body language that the one son was irritated with his family.  The young man from my assumption had a one night stand with a girl who ended up being wanted by the police and then it showed him visiting her in jail eight months later and you could tell she was pregnant.  He had a look of complete shock on his face but then you see him with the baby and he is taking it home.  The parents' facial expressions and hand gestures said to me that they did not want the baby around and I could tell by what the son was doing that he was intent on keeping her.  In the next few scenes I saw a flashback to when the young man was little and it showed how the parents had raised him(not very well - no car seat with him hanging his head out underneath a moving car).  He then takes the baby home and the next thing you know the baby has a stinky diaper (you could tell by facial expressions) and then when they try to change it, both the mother and the young boy end up throwing up on the baby.  Then it cuts to a scene where it is obvious that the baby is crying and the young man is trying to get it to sleep.  It shows many different scenes of him trying different things that don't work and by the baby's face you can tell she is still crying.  The mother and father then come in and you can tell that the mom starts singing because the dad has a guitar and she puts her hand on the baby's belly.  The baby then stops crying and looks content and then goes to sleep.

After watching this show with the sound off I then went back and watched it with the sound on and I was amazed at how easy it was to figure out what was going on without the sound.  The only thing that I had wrong was that the one boy who lives there is not a brother but a cousin.  As I watched this I thought about what a good job these actors and actresses do with their nonverbal behavior such as eye contact, facial expressions, and body language.  I was able to understand just about everything that was going on and I knew when people seemed upset and when they seemed happy.  The only thing that was lacking was the actual words that they were saying that would have filled in the story completely.

This assignment showed me the true power of nonverbal communication and how often it can be overlooked.  When I thought about whether or not it would have mattered if I had been watching a show that I already know well I think that it would have.  Although I believe it was easy to pick up on the nonverbal communication in this sitcom I don't think it is as easy in real-life because we are not actors and actresses and no one gives us a script and tells us how to behave.  I think that when you know someone well you learn their nonverbal communication and it is easier to communicate with that person.  When you don't know someone as well you have to learn those nonverbal cues that show the emotions that they might be experiencing.  I also think that we don't always pick up on nonverbal skills because we cannot so to speak "turn off the volume" when we are talking to people and just focus on those skills.  This assignment also showed me that nonverbal and verbal communication skills are most effective in communicating when they are used simultaneously.  Communication does not just involve words we can hear and understand but also being able to interpret the way someone feels about something by the actions and expressions they display.  This was a great learning experience that fully brought the idea of true communication to light for me.