Albert E Scheflen b. 1920
The psychiatrist Albert Scheflen explored the concepts of
speech, meaning, kinesics, posture, interaction, setting and culture. His work
on human communication, especially nonverbal, is based upon lower and earlier
primate development as well as culturally learned behaviour. He writes well on
the nature of our behaviour in its relation to space and time and explores the
unconscious rules that govern much of our individual and group behaviour.
Scheflen embraced new holistic perspective on human interaction, describing how
our physiological state changes when we meet someone. Incorporating his
knowledge of nonhuman primate communication, and the similarities in their
social world and interactive processes, he came across commonly recognisable,
standard configurations, with rules that determine when and where they occur.
For example, we habitually use certain sequences of actions and also mirror who
become comfortable with. This postural congruence, being affected by peers,
naturally varies, like dialect, between communities. His observations of conversations are equally
revealing, such as the shifting of head posture to mark the completion of a
point made.
Read Body Language and the Social Order: Communication As
Behavioral Control (1972) Prentice Hall Direct.
