The Body Language of the Shoulders?

[jimmydasaint]

I already knew about non verbal cues forming a greater part of communication amongst people than verbal communication. Body language for business However, I was surprised to find out that shoulder body language is also revealing. For example it can reveal mood, leadership potential, or even the extent to which someone may be telling the truth. This surprised me. Any thoughts?

 

Both Desmond Morris, the famous zoologist, and David Givens, the famous anthropologist (see bibliography below), have talked about how wide muscular shoulders, as found on the statue of David, represent strength and virility. It is also something the Greeks particularly valued, as shown in their kouros statues with “V” shaped young men. There is probably a genetic component to this as Morris argues that we associate positive attributes to males who have that mesomorphic “V” look (wide shoulders narrow hips), we see on athletes. Perhaps this explains why women swoon when soccer player David Beckham takes off his shirt. Here the shoulders are communicating health and vitality and from an evolutionary perspective, as David Givens would say, there would be biological advantages to selecting mates with these features

 

The shoulders communicate vitality but they can also communicate dominance and hierarchy. Over my career I have interviewed a lot of criminals and I always made it a point to ask how they assessed their victims before they acted out. Over and over three things stood out, how their victims looked (frail, weak, not athletic), their overall situational awareness (never go after someone who sees you first), and their arm swing (vigorous arm movement or passive subdued). And so to a criminal, our own intra-species predators, as Robert Hare would call them, how the shoulders look is a key factor for those who seek to prey on us. As one psychopath said to me, and this was very telling, “silverbacks don’t go after silverbacks, they go after everything else.” Good point.

 

Link

[jimmydasaint]

This cast some light on the OP:

 

[Phi for All]

Any thoughts?

*shrugs*