Social Cues for Charisma

CUES - EXPLAINED!

I’m sure you may have heard people talking about cues, but what are they? To put it simpley, cues are ways that people evaluate someone and predict information about them, before interacting with them. This may seem like playing into bias and stereotypes but most people will interpret the cues that they see, based on their own experience. Cues are also ways that people will communicate with each other without talking to each other such as giving directions, asking for things, keeping space or welcoming people. People use this non-verbal communication as a throwback skill, before we learnt how to talk, to express our needs and feelings.

Why do we use them?

We use cues to gather information so that we can make decisions to avoid situations before we find ourselves in the middle of dealing with them. We prepare ourselves to respond to potential threats and to interact appropriately and build beneficial social bonds.

There are many reasons such as:-

• To predict behaviour

Is this person threatening, aggressive or friendly and helpful? Is this person assertive? Will they defend themselves if faced with rudeness, criticism or encroachment on their space?

People use cues to determind if you are going to be a threat to them or someone to avoid. They will also use cues to decide if you are a warm friendly non-threatening person who may be a delight to get to know.

You may be useful to them, helpful or supportive. You may have connections or have knowledge that will help them.

• To show status

Are you someone with power and influence? Could annoying you bring negative consequences, or pleasing you bring positive ones.

Do you expect high respect? Could you be someone who is easily offended?

• To assess similarity and rapport

People like similar people, they want to know if you are like them before getting to know you. Are your outlooks or lifestyles the same? Do you have similar hobbies or interests?

They may worry that you have an opposite stand point, the complete opposite of them that will bring confrontation. They want to know if you will have rapport with them.

• To predict other information about someone

People like to know about other people and their lives. They like to pad out the rest of your life that they, as of yet, don’t know about.

They will try to guess other information about you such as age, background, education, income, behaviour, opinions, experience, occupation, interests & hobbies, habitat, lifestyle and habits.

They may try to fit you into a character and will interact with you based on the perceived character of you that they have in their head.

mother / quiet family person, rebel, criminal, entrepreneur, fitness guru, outdoorsy adventurer, sheltered home body, affluent, poor, eco lover (vegan or holistic), innocent, sensitive, childlike or religious believer.

• To assess Intelligence, skills and achievements

Awful as it sounds, yes people will guess your intelligence, skills and achievements based on how you appear. They will use the prediction tactic to guess what education level you went to, what skills you are knowledgeable about and how quick to figure things out you are. Their guess may be based on the kind of character that you appear to be. They may also favour certain traits as more favourable such as attractive people ‘must’ be more successful.

• To Communication with, invite closer or give direction to others

The most obvious reason for cues is expressing needs, staking claims, expressing emotional states and intentions, preferred social distance, offering invitations or issuing rejections.

As a baby we only had this mode of communication. It is an innate skill that we grow and build upon eventually evolving into speech

Cues – What are they?

So now we know how important cues are and what they are for… what can they be? So cues can be broken down into our senses. Look at the list below and think about how this compares to you. What cues are you giving out about yourself? Why not video yourself and view yourself from the outside.

>>> Verbal – How someone sounds

Is their voice loud, sharp or soft?

Loud or sharp may indicate aggression, leadership, challenging behaviour or non co-operation while soft may show someone as more passive, who may be co-operative and back down when challenged.

• Do they have an accent?

What does this portray about where they are from or what character they may be? How easy are they to understand? Is their accent strong or slight?

A ‘posh’ accent may suggest upper classness or other accents may suggest someone is from poorer areas. Some accents are stereotyped as high or low intelligence. Being hard to understand can affect how easy it is to interact with you.

• Is their tone of voice quick and erratic or slow and steady?

Quick and erratic may indicate unpredictability, childishness or over excitement. Extra slow may suggest slow thinking while steady and firm may suggest calm leadership assertiveness.

Stuttering may suggest nervousness.

• What kind of vocabulary do they use?

Do they use slang or shorten their words? Do they speak clearly? Do they pronounce words wrong or get them confused? Do they use long complicated longer words or shorter simple ones?

These may impact someone’s assessment of someone’s intelligence or class.

>>> Visual – What we can see about a person

Visual props certainly give information and cues as to a person’s background or current status. Things like dress sense, hair style, possessions, environment or body language.

• colour

Colour and colour combinations also plays an important part in expressing emotions or making connections to other things. Red and green might make you think of Italy for example. Orange and pink may look tropical. Colours can make us feel happy, sad, inspired, calm or thoughtful. They can remind us of things, like nature, food, emotions or company logos. You can use the colours that you wear, to link yourself to other things that may make people take you seriously, evoke a feeling, raise your class or push your confidence.

• How do they dress?

Do they dress in quality expensive clothes or cheap designer copies? Have they made an effort to be neat and tidy or not? Do they dress provocatively or chaste? Do they dress like they are from a certain area?

All of these may give clues as to class, status, income, sexual availability, intelligence or reliability.

• Their environment or other props

Other qualities may be what they seem to possess, a car, a home, their work environment, jewellery they wear or other items that may suggest qualities such as income, interests, hobbies, a homely life, quirkiness or creativity.

What is their style, interests, beliefs or tastes? These can be guessed from their environment, wall pictures, photos, art, nik naks, their home, their car, their desk.

• What’s their body language LIKE?

Posture

Do they express confidence, calmness, aggression or awkwardness.

Do they cross arms or legs - are they being defensive? They may be unconfident.

Jiggling or rubbing themselves - these are nervous and self soothing tactics for anxious people.

Confident people stretch out and take up space and ‘own’ things by leaning on them. They use open relaxed hand gestures, arms and legs.

Gripping and tension may suggest anger or frustration.

Pointing is aggressive as is over spacing such as hands on hips or blocking space and being too close.

Self touching or preening hair or body, may suggest sexual advances or interest.

Combinations may also pad out the story of information that someone is giving out.

SPACE and touch

Look at each person, do they overstep peoples space and make others feel uncomfortable, or too far away and come across as too aloof? Each person may have their own comfort zone, which will vary from country to country, place to place, socila group to group, and to each individual and how well you know them.

Do they touch people too much or not enough? Some people like space, too much hugging can come across as over stepping the mark or a sexual advance. Learn to read people’s personal space. If they look uncomfortable at close distance then politely tone it down. Facial expression, body stiffness and non-reciprecation can be an indicator.

Facial expressions

Do they smile and look friendly, or smile too much and look goofy or untrustworthy? Do they look annoyed, irritated, stoney faced, arrogant? Some people have a natural moody resting face that does ot reflect their mood. Learn to include other factors in your assessment and learn individuals personal, natural expressions.

Eye Contact

Do they make enough eye contact or too much? Eye contact is key in creating trust, friendliness, connection and promoting openness. Too much eye contact can be threatening or sexually alluring.

>>> Behavioural – How you assess the behaviour of others

• How others treat you

People take cues from how others treat someone as how they should treat someone. They assume that that’s the usual script for how that person is treated and will copy that treatment and assessment, unless this goes against how they normally treat someone. People will also take information though from how others treat someone, interpersonal information such as their status, income, if they will defend themselves, how much confidence, intelligence or skill they have and how easily to manipulate they are.

• How you treat others

How someone treats others also says things about them. Are they aggressive, awkward, manipulative, selfish or unfair? People will look to assess someone’s friendliness, or aggression, from how they treat others, as a gauge as to how they themselves might be treated. They may also assess them as to how that person aligns with their own values on how to treat other people. This will affect their decision as to whether they want to get to know that person more or avoid them.

• Do you act superior or submissive

Does someone they act like they are in charge or high status. Are they dictorial to others and assume everyone will defer to them? Do they lead, take charge and manage others? Are they confident or do they look crumpled and accept disrespect and defeat? Do they avoid eye contact, people please and have nervous, small body language. How some one looks is how they will be treated.

• Are you quiet, calm, excitable, passionate or aggressive?

As previously discussed, people will assess you on body language, voice and behaviour, as a gauge to how you may behave in interaction. People will want to know if you are prone to outbursts of behaviour that are different from how you normally may seem to be. They will judge your mood, emotions and try to see how predictable your behaviour is. People don’t like unpredictable people or those who seem to be different from them, unstable, overly aggressive or those that clash their their values of behaviour.

How to improve?

people watching

Look at other peoples interactions and try to assess whats going on. Look at confident people, nervous people and compare that to how you look. Learn to read other others cues as you are interacting with them and how you could alter your interaction to match them (for rapport) or to please them (back off if they look uncomfortable)

Mirror Mirror

Look at yourself in the mirror or on video. How do you look? Your voice? Your posture and body language? Assess yourself as if you were someone else. What message are you giving out? Maybe ask people how they would describe you, they may be too polite to be honest but find people to work with on your charisma journey who may help with feedback. Sometimes people’s inadvertant feedback can give you ideas. Do people say they thought you were something that you are not… such as older or younger.

Find a muse

Find someone who you feel comes across as you are trying to be, and learn to copy them, their style, way of speaking, their clothes, their body language. Learn to use deliberate cues to give out subliminal messages to others by using body language, voice, appearance and props.