The Ultimate Body Language Book

In this chapter we will cover an encyclopedia of signs and signals that display status. By the end you
will see how dominance and submissiveness are a common theme in people. So much of what people
do is as a direct consequence of an unevenly divided resource base and how we all fit into society’s
hierarchy. Dominance and the body language that showcases it, is how we decide who has rights over
whom without resorting to physical conflict. Naturally, this chapter also provides methods by which
status can be artificially raised simply by employing suitable body language.
In this chapter we will cover, amongst many others, how our environment can be manipulated to gain
the advantage such as the status achieved by the judge in his highchair, how relaxed body postures can
show dominance, how the head talks even when our mouths are not moving, how the chair straddler is
a coward, how women will appear easy if they spread their legs whereas men will appear more
masculine, how tilting far back in the chair is dangerous and not just because you might fall, how
having the hands on the hips means more than disapproval and how military men leave their bodies
exposed to attack on purpose.