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Albert Mehrabian (born 1939) is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles.UCLA College, Professor Emeritus, Department of Psychology, UCLA (2025). 9781351308717, Routledge. ISBN 9781351308717 He is best known for his publications on the relative importance of verbal and nonverbal messages.
For effective communication about emotions, these three parts of the message need to align or be "congruent." If there is any incongruence, where the verbal and non-verbal cues contradict each other, the receiver might be confused or irritated by the conflicting messages.
The following example should help illustrate incongruence in verbal and non-verbal communication.
It becomes more likely that the receiver will trust the predominant form of communication, which to Mehrabian's findings is the non-verbal impact of tone+facial expression (38% + 55%), rather than the literal meaning of the words (7%). This is known as "the 7%-38%-55% Rule".
It's important to note that Mehrabian's experiments focused specifically on communications of feelings and attitudes (like-dislike). The disproportionate influence of tone of voice and facial expression becomes significant mainly in ambiguous situations, where the words spoken are inconsistent with the tone of voice or facial expression of the speaker.
Total Liking = 7% Verbal Liking + 38% Vocal Liking + 55% Facial Liking" and other similar equations were derived from experiments specifically focused on the communication of feelings and attitudes (i.e., like–dislike). Therefore, unless a communicator is discussing their feelings or attitudes, these equations are not applicable.
The study's applicability to real-life situations has several limitations that are often overlooked when the study is cited outside of a scientific context, contributing to potential misinterpretation. First, the study is based on the interpretation of the meaning of a single tape of recorded words, which creates a very artificial context. Second, the figures are derived from combining results from two different studies, which may not be appropriate. Third, the study only relates to the communication of positive versus negative emotions. Fourth, the study only included women, as men did not participate, which limits its generalizability. Fifth, other forms of nonverbal communication, such as body posture, were not considered in the studies. These limitations should be considered when interpreting the findings of the study.
Subsequent studies have examined the relative impact of verbal and nonverbal signals in more natural settings. For example, a study in 1970 used video tapes to analyze the communication of submissive/dominant attitudes and found that all types of nonverbal cues, particularly body posture, had a 4.3 times greater impact than verbal cues. In contrast, a study in 1992 focused on the communication of happy/sad moods and discovered that hearing words spoken in a "flat" voice was approximately four times more influential than facial expressions seen in a silent film. These findings highlight the variability in conclusions that different studies may reach, depending on their methodologies.
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