Kommunikation
20 cards from across every topic, each citing a source. Tap one to open it in the feed.
- "93 percent of communication is body language" – never what he meant.
Albert Mehrabian's 7, 38 and 55 percent come from two 1967 studies using single spoken words like "dear", female …
- "The light is green" – four messages in four words.
Friedemann Schulz von Thun described this in 1981: every utterance has four sides – factual content, self-revelation …
- A single verb changes what witnesses claim they saw.
Loftus and Palmer showed a crash film in 1974. Asked how fast the cars were going when they "smashed", viewers averaged …
- Everyone thinks it's wrong. Each believes they're the only one.
In 1993 Prentice and Miller surveyed students about campus drinking. Nearly all believed their peers were far more …
- Forbid something and it suddenly becomes attractive.
Jack Brehm described reactance in 1966: when your freedom feels threatened, you want exactly what is being restricted …
- How Morse code works and why E is a single dot.
Morse code uses short and long signals: a dash lasts three dots, letters are separated by a gap of three dots, words by …
- How a sentence opener defuses an argument.
Thomas Gordon described the I-message in the 1960s: instead of “you never listen” you say “I feel overlooked when I’m …
- How one pronoun calms your head before a performance.
In your head, talk about the situation not as "I" but using your own name or "you". In 2014 Ethan Kross and colleagues …
- How simultaneous interpreters listen and speak at the same time.
Simultaneous interpreters sit in a soundproof booth, hear the speaker through headphones and speak into a microphone …
- How to come across as likeable without talking about yourself.
Huang and colleagues showed in 2017 that people who ask more questions are liked more. Follow-up questions that build …
- How to give feedback that doesn't land as a verdict.
The Center for Creative Leadership's SBI model has three parts: name the situation (when, where), describe the …
- How to listen so someone feels understood.
Active listening goes back to Carl Rogers and has three parts. First, full attention – phone away, eye contact. Second …
- How to voice criticism in four steps without attacking.
Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication uses four steps: observation without judgement (“the dishes have been …
- Meet a stranger in New York, no messages allowed. Where?
Thomas Schelling posed this in 1960 in The Strategy of Conflict. Most of his students said noon at Grand Central …
- People spot lies 54 percent of the time. A coin flip gets 50.
In 2006 Bond and DePaulo pooled some 206 studies with 24,483 judges. On average they were right 54 percent of the time. …
- Read every statement in its most reasonable interpretation first.
The principle of charity from philosophy says: when a statement is ambiguous, choose the reading under which it is most …
- The single behaviour that pushes couples apart most.
John Gottman observed couples in his lab for decades and described four warning signs: criticism, defensiveness …
- Why 'yes' in Japan sometimes means 'no'.
Anthropologist Edward T. Hall in 1976 sorted cultures by how much they rely on context. In low-context cultures such as …
- Why experts are such poor explainers.
In 1990 Elizabeth Newton had people tap out well-known songs on a table. The tappers estimated listeners would …
- Your nerves are far less visible than you think.
Gilovich, Savitsky and Medvec showed in 1998 that people greatly overestimate how well others can read their inner …