The Nuns Were Wrong About Your Hands. Here’s Why.
I occasionally ask audiences whether anyone went to Catholic school. I follow up by asking those who did whether they were ever instructed that it was rude to gesture using their hands. Many of them nod their heads, chuckling at the memory from long ago.
It’s not just nuns (and certainly not all of them) who perpetuated the belief that gesturing with one’s hands is considered undisciplined, undignified, and unrefined. Many of our presentation training clients have been taught the same thing by other presentation trainers (although I know many great trainers who never teach that erroneous advice).
In this post, I’ll strip away the myths about gesture—and share with you what the experts tell us.
Researcher Susan Goldin-Meadow, author of Hearing Gesture: How Our Hands Help Us Think, tells us that “we have not yet discovered a culture in which speakers do not move their hands as they talk.”
It turns out that gesture is innate. “Even individuals who are blind from birth and have never seen others gesture purposefully move their hands as they talk,” Goldin-Meadow reports. In one study, “the blind group gestured at the same rate as the sighted group.”
Whereas many people once believed that speech and gesture were two different things that could be teased apart, the research suggests otherwise. Goldin-Meadow writes:
“Gesture not only conveys meaning but does so in a manner that is integrated with speech. Several types of evidence lend support to the view that gesture and speech form a single, unified system.”
Not convinced yet? In their book Nonverbal Communication In Human Interaction, authors Mark Knapp, Judith Hall, and Terrence G. Horgan report similar findings:
“Gestures help speakers retrieve certain words or describe objects that move as part of their function, and thus serve a greater interpersonal function. Listeners may benefit more from a speaker’s gestures when these gestures add emphasis or clarity to speech, help characterize and make memorable the content of speech, and act as forecasters of forthcoming speech.”
The evidence is clear. Humans speak using their hands. Effective communication depends on it. If any trainers tell you otherwise, throw them out of your office.
There are, of course, some guidelines for the best way to gesture. You can see some of those here.
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Hey Brad,
Your post immediately made me think of a French Immersion class I visited last week. It was a Grade 1 class where almost no English is spoken. Even though many children had no familial connection to French, the students had little problem understanding the teacher’s instructions. A large part of that was because the teacher would pair her instructions with a related gesture. While the students may not immediately understand the French words for “come here”, they would see the teacher’s gestures and began to associate the words with the required action.
It was a great reminder for me of the importance of gestures to convey meaning, especially when there may be a cultural or language divide between the presenter and some audience members.
Brett —
Thank you for sharing your recent experience from French class. What a wonderful reminder that gestures play many roles, well beyond the ones I described in this article. According to the research I’ve read, it seems that the gestures your instructor used will also help make the words themselves more memorable. In that context, it’s even more surprising that anyone was taught to keep their hands frozen.
Thanks for reading!
Brad
Hi,
I attended a catholic School and I never received any such (bad) advice!
Of course, there could be excessive hand gesturing that needs to be reprimanded as inappropriate. It’s different if you’re in a fancy dinner and gesture too much, or if you’re up on a stage and need to get – and keep – everybody’s attention. Appropriateness depends on the situation.
If you ever visit the Vatican in Rome, be sure to appreciate the best people on this planet in speaking with their hands – the Italians. It’s proverbial. This is thoroughly documented on Youtube.
Anyway, nice post, like all your posts! Thanks.
Hi Pedro,
Thank you very much for your comment, and for reading the post!
You’re absolutely right that not all nuns taught that using hand gestures while speaking is inappropriate. It’s a generalization, to be sure, but one that many of the people in my audiences seem to have experienced.
You’re also right that there are profound cultural differences in the use of hand gestures, the way that they’re perceived, and even what the gestures themselves are intended to communicate. For example, a similar gesture might suggest intimacy in one culture and control in another.
Best wishes,
Brad
Hi Brad!
Congrats on your blog! I’ve been following it for a while now and I’ve learned a lot with it.
I’m not American but I’ve also studied at a Catholic School and I can’t remember any particular “out of ordinary” comment on gesturing much less any kind of punishment based on it.
In my country is rude to point at people for example. Even though I’m not sure it makes us less able to communicate efficiently, I guess one can argue that.
On the other even if we accept the argument that gesturing enable us to improve our communication skills I don’t think that it follows that we should feel free to do it just based on that premise. I’m sure there are occasions were we shouldn’t, out of respect, social conventions etc.
I guess the Nuns you were talking about only asked the kids not to do certain gestures that could be interpreted as rude. I really doubt there was a conviction among nuns that gesturing was bad for communication since if anything the Catholic Church is very fond of gestures and symbols that carry a message, just give a look at all the liturgy or at Pope Francis communication style 😉
Anyway, thanks again for all your posts!
Best wishes,
João
My kids always said if I sat on my hands, I’d be speechless.
As always, an interesting topic to deliberate, Brad! I can appreciate hand gestures helping a speaker emphasize certain aspects of their delivery, but so often, I see them overdone. It’s distracting if someone is just answering a question from the audience, for example. Some speakers repeat gestures, mentally cueing themselves as they had rehearsed. To me, hand gestures are a necessary part of communication, but shouldn’t take away from it.
Thanks very much, Julie!
You’re right that some people can overdo it — and I agree that rehearsed gestures almost always come across as insincere.
You might be interested in a related post we recently posted on this topic: https://www.throughlinegroup.com/2014/05/26/to-show-hands-or-not-to-show-hands-that-is-the-question/.
Thanks for reading and commenting!
Brad