Nonverbal Communication in Close Relationships: What Words Don’t Tell Us

This book is an up-to-date compendium of knowledge on the secret language of close relationships, namely nonverbal routes of communication. In close relationships, as everyone learns sooner or later, the usefulness of words can be somewhat limited, because people (a) mean different things by the same words, (b) mean the same thing by different words, (c) sometimes find it hard to express their feelings in words, and (d) lie. Nonverbal signals therefore often provide the best means of communication. The book points out how decoding (interpreting) nonverbal signals is a major key to success, because often what people say wholly belies how they feel--nonverbal signals reveal their true feelings rather than what they want other people to think their feelings are. This book helps decode those secret signals. The book is written by the leading worldwide experts in the field of nonverbal communication to ensure accuracy, comprehensiveness, and timeliness.

Robert J. Sternberg is Professor of Psychology at Cornell University and Honorary Professor of Psychology at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. He is past president of the American Psychological Association and the Federation of Associations in Brain and Behavioral Sciences. His PhD is from Stanford University. He holds 13 honorary doctorates.

Aleksandra Kostic is Retired Professor of Social Psychology (University of Nis, Serbia). She taught courses on social perception, nonverbal behavior, and psychology of interpersonal behavior. Her research interests include examining the accuracy in perception of nonverbal clues; social, emotional, and perceptual judgments, especially the judgments of primary emotions from the face; emotional intensity; and antecedent events and reaction to emotion.