Representational Systems – Other Indicators (e.g. Body posture, tonality)

In the last few Blogs, it has been discussed that words and predicates are important to understand the representational systems of others. These representational systems give you an idea of how people are making sense of and interpreting the world around them. A person’s primary representational system can be auditory, visual, kinesthetic or auditory digital and by understanding the words and predicates you can speak the other person’s “language” and create rapport and greater trust in the relationship.

Words and predicates are just one of the ways to be able to “read” a person’s primary representational system. Other cues are related to posture, body shape and tonality.

Beginning with the primary representational system of “visual”, visual people will often have a posture that is straight, with head and shoulders up. Their body type and movements can be thin or obese, tight and jerky. Breathing will be high in their chest and their voice tonality, speed and volume is high, clear, fast and loud. Their rule for looking while listening is “look to listen”.

For people who are highly “auditory” some of the characteristics are: body shape tends to be towards the slim rather than obese and when they speak or communicate they maintain more control over their auditory part of communication. So they can maintain more control over their auditory aspects of the speech, they will tend to have a fuller range of breathing and a larger rib cage than “visuals”. Their posture can be described as being a telephone type posture with their head titled to one side of their body. Their rule for looking and listening is “don’t look to listen”.

People who operate primarily out of the kinesthetic tend to have a posture than is curved, bowed and head and shoulders down. Their breathing is lower and more into the abdomen. They respond to touching and physical rewards, they can move and talk very slowly. Also they stand closer to people than someone who is visual. Kinesthetics would rather touch rather than look at the person.

The last primary representational system is auditory digital. Some of the characteristics are: they will speak in a clipped and crisp monotone. As tone variations are not important to them they will tend to display breathing patterns more like “visuals” such as being higher up in their chest. An “auditory digital” person is like a “visual” in that they can be dissociated from their feelings. The body type is similar to someone who is primarily kinesthetic being soft, full and rigid. They will tend to have no eye contact while listening to the other person.

Remember, we all have the ability to be any one or combination of these categories at different points in time and in our lives. These are only just some hints of whether someone has a primary representational system of auditory, visual, kinesthetic or auditory digital. When determining someone’s primary representational system, in addition to posture and body cues and tonality, words and predicates should be considered too.

Understanding someone’s primary representational system is all about understanding how that person views and makes sense of the world around them. Then, by speaking their “language” you are able to create much greater rapport and trust in the relationship. And that would certainly be powerful for any relationship, wouldn’t it?