Earlier this evening, I took my dogs for a walk in our local park. Two children ran up to me, maybe 5 and 7. They were aiming to walk right up to the dogs and pet them, without asking permission, so I put up a hand and asked them to wait. This gesture and firm tone works on my dogs every time, but it had no effect on the kids, who ran right up to us and started petting before I could get the chance to explain that some dogs aren’t as friendly as they expect.

Humans use body language to communicate a lot of things, but sometimes I wonder why our 4-month old puppy is better at reading human body language than many adult humans are. I suppose because we have spoken language, our ability to interpret body language has taken a back seat. However, it seems like it should still be important for us to be able to see when we’re annoying someone, or scaring them, without them having to use words to tell us.

I work with a couple of people who are especially outstanding at reading other people, but many others that don’t seem to realize how uncomfortable they are making others. When you wear glasses for the first time, you suddenly realize how blurry and impaired your vision was without them. When you see people who are really good at reading body language, it suddenly becomes apparent how little everyone else around them is using that skill.

Can it be learned? Probably. You can learn much more about dog body language through observation and someone pointing out to you what different movements mean. However, I think with other humans the even trickier part is knowing how to adjust your own actions to change someone else’s reaction. The ability to see how they’re feeling and the insight to know why they’re feeling that, and how to change that to a more positive feeling.

Has anyone had any experiences working for or with people who were especially good or bad at reading body language? If they were very good, were they too observant sometimes? (i.e. they could see that you were upset when you would prefer that they didn’t notice?)