The Study of Crossing Arms
I purposed a mere study on body language, specifically the unconscious gesture we are making with our body when relaxed or simply not thinking about the subject. Everyone crosses their arms, or at least everyone I know. So here was the premises for my study. I became curious as to why we cross our arms, what we are saying (outwardly) when crossing our arms, and what is the difference between one person crossing their arms different from that of another.
I began my study by gathering information around me, by first observing myself, then my family. I began to write down all of my facts to a text document, which still includes my first theories of which I was able to debunk.
You see, when I first started this study, I began looking for a way to outwardly distinguish a left handed from a right handed person. Those were my initial intents. From that thought, I based my study that a person crosses their arms by on which is their strong arm. Since everyone was naturally born right handed in our household, and everyone crossed their arms the same, it was easy to assume this at first.
I found an article on the Vancouver Sun of a study conducted by a university on students solving word problems. The study showed that the students that were told to cross their arms succeeded in solving the problems at a faster rate than those that were told to not cross their arms and place them by their sides. Basically, the study proved that those that cross their arms are given a mental and outward sign of perseverance.
So with that thought, the act of crossing your arms as an outward sign of perseverance, it gave me a little bit of insight of what the person’s thought pattern is. Check your thought pattern next time you catch yourself unconsciously crossing your arms. See what you were actually thinking that caused you to cross your arms.
Now since we are on that track, and we have that much of an understanding of this form of body language, let’s look a little deeper at arm crossing. There is only one comfortable way to actually cross your arms. Come on, try it! One way will feel natural, while the other one is a creepy feeling! Anyhow, the natural way you cross is what I want to look at.
Now I must say, this research is just by my own study. Nothing official, nothing that actually proves anything, just a personal, privately conducted study. I have study over 12 people. Most of them I know pretty well, and a few others I just observed while in conversation (but I still check and observe their character).
Out of the 12 people I have studied, 50% of them cross their arms left-over-right while the other 50% cross their arms right-over-left. Haha. Ok, so that doesn’t prove anything… The study showed, that the people who cross their arms left-over-right are hard workers, are not afraid of work, are clean, persistent and for the most part organized.
On the other hand, the people who cross their arms right-over-left are lazy, untidy, disorganized, try to get out of work, find loopholes, and are not persistent at what ever they do.
I am sure that there are exceptions to the theory, as not everyone fit this exact model, yet out of all the people I have studied, the people who cross their arms right over left are as what was stated above.
So, when I look at a person and observe their gesture of crossing their arms, it tells me these things. First, observe the situation. The situation is the key that causes the subconscious to preform things. A prime example of a situation is my innocently by standing and watching a person watch a person work. The worker can be doing anything, but he is working.
The person I am observing, who is watching the worker work, stands watching the man while crossing his arms. Second, I observe that his arms are crossed. Indeed, indeed! His arms are crossed. Crossing arms, as was aforementioned, is an aid or an outward yet subconscious sign of perseverance. Ah, but now Thirdly, we observe how this person’s arms are crossed.
This person’s arms are right over left. Several good facts come to light here now. This person is watching a hard worker work. He shows a subconsciousness willing to help, yet his body is outwardly telling otherwise. Upon further knowing the subject from past acquaintances, we know that this person is lazy and tries his best to get out of work. So his body outwardly speaks for him, so this should come as by no surprise.
There you may see how truly easy it is to read body language. Of course, situations are different and there are many different forms of body language.
I posted a Twitter poll on the question so folks could vote. Feel free to vote, or check out the results!
Body language is the code, yet understanding it is the key. In order to understand it, one must first study it.
