Susan W. (Suz) reviewed Body Language and the Social Order: Communication As Behavioral Control on + 720 more book reviews
From the rear cover: "The popular notion that body language is merely a series of unconscious signs which reveal a person's hidden feelings is false..(the author)...shows that body language, combined with spoken language, primarily serves to control human behavior and to maintain the social order. The author describes greeting, courting, and other social behavior-which man displays in common with the primates and other mammals-and analyzes how territorial and dominance behavior determine the mobility of individuals and groups within the social hierarchy. In such institutions as the government and corporations, body language and related behavior are used for political control,in the indoctrination of people with institutional dogma, and the maintenance of power by blaming individuals for problems which actually originate in the social order. The effect of these communication controls...often places individuals and minority groups in inescapable 'binds', and, contrary to the desired result, creates strife and deviancy which disrupt the social order."
