Amira El-Noshokaty learns a truly universal tongue "Soft hair denotes being a coward, quick talkers are usually hot tempered, and steady eyes mean being right and truthful." So goes one Aristotelian manual on farasa (physiognomy), the science of discovering the predominant temper and other characteristic qualities of the mind, with the aid of outward appearance -- especially the features of the face. This has since come to be known as body language -- a discipline whose modern, Western incarnation has deep Arab roots: according to Youssef Murad's book Al-Farasa indal-Arab (Arab Physiognomy), Avicenna referred to it in the course of classifying mental sciences as early as 1037 AD. The discipline was not taught in the West until the 1970s, however. According to Mahmoud El-Fouly, marketing manager and body language instructor at Mohtawa (Content), an "integrated services company" established in 2003 and specialising in management skills and self development, "98 per cent of people are unaware of the body language." Offering courses in anger management and shyness control, for example, Mohtawa is among the first companies of its kind in Egypt, and its work is based on psychological research revealing the import of human behaviour: positive and negative act as the two poles of a scale of communication delimiting a range of states of mind. The gestures include movements (harmonious or sudden), posture (straight or slouching), voice (clear or muffled), costume (normal or over) and head position (upwards or downwards). They also comprise releasing or folding (arms/hands), looking downwards and frowning and the opposite, with the former adjective respectively denoting a positive-open attitude, the latter a negative- closed one. "Observation, not interpretation, is the basic exercise," El-Fouly notes. "One must monitor the multiple body behaviour of those surrounding him/her as if taking a mental video, not as it were a screen shot. Over two weeks' time, one is able to mark the dominant behavioural signs that in turn determine the most easily depicted 14 personality types, or psychological profiles of the subject's character. That means it's more descriptive than judgemental: the passive aggressive type, the seducer, the vic tim, the cold person, the coward and the narcissist. Other personality types include the arrogant person, the liar, the competitive person, the giver, the bully, the humorous, the naïve and the kind. Still, one must keep in mind cultural and gender variations. Women, for example, prefer to sit cross legged by nature, even though it is a negative sign." With emotions and moods thus registered, the observer knows when and how to approach the subject. It works. For Kamal Zaki, a medical greneral practiciner (GP) who completed the body language course three months ago after hearing about it from an NGO called the Egyptian Society for Human Development, it proved to be an extremely helpful tool. "I believe that such sciences are part and parcel of self development, which can facilitate communication among humans. Reading the body helped me a lot in my work, enabling me to work out the responses of my patients to what I was saying. As for my personal life, it helped me understand some of the people closest to me, from their mere gestures, where I hadn't registered the gestures before." El-Fouly has more to say, though: "To make full use of such a language, one has to keep eye-contact, and maintain positive gestures. On encountering someone with similar behaviour, the probability of making a positive communication with him/her is very high. I have to monitor the other person's body gestures in response to what I'm saying, whether it has a positive or negative effect on the person, and hence know when to continue, change or stop the conversation. It is very easy once one asks the right kind of question which is neither complex, negative nor misleading; hence the art of friendly, fruitful communication." What provokes a negative reaction, rather, is trespassing on personal zones, be they physical or emotional. Cold personalities do not like to be touched, for example. "We've been operating for the past three years, teaching the two levels of body language, ranging from three to four days each, where 40 per cent of our clients come through company programmes, especially top and middle management." Two personality types The seducer Traits include a loud voice and laughter. Seducers are usually over-dressed and have exaggerated reactions. They are always moving towards the centre of attention, playing a leadership role with a view to controlling others. They tend to attract a bigger group due to their exaggerated behaviour. They tend to be in a large group, and act as everybody's sweetheart when at bottom they love mostly themselves. Their gestures indicate the need to be dominant and in control. Registering insincerity, in dealing with a seducer you should take a step back and avoid entanglement. The passive aggressive type Always wearing a fake smile, the passive aggressive person has a loud and insincere laugh, where the teeth are habitually stressed. They never give a direct opinion, never maintain eye contact, and tend to throw sudden tantrums in which they emphasise the good fortune of others and point to their own misfortune. Passive aggressive people hide their largely negative feelings and feel unfortunate; they want only what is of interest to themselves. To avoid provocation, they avoid imparting good news or inciting jealousy. They are vague and pleasant at all times.
