ArticlePDF Available

An Urban Legend Called: “The 7/38/55 Ratio Rule”

Authors:
UDO UNDEUTSCH*
The actual use of investigative
physiopsychological examinations
in Germany
EUROPEAN
POLYGRAPH
Volume13•2019•Number2(48)
TuvyaT.Amsel*
TelAviv
Israel
AnUrbanLegendCalled:
“The7/38/55RatioRule”
Городская легенда: “The 7/38/55 Ratio Rule”
Key words: nonverbal communication, spoken word, tone of voice, body language
We have all experienced, consciously or subconsciously, that the spoken words are but
one element of the conveyed message. Along with the words we notice the intonation
of the voice, the rhythm and speed, the speaker’s expressions and body language. Many
times, the non-verbal cues and signs carry agreater in uence on the listener than the
spoken word.
e impact of each channel (spoken word, tone of voice and body language) on the
listener is what UCLA psychology professor Albert Mehrabian researched. In 1967
Mehrabian published his experiments results in two papers. [1] Mehrabian determine
the weight listeners place on each of these elements: 7% on verbal, 38% on vocal and
55% on facial. Shortly a er publication, Mehrabian conclusions caught the eyes of the
public, in where it was popularly coined as the 7/38/55 ratio.
DOI: 10.2478/ep-2019-0007
© year of fi rst publica on Author(s). This is an open access ar cle distributed under
the Crea ve Commons A ribu on-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license h p://crea vecommons.Org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
* ta@amsel.co.il
Unauthentifiziert | Heruntergeladen 23.11.19 02:20 UTC
TUVYAT.AMSEL96
Apparently, what caught the public eyes were the  gures, the numbers, the percentage.
Psychology does not consider to be an exact science, and not surprisingly so. A er all
psychology’s forth father was philosophy. Psychology seems to research the empirical
approach to questions raised by philosophy, and as such its’ conclusions considered to
be abit ambiguous and vague. Yet, here comes apsychology paper that de nes its’ con-
clusions in exact  gures. And numbers and percentage carry the image and façade of
mathematics i.e. exact and accurate and in return reliable. So, no wonder that in no time
consultants, experts and alike, in various  elds which involve inter -personal commu-
nication started to quote Mehrabian’s formula.  is, in spite the fact that Mehrabian’s
formula was misrepresented by them!
Yet, as Mark Twain’s famous phrase goes “alie can get halfway around the world before
the truth can get its boots on”, Mehrabian’s 7/38/55 formula became arule. Arule that
shortly was referred to as an axiom.
Eventually, investigators too adopted the formula for credibility assessment of crimi-
nal suspects’ statements. Take as an example the o en-quoted Christopher Voss who
served for 24 years in the FBI as “… lead international kidnapping negotiator … lead
Crisis Negotiator for the New York City Division of the FBI… New York City Joint
Terrorist Task Force for 14 years”. [2] In his June 2016 blog titled “3 Insider Keys to
“How to Spot ALiar”, Voss shares with readers his expertise: “…the second thing Igo
into is the 7:38:55 ratio.  e hypothesis here is that amessage is carried at arelative
weight of 7% content, 38% delivery, and 55% body language. Regardless of what you
think of this speci c ratio – body language is agreat source of information about your
counterpart’s veracity”.[3]
If we will follow Voss’s 7/38/55 ratio advise we may face the following scenario: Asus-
pect in ahomicide case is being questioned by the police.  e suspect is anormative
law obedience citizen, who in aspore of amoment in amiddle of aheated argument,
lost his temper and killed his neighbor. Terri ed of what he just did he  ed the scene of
crime. When  rst questioned by the police he denied any knowledge let alone involve-
ment in the crime. Weeks later a er an in-depth police investigation he was called in
again for an interview. By now he is full of remorse, self-blaming and sorrow of what he
did. A er aprolonged interrogation he is willing to confess.  e investigator asks him
again for the hundredth time: “Have you killed Joe?” While getting ready to admit,
the suspect experience an inner dilemma, in one hand he is ready to confess while on
the other hand he fears the consequences that will follow: the trail, the publicity that
will a ect and shame him and his family, the punishment. And so, when he answers to
the question by saying: “Yes, Idid”, his voice is hesitant and his inner con ict is being
re ected in his body language: he moves on his seat uncomfortably, avoid the investiga-
tor eye contact, cover his face, etc.  e trained investigator picks up all these signs and
Unauthentifiziert | Heruntergeladen 23.11.19 02:20 UTC
ANURBANLEGENDCALLED:“THE7/38/55RATIORULE” 97
cues. Being agreat believer in the 7/38/55 rule he reaches the conclusion that he has
just received afalse confession. A er all the spoken words (7%) contradicted the vocal
tone (38%) and the suspect’s body language (55%). Bottom line 93% of the conveyed
message contradict the spoken word which point in the direction that the suspect is
lying thus, his confession is false.
If the investigators decision to overlook the confession seems irrational and illogical,
note that actually the originator of the 7/38/55 ratio rule, prof. Mehrabian himself will
object and disagree with the investigator’s conclusion, or in his own words: “… My  nd-
ings … have received considerable attention in the literature and in the popular media
Please note that this and other equations regarding relative importance of verbal and
nonverbal messages were derived from experiments dealing with communications of
feelings and attitudes (i.e., like-dislike). Unless acommunicator is talking about their
feelings or attitudes, these equations are not applicable.“[4]
But at this time, regardless of Mehrabian explanations the formula gained so much
popularity that Mehrabian warning and clari cations passed unnoticed.
MehrabianStudies
e studies focused on decoding the relative impact of facial expressions, vocal tone
and spoken words. Both studies dealt with the manner individuals communicate emo-
tions (negative or positive) as being expressed and displayed in asingle emotional bear-
ing word.
In the  rst study Mehrabian and Wiener [5] investigated which of these two factors:
spoken word and the intonation and the tone of that spoken word has agreater impact
on the listener when that spoken word is inconsistent with the tone of voice. 30 partici-
pants, divided to 3 groups (@10), were asked to listen to the recordings of two women
who read nine di erent words (three positive “dear”, ”thanks”, and “honey”, three neu-
tral “maybe”, “oh”, and “really “and three negative “brute”, “don’t”, and “terrible”).  e
women spoke in three di erent tones (positive, neutral and negative).  e participants
were instructed to rate the degree of positive attitude of the women, subject to the fol-
lowing instructions: paying attention only the content, only the tone of voice and to all
the available information.  e experiment results were that the participants were better
in detecting emotions in the tone than in the spoken word.
Mehrabian second study carried out with Ferris,[6] investigated which of these two
factors: tone of voice and facial expression has a greater impact on the listener.  e
participants were listening to arecording of three women repeating the single word
Unauthentifiziert | Heruntergeladen 23.11.19 02:20 UTC
TUVYAT.AMSEL98
“maybe” in three di erent expressing tones: like, neutral, and dislike. Later the partici-
pants were presented with female face photos expressing the same three emotions.  e
participants were asked to guess the emotions in the recorded voices, in the photos and
both in combination.  e experiment results were that the participants were better in
detecting the emotions in the photo than in the recording.
Abirthofaformula
Based on the results of the studies and in spite the fact that the two studies were di er-
ent, the  rst compared spoken word to tone and the second tone to facial expression
(spoken word was not part of the second study), Mehrabian integrated the results of
the two into one, suggesting that the combined e ect of each channel is the weighted
sum of their independent e ect with the coe cients of .07 (word), .38 (tone) and .55
(facial expression). It should be noted that in spite of deriving the  gures from research,
the formula ratio  gures were arbitrary without being supported by astudy i.e. they
were not proven.
In addition to the unsupported formula, the studies received alot of critiques such as:
the situation was arti cial, the participants were aware of the experiment scope, the
experiments structure, the limited amount of talking and much more. But, Mehrabian’s
studies highlighted the focal points of inter-personal communicating feelings and at-
titudes as well as understanding that inconsistency between these channels when com-
muting feelings and attitudes should call for further inquiry by the listener.
Epilogue
e popularity that the formula gained in spite of Mehrabian’s statement that the for-
mula is being misused and misinterpreted, is avaluable lesson about people: If some-
thing serves them right, they won’t be confused by the facts.
e 7/38/55 ratio rule that swamp the inter-personal communication  eld and gained
much popularity, turned out to be amisquoted, misused and unsupported analysis
method, shortly an urban legend and myth that should be forgotten and taken out of
circulation. Game Over.
Unauthentifiziert | Heruntergeladen 23.11.19 02:20 UTC
ANURBANLEGENDCALLED:“THE7/38/55RATIORULE” 99
References
[1] Mehrabian, A., Wiener, M. (1967). Decoding of Inconsistent Communications.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 6 (1), 109–114. Mehrabian, A., Ferris, S.R.
(1967), Inference of Attitudes from Nonverbal Communication in Two Channels.
Journal of Consulting Psychology. 31 (3): 248–252.
[2] https://blackswanltd.com/our-team/chris-voss.
[3] https://blog.blackswanltd.com/the-edge/3-insider-keys-to-how-to-spot-a-liar.
[4] http://www.kaaj.com/psych/smorder.html.
[5] Ibid, Mehrabian, A., Wiener, M. (1967).
[6] Ibid, Mehrabian, A., Ferris, S.R. (1967).
Unauthentifiziert | Heruntergeladen 23.11.19 02:20 UTC
... Psychological research demonstrates the body language that we use, specifically our facial expressions, and relates to 55% of messages when people perceive others' feelings [10], [11]. To this end, facial expressions are a major channel that humans use to convey emotions. ...
Article
Full-text available
Micro-expression (ME) is an involuntary, fleeting, and subtle facial expression. It may occur in high-stake situations when people attempt to conceal or suppress their true feelings. Therefore, MEs can provide essential clues to people’s true feelings and have plenty of potential applications, such as national security, clinical diagnosis, and interrogations. In recent years, ME analysis has gained much attention in various fields due to its practical importance, especially automatic ME analysis in computer vision as MEs are difficult to process by naked eyes. In this survey, we provide a comprehensive review of ME development in the field of computer vision, from the ME studies in psychology and early attempts in computer vision to various computational ME analysis methods and future directions. Four main tasks in ME analysis are specifically discussed, including ME spotting, ME recognition, ME action unit detection, and ME generation in terms of the approaches, advance developments, and challenges. Through this survey, readers can understand MEs in both aspects of psychology and computer vision, and apprehend the future research direction in ME analysis.
... The first distinction to be made in communication is the way that we communicate. According to the Mehrabian ratio "7-38-55", 7% of our communication is linked to verbal expression, 38% of the message consists of a vocal component, and the remaining 55% of the message is supported by facial (non-verbal) expressions (Amsel, 2019). Although the "7-38-55" ratio has come in for some criticism, it is a good acknowledgement of the fact that communication takes place mainly non-verbally. ...
Article
Full-text available
This article focuses on communication, specifically internal communication, which is often underestimated when changes to management strategy affect both employees and customer perception. The article focuses on the front-office team in a hotel that is carrying out a new revenue strategy. Typically, this involved some internal communication about the new revenue strategy. How this information was delivered to the front desk employees and the value of the information is discussed in this article. The data was gathered by means of semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with five experts, and showed that in most cases the front desk employees either received some form of training or at least some information about the new system. The data also illustrates that this information was beneficial and helped the front desk employees deal with situations where customers had been given a room rate via an online travel agency (OTA) or booking platform and the employees had to deal with the confusion caused for the customer and agree on a room rate. Most of the staff were empowered to make adjustment to the price to satisfy the customers. Internal communication appears to play a more important role in achieving customer satisfaction when comparing the outcome of the research with academic literature. The latter often illustrates that companies focus more on consumer marketing (external communication for customers) and not enough on internal communication.
Chapter
Social interaction is the mutual influence between two or more individuals. It often occurs through signals and sometimes symbols, at least in humans. The sharing of meaning and an evolutionary advantage for all sides make interplay a communicative act. Individuals use a language when codes (i.e., sets of signs) share (even partially) senses, connections (between elements), or contexts. There are at least three general misconceptions in this field: the overestimation of nonverbal cues, some Palo Alto Group principles, and the assumption that people always use body movements as a language. These misconceptions often do not produce the desired results, as the story of the Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques (SPOT) program suggests.
Article
In communication, intonation plays an important role in conveying the meaning of a speech. In this article, we study students' perception of the influence of intonation in conveying the meaning of speech in communication to propose solutions to help students overcome intonation errors when communicating, as well as, help teachers have appropriate intonation teaching methods. Our data and analysis are based on research documents, surveys, and in-depth interviews with students. According to the study results, most students are well aware of the importance of intonation and of the factors affecting intonation, and they are also aware of the causes of intonation errors. However, students do not apply their knowledge of intonation to speech, they stop at the cognitive level. The study indicates that students often make intonation mistakes in Tag-question, Wh-question, and Imperative sentence in communication. Article visualizations: </p
Article
3 DEGREES OF ATTITUDE (I.E., POSITIVE, NEUTRAL, AND NEGATIVE) IN FACIAL EXPRESSION WERE EACH COMBINED WITH 3 DEGREES OF ATTITUDE COMMUNICATED VOCALLY. THE VOCAL COMMUNICATIONS OF ATTITUDE WERE SUPERIMPOSED ON A NEUTRAL WORD. IN PREPARING THE 2-COMPONENT COMMUNICATIONS, THE COMPONENTS WERE SELECTED SO THAT THE DEGREE OF POSITIVE ATTITUDE COMMUNICATED FACIALLY WAS EQUIVALENT TO THAT COMMUNICATED VOCALLY-I.E., THE INDEPENDENT EFFECTS OF THE 2 COMPONENTS WERE COMPARABLE. IT WAS FOUND THAT ATTITUDES INFERRED FROM COMBINED FACIAL-VOCAL COMMUNICATIONS ARE A LINEAR FUNCTION OF THE ATTITUDES COMMUNICATED IN EACH COMPONENT, WITH THE FACIAL COMPONENT RECEIVING APPROXIMATELY 3/2 THE WEIGHT RECEIVED BY THE VOCAL COMPONENT. IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS FOR MORE GENERAL ATTITUDE-COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS ARE DISCUSSED.
Decoding of Inconsistent of and Inference of Attitudes from Nonverbal Communication in Two of
  • Mehrabian