Exactly What They Need

Humans aren't very good at hiding our emotions. Our faces, hands, feet, and bodies tell the tale of what we are feeling even when we are trying to hide the truth from others. In his book Humankind, Rutger Bregman, writes about us as being "leaky" when it comes to our feelings. It is, apparently, an adaptive trait, one that belies our species' extraordinary ability work well with one another.

I hear you scoffing. Work extraordinary well with one another? C'mon man, do we live in the same world? But, bear with me. It appears to be true that we are certainly among the most cooperative of species. As Yuval Noah Harari details in his book Sapiens, our ability to work together is what allows us to be the only apex predator that is not particularly large or fierce. Tigers and sharks, for instance, evolved to be individually fearsome with large muscles, sharp teeth, and the ability to move a great speeds relative to their prey and rivals. Of course, they also work together as they hunt to a degree, but as mid-sized, hairless apes with the kind of modest physical abilities more commonly found in middle-of-the-food-chain species, we came to rely on intelligent cooperation to move ourselves to the top of the food chain. One-on-one we are no match for a bison, for instance, but together we feast. 

It isn't always pretty, of course: until around 1800 three-quarters of all humans lived under some version of slavery. It ain't freedom, but it is a form of working together that simply isn't found in other species, at least not on that scale. And when you look at humans today, we are a globally-connected network of naked apes who have created a society in which some of us design buildings while others paint portraits while others program computers. There is no other species that cooperates to such a degree that most don't have anything to do with the primary concerns of feeding themselves and caring for the young.

Maybe you don't call that cooperation. Fair enough. It certainly isn't what I mean when I talk about cooperation in my day-to-day life, yet it's still undeniable that we are very good at working together even if compulsion and exploitation have historically underpinned a great deal of it.

My point is that in a species that relies so much upon one another, it's inevitable that we would evolve to be fairly transparent, or leaky, to one another. If we were to ever become proficient at hiding our feelings, the whole protect of humanity would likely fall apart.

As a teacher of very young children, I've spent a great deal of my life surrounded by the leakiest of humans. Preschoolers haven't yet learned to "protect themselves" by hiding their emotions. When they are sad, everyone knows it. When they are happy, angry, frustrated, or frightened, anyone can tell. As we begin to develop what is called a "theory of mind," however, we begin to understand that other people, like ourselves, are conscious beings with their own thoughts, feelings, and agendas. As we begin to understand how time works, we start to engage in counterfactual thinking, which is to say that we fabricate alternate-reality stories that may help us anticipate the future or create new things, but can also be used to deceive or hide the truth from one another. We strive to be less leaky, but as body language experts know, we might fool some of the people some of the time, but that's mostly because those other humans are too distracted by their own game of hide-and-seek to notice that we're playing the same game. If we pay attention, however, we can almost always spot and understand the leaks. We aren't as complicated as we think we are.

For instance, my wife and I had a neighborhood cocktail party a few nights ago. Among the guests was a couple who I've only recently met and who tend to be, both together and individually, quite shy in social settings. As host, I set myself the goal of helping them loosen up. They arrived wearing bright colors which I read as a sign that they wanted to, at least, be noticed. Obviously, their actual consciousness wasn't accessible to me, but it was nevertheless quite clear that they were in favor of loosening up. As we chatted about superficial things, I noted that they had both turned their upper bodies toward me, while their feet remained pointed at one another. This was a clear indication that at one level they were hoping to become more comfortable with me, but at a lower level, or deeper level, they were still counting on other another. Both held their drinks across their chests protectively, yet they smiled at me, both wearing grins that I perceived as a bit excessive and which I understood as eagerness to connect, even as their bodies betrayed their caution about me and the whole situation.

This wasn't rocket science I was doing. We all, when we can get out of our own heads long enough to pay attention, are masters at reading body language, especially in situations like strangers chatting at a cocktail party. I found myself adjusting my own body, not to mirror theirs, but to create a mirror for them. When my wife joined our little circle, I consciously turned my whole body toward one partner, physically opening myself up, right down to my toes, dropping my arms to my side, relaxing my smile and making sincere eye-contact. Within minutes, he had matched, or mirrored, my body language. When we are being mirrored like this, psychologists tend to agree that the other party is either fond of us, or is at least in favor of being fond. 

I assure you that my only goal was friendship, although it's not lost on me that this is also the kind of thing that successful salespeople and con artists do. Before long, he was no longer even shooting glances at his partner, but rather engaging me fully. When I then noticed his eyes darting away as we talked, I saw that he was taking a peek at a painting over my shoulder. This told me he was interested in art, so I took the conversation there and soon I was guiding him on a tour of the artwork in our home. We settled into a nice conversational flow, most of which took place with our bodies turned at three-quarter angles to one another, which, was about where I saw our relationship: friendly, eager, but still a tiny bit cautious.

Those of you who are reading this as early childhood educators may recognize yourself, because isn't this exactly what we spend a great deal of our time doing? A very small part of how we interact with children involves instructing or even talking. When we are doing it right, we are listening and communicating with our entire bodies, just as the children are listening and communicating with their entire bodies. Of course, we don't have to do it as consciously as I was doing with my adult cocktail party guest, because, I believe, we are privileged to me interacting with natural humans, people who have not yet learned to hide their leaks. When you watch a master teacher at work, you see them as natural, open humans, mirroring the children's leakiness, not to manipulate them, but to become like them. We strive as educators, whether consciously or not, to make no secret about our thoughts and feelings because we are reflecting the children in our care. And that, I think, is exactly what they need.

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