Mirroring: The Unconscious Body Language of Love, with Jane McGonigal

People naturally mimic each other's body language, so when you notice it happening to you, it may be a sign that you are personally or professionally compatible with the other person. McGonigal's newest book is titled SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient--Powered by the Science of Games ().
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Transcript - One of the fun things that you can do in everyday life is to develop a technique that I call the love detector. And here’s how it works. In everyday life we are constantly mirroring with our facial expressions, with our body language, even with our breathing and our heart rates people who we like. And the more that we feel like we really understand somebody, we’re really connecting with them, we’re really clicking with them, the more likely we are to physically mirror what they’re doing. So if you’re sitting across from somebody, you’re having a meeting, you’re having a first date and you notice that you both have your head kind of tilted to the same side or maybe you’re both leaning into the table with your head on your hand like this. And you haven’t don’t it on purpose but you notice just in that instant wait, we’re really – we’re sitting the same way. And oftentimes in my own experience it’ll be really strange positions. You’ll be leaning back with one arm out here and you’re like whoa, how did we get into this position.
Well the way it happened is you are both feeling connected. You feel like you are clicking and so because of that you’re physically starting to mirror each other. And some people would advise you to do this intentionally to kind of trick the other person into thinking that wow, we’re really getting on. Look, they won’t consciously know it but their brain will perceive it. I think that’s kind of creepy and really awkward. So instead of using this knowledge to I don’t know maybe manipulate people into thinking that you’re bonding, just use it as a love detector. Happen to notice in everyday life when you’re physically mirroring people and that’s just a signal to you. It’s a clue to you, hey, here’s somebody that I really connected with at a very deep level. This is somebody who would be a great ally, a great collaborator. Somebody that I should definitely spend more time connecting with in the future.