The 7-38-55 Rule

When communicating face-to-face people send messages that contain verbal and nonverbal components, but how much, on average, do meanings rely on verbal and nonverbal cues? As one may guess nonverbal cues carry much of the weight in terms of meaning, but the degree to which can be surprising.

Albert Mehrabian was a social psychologist. He did the first formal research into the topic of how much meaning is conveyed by verbal and nonverbal cues. Mehrabian concluded that seven percent of meaning could be attributed to verbal cues. Of the remaining 93% of meaning, 38% was attributed to vocalic effects and 55% was attributed to facial expressions. It became very clear after this research was made public that nonverbal behavior conveys the vast majority of meaning, but in different ways.

These findings make sense when given a bit of thought. While some messages contain verbal components, not all of them need words to be effective. There are many situations where a complete message can be conveyed by nonverbal alone. These are typically called emblems. Emblems are easily recognizable symbols that can stand in the place of words during interpersonal communication. The point is that while some messages contain verbal cues, all messages have a nonverbal side, so one could begin to see how nonverbal cues carry a lot of weight.

The 7-38-55 rule is not a set in stone law of communication. People must take into account the fact that communication takes place in different situations, and the situation has a huge effect on how the interaction ensues. Some situations could rely more on nonverbal information, like the aforementioned emblems. Some interactions can rely more on verbal information than the seven percent that Mehrabian attributed to it. Phone calls are good examples of verbal information carrying a larger share of the meaning. It is always good to keep in mind that while what you say is important, how you say it matters even more.