Can you judge a book by its cover?

          I wore a nice dress and my favorite heels to the Academic Awards night in my high school. I didn’t learn that in the class at that time, but I already knew by experiences that my appearance would help communicating with others. I wanted to express that I was very proud of myself and honored to be there through my attire, so I picked one of the finest clothing I had. Appearance matters because it is part of nonverbal communication. An  importance of appearance is a highly controversial topic. I agree that judging someone just by appearance is unfair and can be misleading. However we can’t deny that actually appearance takes a huge part on our daily communication, from job interview to a first date. As we talked about nonverbal communications in class, the first type of nonverbal behavior is a physical appearance. Because physical looking can be easily observed even before the real verbal communication starts, we often prejudge others by appearance. Whether you think judging someone by appearance is good or bad, it is happening everyday. So rather than just regarding this as taboo, we need to approach this issue from the fundamental.

           

One of the articles I found for this blog post was called ‘Appearance Matters: The Importance of Looking Presentable’ by Nancy Perkins. What I really liked about her article was that she isn’t talking about how women, or men, should wear fancy clothes and make up to look attractive, but she emphasizes that how well you treat yourself will appear on your physical looking. Having nutritious and healthy life style will help having fitted body shape. I strongly agree with her that beauty is not evil because it is an indicator of one’s health and wellbeing. We could relate that one who puts time and effort to maintain good health would also manage one’s work efficiently. For example, employ would consider a job candidate who has fitted body shape is more diligent than others who aren’t because fitted body probably came from going to fitness everyday and eating healthy. Again, there are tons of reasons for one not being in shape. It could be mental or health problem, but, still, for about 10 minutes job interview, physical appearance affects a lot. Also other than fitted body or fine face, what you wear matters too to communicate nonverbally. There is no need of wearing designer clothes for job interview to impress employer, but wearing neat and unwrinkled shirt will be enough to show good aspects of you while stained shirt which will tag you with negative traits and behaviors.

One's cover is not just limited to how perfect your skin is or how expensive necklace you are wearing. In my opinion, kinesics, facial or physical expression contributes a lot on communication since it is visual side of nonverbal behavior which can be capture in short time. Smiling face and relaxed pose will give positive impression beginning or during the communication process. Smiling during the whole process can give more positive impressions than a single word choice you make. Smiling relaxes your receiver and draws positive result from a comfortable condition. On a first date, when your date is smiling, you will expect positive relationship between you guys. Smile is probably one of the universal face expression that makes favorable impression. Therefore smiling is important nonverbal key if you want to secure successful communication.

Nonverbal behaviors like paralanguage or haptic are cues that indicate how well that communication is going on. Or other nonverbal signs like physical appearance prejudge the result of communication. Nonverbal behaviors are as important as verbal communication. It is like whip crime on your coffee. It might not be always necessary, but it completes a communication. Combination of verbal and nonverbal defines message more clearly. The reason why I emphasized the importance of visual part of nonverbal communication is because people are more sensitive to what they see. You can’t judge a book by its cover, but sometimes its neat cover attracts readers to read.

           

           

http://www.themortonreport.com/home-away/appearance-matters-the-importance-of-looking-presentable/