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7%-38%-55% Rule (Communication)
The "7%-38%-55% Rule" is a theory in nonverbal communication created by Albert Mehrabian that more than 90 percent of human communication is about how you say something, not actually what you say. The theory states that 7% of the delivery of a message is comprised of the spoken word itself, 38% of the message is focused of tone and voice, and the remaining 55% is displayed through body language. This emphasis on nonverbal communication has created a misconception of the significance of nonverbals when presenting a message. The study's findings are looking at these elements in an emotional capacity.

History

 * 1923 - Ernest Hemingway, an american author, created a theory called the iceberg theory. This theory was created for literary works and was not used to describe communication.
 * 1967 - Two studies are conducted by Albert Mehrabian and are displayed in "Decoding of Inconsistent Communications" and "Inference of Attitudes from Nonverbal Communication in Two Channels" . Both studies dealt with the communication of positive or negative emotions by using single spoken words.
 * 1970 - Using video tapes shown to subjects, they were asked to analyze the communication of submissive/dominant attitude and found that all types of non-verbal cues combined – especially body posture – had 4.3 times the effect of verbal cues.
 * 1981 - In his book, Silent Messages, Albert Mehrabian establishes the "7%-38%-55% Rule". Mehrabian is noted saying that the formula is derived from experiments dealing with feelings and attitudes. When asked to describe the experiments he noted one experiment that was used multiple times.
 * 1992 - Dealing with the communication of happy/sad mood, a study found that hearing words spoken with a "flat" voice was about 4 times more influential than facial expression seen in a film without sounds.
 * 2015 - A study finds that the emotional response you create with your message is the most important aspect in customer service.

Basic Concepts
According to Mehrabian, the three elements account for our liking of a person differently depending on who puts forward the message concerning their feelings. Words account for 7%, tone of voice accounts for 38%, and facial expression accounts for 55% of the liking. These three elements of the communication process need to support each other if they are going to display the message correctly. If any imbalance takes place the receiver could grow irritated by the deceitful language. The overall message of this formula is that displaying nonverbal communication in an emotional setting is significantly more important than the words that are stated.

For example, someone could make the statement "It's fine" and resist eye contact or have a body language that resembles them getting upset. This could potentially cause the receiver of the message to become irritated because their actions didn't support the message. On the contrary, if someone were to say "I'm fine" and looked someone in the eye with a genuine smile or laugh, those actions would support the statement and would leave no room for misconception.

Mehrabian's study infers that the receiver of a message will believe the nonverbal communication over the literal meaning of the words.

Other Names

 * Iceberg Principle - An article on userlink.com called this theory "The Iceberg Principle". The reason for this is because the website is set up for small businesses to read articles on how to make their business stand out. This article on communication concepts is written to help businesses boost understanding between their employees and customers. The reason they called this "The Iceberg Principle" is because they combined elements of this theory with Ernest Hemingway's Iceberg theory. These two theories combined create a customer service mentality that helps boost understanding and make customers feel connected to their businesses.
 * 90/10 Rule - The 90/10 rule is a rule in public speaking where an audience's attention is 90% on the speaker's body language and organization and the other 10% is on content. When giving a presentation, the speaker should primarily be confident in their own content. When they are confident in their own content, they will then be able to focus on other aspects of presentation like body language. When a speaker doesn't know their content, this can become an issue because their percentage of body language and content concentration will shift and focus on content rather than focusing on looking confident or making eye contact. This, in turn, loses the focus of an audience.
 * 90% Rule - This is a misconception of the original "7%-38%-55% Rule". The idea behind this theory is that 90% of all communication is nonverbal or contextual.

Mis-use
The "7%-38%-55% rule" has been widely misinterpreted. The "Iceberg Principle", "90/10 Rule", and "90% Rule" all stem from the original theory of the "7%-38%-55% Rule". It is important to remember that Mehrabian's original experiments were used in emotional settings looking at feelings and emotions. None of the other theories use any scientific studies and only use the data presented in Mehrabian's works. The misinterpretation manifests itself when the data is used out of context. The data is meant for looking at feelings and emotions. When you put it in a context for all forms of human communication or even nonemotional forms of communication, the percentages are not reflective to the situation because those contexts were not part of the study.

When teachers or presenters use this theory to justify a teaching style that has not scientifically been proven or even tested, they are subjecting their audience to misinformation that could harm them by the way they view communication. For example, if a professor tells his students that 90% of communication is nonverbal behavior, students could justify not focusing on messages and becoming ineffective communicators.

There is much criticism over the nature of Mehrabian's studies which are seen as artificial and sexist. The studies only looked at women and was done using single word recordings. This theory is regarded among scholars as one of the most unrealistic studies conducted at the time. Since the study seems to have no real application to real life, the findings are even more controversial because of their reckless uses in communication.