Attraction and Rejection Signaling
Before the mid 20th century, people could only select a marital partner with a lot of guesswork and hoping for the best. Meeting in person was limited and, what is more, how to evaluate other people and understand your own needs received very little discussion. Personal life was limited. Books and commentary were tied to people’s experiences in the past. There was nowhere to go to discuss the present or what might be more desirable in the future. There existed no discussion of how to evaluate good qualities in a potential partner or how to express your own romantic feelings.
All this changed after 1950 when the first media-using generation came into existence. People began to share their experiences and discuss how to find romantic partners. Your own generation could now supply you with useful information. People learned how to evaluate future partners from such things as their stance, gestures and sociability. All these things spoke about us. Media using generations opened up a huge change. The activities of courtship after 1950 were wrapped around with relevant information that became unstoppable.
We have seen that people send out messages from the meaningful objects they wear and display. Seen in person or through media, people can evaluate others while getting evaluated themselves. The first sociologists to study youth and young adults recognized how important generational information was in people’s lives. Original research by Monica Moore, in 1989 to 1998 publications, has revealed how people, with the help of media skills, now use objects to communicate. Moore makes a number of discoveries. For example, objects may communicate sufficiently without talking to people face to face. For example, a boy may wear cheap flip-flops to a party rather than good but expensive sneakers. Clothing objects like these use nonverbal communication.
It is not just fashion, hair and clothing that speak for us. Moore’s research describes how body stance and gestures support a kind of ‘silent courtship.’ Our bodily stance, gestures and facial expression do the talking for us. They are part of the physical person, but ‘body language’ sends out messages as clearly as direct speech. What is more, communicating by silent gestures can be less embarrassing to people. It may fit in with traditional priorities such as letting the man make the first approach and being the first to speak to a woman. A woman may initiate a romantic connection by sending an unspoken ‘attraction signal.’ Moore’s research shows that, in real life, men rarely make an approach until the women has first signaled, by silent body language, that she is interested.
Generations and objects have shown us that women hold the power to initiate romantic relationships. The unspoken knowledge of a generation is expressed through both ‘attraction signaling’ to potential mates and deliberate ‘rejection signaling’ to repel unwanted approaches. Moore reminds us that pre-teen girls get together in groups to perfect their use of silent communication by gestures. Whether adult or younger, body language becomes powerful when it expresses knowledge gained by people of their own generation.