Each of us has a different way of not only expressing our love for others, but feeling loved in return. Gary Chapman, a prestigious marriage counselor and writer of the best-selling book, The 5 Love Languages, believes that there are five categories of love. These consist of words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. A list of each of these can be found at the link below, but the language I would like to concentrate on is physical touch:

"This language isn’t all about the bedroom. A person whose primary language is Physical Touch is, not surprisingly, very touchy. Hugs, pats on the back, holding hands, and thoughtful touches on the arm, shoulder, or face—they can all be ways to show excitement, concern, care, and love. Physical presence and accessibility are crucial, while neglect or abuse can be unforgivable and destructive."

To find out your love language, take the quiz:

What's your love language?

Most people have more than one love language, usually one being more dominant. No matter what it may be, each of us has the need to feel wanted. When that love is nonexistent in our lives, we find substitutes to fulfill our need, according to studies done by Rosenfeld and Civikly.

One thing I have found interesting is pets as a substitute for comfort. Abused and at-risk children find their need to feel loved with animal therapy. By learning how to treat animals right, children can break away from the chain of abuse and learn how to touch and love the accepted way. On the other hand, when animals are abused, people are at risk. For more statistics on this study, you can follow this link:

http://www.americanhumane.org

What is it about high, squeaky voices that seems to enhance our perspective of the amount of humor in a situation? Don't understand what I mean? Take a look at the following clip. While watching, pay close attention to the actual dialogue of the characters. The lines themselves are not very funny, but because of the characters high pitched voices, we get a pretty good laugh in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkqd6oWQQSE

There are many other aspects of nonverbal communication packed into this short clip. The unfilled pauses Jasmine and Raja take part in add to the humor with the high pitched voice segregates.

Elements of space and territoriality are also present between Aladdin and Jasmine. Jasmine's actions show that she feels as if her primary territory is being violated.

The concept of space a territoriality is an interesting concept. Different parts of the world have different proxemics. In America, we tend to keep to ourselves and are careful about invading others' personal space. Other cultures consider their proxemics to be more like what Americans consider the intimate zone. Some cultures kiss and hug when greeting an acquaintance while others, like ours, shake hands or wave when greeting a new friend. When people break the norms of their culture, it is either seen as rude or creepy. Naturally, I am not an affectionate, touchy person, but I do not mind others invading my space when trying to give me a friendly hug. Once getting to know someone, if I have noticed them to be touchy, I tend to give more hugs or pats on the back. If I notice the opposite, I feel obliged to keep my distance and make sure I do not violate their personal space. It is interesting to watch the differences in others' preferences as far as space and territoriality is concerned. What are your preferences and how do you react when someone violates those?

ENJOY:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5ALIL7T764

After watching this adorable video, go back and pay closer attention to the nonverbal elements evident throughout. The baby portrays many of the SADFISH emotions. At the ten second mark, the once happy face turns into a face of disgust. His eye movement increases and the positioning of his nose is changed, making an obvious face of disgust. Another facial expression the baby shows is surprise. After making "the mean face," this sweet baby seems surprised at how entertained his audience is.

The aspect of this video that interests me most, is how genuine each of the baby's facial expressions are. The ocularis and zygomatic muscles meet proving its authenticity. In addition, "the mean face" shows genuine signs of anger; his brows furrow and the zygomatic muscle relaxes, making most of the communication of this look come from his eyes.

While the audience must imagine who he is making the look toward, I know from the stare this little boy gives, I would not want to be the person standing in the path of those laser eyes. Yes, our society finds staring to be very offensive, but we must admit that there are many times we would like for the other person to know that it is in their best interest to stay away from us. I feel that one of the most relatable examples of this is a high school girls' lunch table. Without saying a word, the person approaching the table will know whether or not they are welcome by a simple look. I believe that the true judge of whether or not emotions are real or not is through the eyes. But how often do we gaze into someone's eyes to see if they're being truthful or not?

Which brings me to my next point:

If this infant can be trained to make a believable expression such as this, can't we all train ourselves to fake emotion? By studying facial expressions, eye movement and vocal behavior, it is easy to learn how to control your emotions and show the world what you'd like for them to know rather than what you're actually feeling on the inside, and make it appear to be REAL! Just something to think about. :)

Before reading, please watch the following video clip with an open mind.

www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/clips/the-lawrence-wel k-show/727501/

While this video is very silly and it is difficult to see past the surface, there are some very evident examples of nonverbal communication, especially when concentrating on attractiveness. After watching the above video, most everyone would understand from Judice's first line, that in comparison to her three sisters, she is not physically attractive. Judice's image is an exaggeration of what is considered unattractive in our society. Her under-developed muscle tone, fragile-looking physique and bony, thin body type characterizes her as an ectomorph.

In her next shot, the audience can see that she is also socially unattractive. In agreement with Sheldon's studies, her ectomorph body type makes her appear slow and forgiving of others' reactions towards her extremely small hands.

www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/clips/lawrence-welk/11 05211/

In this video clip, the matching hypothesis theory is touched on. It is amusing to the audience to watch Judice attempt to be friendly towards Will Ferrell. While he seems to enjoy the other three sisters' attention towards his good looks and charming personality, he is obviously turned off by Judice's unattractiveness. It is interesting as a viewer to watch her attempts at becoming closer to Ferrell's handsome character, since our society is not use to seeing mismatched couples such as this.

Nonverbal communication is everywhere! Even in ridiculous skits such as these, aspects of nonverbal communication can be found and studied to answer questions regarding our societies acceptance of only a select few types of personalities and appearances.