Incongruent Body Language.

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Has anybody else noticed the following: (I've mostly seen this on the TV when people are being interviewed or sometimes when they are on ads) - somebody is talking with a lot of emphasis about a particular subject. The latest example was Mrs Irwin (Steve Irwin's widow) speaking about how wonderful her husband was but at the same time she was shaking her head from side to side.

Now what confuses me about this and similar examples is: why would a person shake their head (which I take to mean disagreement) when they are agreeing with another person or being affirmative? I thought if you were being affirmative, you would nod your head instead.

So I wonder why the incongruence and seemingly mixed messages? I hope I have explained this properly. It is just something I find very odd.

I know what you mean and I don't really understand this either.

All I can think of is that as Mrs. Irwin was talking about how great her husband was, she was thinking to herself "I can't believe he's gone" or "it's not fair that he's dead" or something, which perhaps manifested itself as shaking her head.


But I could be wrong.

Could be that. Another example was on this ad where people were talking about sponsoring children in poor countries. This woman was saying "this is the best decision we ever made - to sponsor a poor child" but then she was shaking her head from side to side. If I thought something was a good decision, I would be nodding my head. It is so strange.

I would agree with this. She is obviously still in a state of disbelief that she is never going to see her husband again. But I also understand the confusion as I can get mixed up with seemingly conflicting body signals/language.

That is strange but beleive it or not there are some countries where shaking and nodding the head have reverse meanings (I know Australia is not one of these). In Hungary, a thumb up doesn't mean 'ok' it means you would like one of something (as in when you are shopping and you ask for one, you give them the thumb). Just to confuse matters...

Quirk is right, there are countries such as Croatia or Bosnia i think it is , where they say "yes" by shaking their heads and" no" by nodding which is just the opposite to what the majority are used to.
When making emphasis on talking about a subject, i had never realized it but its true, i sometimes do shake my head too, i guess i mainly do it when im saying things like: its amazing! (meaning i cant believe my eyes..or smth like that) so since can´t is "negative" thats why the shake.
I dont really know, im just guessing,could be wrong, but at least in the example i put above, it works for me that way.

I've noticed it's mainly women who do this but it's something that I never do as it doesn't seem logical.

This makes me very self conscious.
I have a feeling that i must give off some pretty warped signals with my body language myself..and similarly..being unable to really detect or understand such subtleties, I don't place alot of weight of those kinds of ...howyousay..incongruencies(?) when I observe them in other people.

i have heard that when people lie, they look down and to the right...and being awful with eye contact, I tend to look anywhere but at a persons face.which might mean sometimes down and to the right...but I am so nervous often when I am dealing with people that I will have no idea where I am looking or what body language I must be giving off.

I am more likely to notice variations in the tone of someone's voice rather than what they are doing with their heads or hands or eyes.

Me too. I rarely notice anyone's body language, or think about my own. It is something that is totally irrelevant to me. But voice tone - that's another story. I am very sensitive to tone variations, but more so when I am not looking at the person speaking. In fact, I would be happiest if I only had to talk to other people by phone, and not face to face at all.