Psychology

The way we think, the way we perceive, the way we act, and the way we react towards certain situations or happenings, these all depends on our natural and learned abilities or skills to perceive and make some sense out of the environment. We the human beings are not born with all the qualities, abilities, and characteristics that would enable us to face and cope with the changing environment and conditions in fact, we are brought up in certain ways that guide us to bear certain things in our minds such as, norms, values, beliefs, and perceptions that eventually help us in coping with our daily lives (Robbins  Judge, 2007).

When it comes to human behavior, we often neglect the environmental factors, situational factors, or external factors that are indirectly somehow affecting our emotions, thoughts, and actions towards a certain thing. Its a human tendency to easily and readily attribute a certain action by a person to his or her characteristics, nature, or traits (Daft, 1997). For instance, if a person has been pissed of by someone else over a non-issue and that person unwillingly acts towards a certain thing or idea badly or rudely even if he is quite positive towards it, then we would think that this person is not interested in or does not like that idea or thing.

Similarly, there are certain influences and affects over out thinking that results in our Nodding and shaking our heads. The paper would elaborate over the article which talks about the idea of nodding and shaking, provide scenarios and findings by the researchers, provide some contrast point-of-views and would finally end up with a conclusion.

Thesis
The main thesis of the article is that when we nod or shake our heads in response to certain question to signal agreement or disagreement, it influences ourselves and our confidence level towards a certain idea or thought that we possess.

Body
The researchers have proposed a statement after their study that the movements that we make when responding to some questions or ideas by shaking and nodding our heads actually affects our agreement or disagreement towards that same idea or thought. We are normally unaware of the facts that are indirectly impacting ourselves and our behavior. Richard Petty, who is a psychology professor at Ohio University and also the co-author of the study, says that it is the human tendency to think of nodding and shaking the heads as a source of communication with others but in reality, we are communicating to ourselves too at the same time. When we nod or shake our heads during our conversation, it actually acts as a source of self-validation that in turn corroborates towards how we truly feel and think towards a certain idea or situation.

If we nod our heads up and down, it results in the increase in the confidence level towards what we are thinking and what we are answering to. Similarly, on the other hand, when we are shaking our heads side to side, it means that we are losing our confidence level over our thoughts and ideas. Talking about the study that was conducted by the researchers in which they asked the 82 respondents (college students) to tell how the headphones are working when hey experience jostles during jumping or dancing. The purpose of the study was to check out the responses regarding the sound quality of headphones.

Some participants were asked to nod their heads up and down each second during the time when they are listening to the music through the headphones whereas, some were asked to shake their heads from one side to another. After the listening to the tape, the results showed that the respondents who were nodding their heads up and down while listening, agreed more to the message or ideas that were being broadcasted on the radio tape. Whereas, those who were shaking their heads from side to side felt the other way about the messages on the radio tape.

Not only this, when wrong message was broadcasted on the tape, those who nodded as yes experienced less agreement with that wrong message than those who were shaking their heads and were gaining more confidence regarding the disagreement over the messages. The study also found when a person nods over a negative thought or idea, this in turn results in the strengthening of our disapproval over the idea or thought.

The researchers tried another strategy to discover the impact over the thoughts of human beings, and that strategy was to use handwriting as a cause. A study was conducted where the participants were asked to write about their three good and bad qualities with the hand that was not their dominant one. It means that those who are right-handed writers should write with their left hands. Then they were asked to rate how actually confident they were about the qualities and thoughts that they have written. The findings showed that the respondents were much more confident about their thoughts and qualities when they have written them with their right hand (dominant hand), as compared to their left (non-dominant) hand.

Contrasting View
After conducting the studies, the participants were asked whether they actually feel or experience that their nodding or shaking of heads and their writing hands has actually impacted their confidence about their thoughts or not. Near them, this was not of worth consideration. Some researchers depend on the writing styles, knowledge and skill level, and nodding or shaking of heads for the identification of confidence towards a certain thought. But these do not seem to work all the time. It is because, even if someone does not have any information or knowledge regarding a certain thought, idea, or subject, and his mood his good, self-esteem is high, and is confident, then he most probably would be able to believe or think confidently and answer the question the same way in a confident manner. Emotional intelligence is a skill or quality that involves self-awareness, self-motivation, empathy, and self-regulation it helps us a lot in making sense out of the world, understand others and ourselves, rationalize, and cope with the situation effectively (Mc Shane  Travaglione, 2003).

Conclusion
After analyzing the article regarding the impacts made on the thoughts of human beings by nodding and shaking our heads, we can conclude that no matter what other factors are present to affect our thinking and actions, the nodding and shaking of heads actually impacts on the confidence level of ourselves for the agreement or disagreement to a certain idea, thought, or action.