高中(學測,指考)◆英文題庫下載題庫

There is a long-held belief that when meeting someone, the more eye contact we have with the person, the better. The result is an unfortunate tendency for people making initial contact—in a job interview, for example—to stare fixedly at the other individual. However, this behavior is likely to make the interviewer feel very uncomfortable. Most of us are comfortable with eye contact lasting a few seconds. But eye contact which persists longer than that can make us nervous.

Another widely accepted belief is that powerful people in a society—often men—show their dominance over others by touching them in a variety of ways. In fact, research shows that in almost all cases, lower-status people initiate touch. Women also initiate touch more often than men do. 

The belief that rapid speech and lying go together is also widespread and enduring. We react strongly—and suspiciously—to fast talk. However, the opposite is a greater cause for suspicion. Speech that is slow, because it is laced with pauses or errors, is a more reliable indicator of lying than the opposite.