People feel safer behind some kind of physical barrier. Each social occasion involves us in encounters. If a social encounter is in any way threatening, then there is an immediate urge to set up such a barricade. The more formal the occasion and the more dominant or unfamiliar our social companions, the more worrying the moment of encounter becomes. Watching people under these conditions, we can observe the many small movements and postures in which they try to "hide behind their mothers' bodies" as they did in their childhood. It is these that are the barrier signals of about life.

 

　　The most popular form of barrier signals is the body-cross. In this, one arm makes contact with the other across the front of the body. The action is performed unconsciously and, if asked about it immediately afterwards, the person will not be able to remember having made the gesture. The action is always disguised in some way, and the disguise it wears varies from person to person. For example, a male guest may lift his right hand, reach across his body and make a last-minute adjustment to his left cuff-link or the strap of his wristwatch when he walks toward his host. A female on a similar occasion may reach across her body with her right hand and slightly shift the position of her handbag or reposition a coat held over her left arm. In all case, at the peak moment of nervousness, there is a body-cross to construct a barrier between two people. 

 

　　Interestingly, field observations reveal that in a social encounter it is most unlikely that both the greeter and the greeted will perform such action. Regardless of status, it is nearly always the new arrival who makes the body-cross movement, because it is he or she who is invading the home territory of the greeters. The greeters are there first and have at least temporary territorial "rights" over the place. This gives them a self-assured dominance at the moment of the greeting. Only if they are extremely subordinate to the new arrival will there be a likelihood of them taking the body-cross role.