Only 7% of communication is words (7-38-55 rule)
Misquoted Confidence: high
Primary source found, but the way it is quoted changes the subject, metric, population or precision.
- Commonly cited as
- "93% of communication is nonverbal"
- True origin
- Albert Mehrabian (UCLA) — Mehrabian & Wiener 1967; Mehrabian & Ferris 1967; Silent Messages (1971/1981)
- Type
- Stat check: A widely repeated statistic traced back to its origin.
- Year
- 1967
- Data as of
- 1967
- Last checked
- What the source says
was actually concerned with feelings and attitudes
- Method & sample
- Small lab studies in which listeners judged a speaker's feelings from single words with inconsistent tone or facial expression.
- Drift between quote and source
- Scope: findings about judging feelings from inconsistent cues generalized to all communication
- Interest
- n/a
Safe rephrasing
Mehrabian's 1960s experiments concern how people judge feelings when words and tone conflict; he says the ratios don't apply to communication in general.
Sources we opened
Machine-readable: /api/claims/mehrabian-7-38-55-rule.json · Last checked 2026-10-16