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person is an insult, as this gesture is only used to point at animals. Malaysians will use their thumb to point to people or to give directions.

Our Audience Experiment
     
    We conducted an experiment with eight lecturers who were asked to use each of these three hand gestures during a series of ten-minute talks to a range of audiences and we later recorded the attitudes of the participants to each lecturer. We found that the lecturers who mostly used the Palm-Up position received 84 percent positive testimonials from their participants, whichdropped to 52 percent when they delivered exactly the same presentation to another audience using mainly the Palm-Down position. The Finger-Pointed position recorded only 28 percent positive response and some participants had walked out during the lecture.

     
    The pointing finger creates negative feelings in most listeners
     
    Finger-pointing not only registered the least amount of positive responses from the listeners; they could also recall less of what the speaker had said. If you are a habitual finger-pointer, try practicing the Palm-Up and Palm-Down positions and you'll find that you can create a more relaxed atmosphere and have a more positive effect on others. Alternatively, if you squeeze your fingers against your thumb to make an OK type of gesture and talk using this position, you'll come across as authoritative, but not aggressive. We taught this gesture to groups of speakers, politicians, and business leaders and we measured the audience reactions. The audiences who listened to the speakers who used the Fingertip-Touch gestures described those speakers as “thoughtful,” “goal-oriented,” and “focused.”

     
    Squeezing the thumb against the fingertips avoids intimidating the audience
     
    Speakers who used the Finger-Pointed position were described as “aggressive,” “belligerent,” and “rude” and recorded the lowest amount of information retention by their audience. When the speaker pointed directly at the audience, the delegates became preoccupied with making personal judgments about the speaker rather than listening to his content.

An Analysis of Handshake Styles
     
    Shaking hands is a relic of our ancient past. Whenever primitive tribes met under friendly conditions, they would hold their arms out with their palms exposed to show that no weapons were being held or concealed. In Roman times, the practice of carrying a concealed dagger in the sleeve was common, so for protection, the Romans developed the Lower-Arm-Grasp as a common greeting.

     
    The Lower-Arm-Grasp— checking for concealed weapons—the original Roman method of greeting
     
    The modern form of this ancient greeting ritual is the interlocking and shaking of the palms and was originally used in the nineteenth century to seal commercial transactions between men of equal status. It has become widespread only in the last hundred years or so and has always remained in the male domain until recent times. In most Western and European countries today it is performed both on initial greeting and on departure in all business contexts, and increasingly at parties and social events by both women and men.
    The handshake evolved as a way men could

cement a commercial deal with each other.
     
    Even in places such as Japan, where bowing is the traditional greeting, and Thailand, where they greet using the
Wai—
a gesture that looks similar to praying—the modern handshake is now widely seen. In most places, the hands are normally pumped five to seven times, but in some countries, for example, Germany, they pump two or three times with an additional hold time equal to an extra two pumps. The French are the biggest glad-handers, shaking on both greeting and departure and spending a considerable time each day shaking hands.

Who Should Reach First?
     
    Although it is a generally accepted custom to shake hands when meeting a person for the first time, there are some circumstances in which it may