This past Thursday, Dec. 17^th, I delivered the speech #5 of my Advanced Humorously Speaking Manually.  I completed this fun manual in a short 8 weeks span.  Ever since I entered and lost the humorous speech contest in Fall of 2008, I began to take interest in enhancing the humor in my speeches, and slowly becoming more analytical with process of making people laugh.  But it is during these 8 weeks of writing hundreds of punch lines and failing in half of them, that I have begun to grasp some of the basics of developing humor.  In this article, I will elaborate on one of my key reflections.

It is not just my opinion.  There is a study on this.  I found this article during my normal bedtime reading. 

"The Influence of a Communicator's Body Position on Opinion Change in Others", Hugh McGinley, Richard LeFevre, and Pat McGinley, Journal ol Personality and Social Psychology, 197S, Vol. 31, No. 4, 686-690

Abstract:  Investigated whether, while discussing his or her views, a communicator who exhibits limb-outward or open body positions would effect greater opinion change in an addressee than a communicator who exhibits limb-inward or closed body positions. 96 female college undergraduates whose attitudes were premeasured perused an attitude questionnaire of a female student and then viewed pictures that were taken of her while she discussed her beliefs. Some Ss viewed open body position pictures of the communicator, while others viewed closed body position pictures.

Results:

The sandwich technique has been the standard evaluation technique used at Toastmasters.  It has been mentioned quite often in the ‘Effective Evaluation’ pamphlet that comes with the New Membership Kit.   The basic properties of this technique are evidently beneficial:  When you start with the ‘bread’ by mentioning the strength of the speaker, it liberates the tightly guarded self-defense mechanism of the speaker, so that he or she can be more accepting of the constructive feedback, which is the ‘meat’ of the sandwich.  Then, the evaluation would end with more bread, to reinforce the encouragement that would provide the impetus for the speaker to try better next time.  However, in this article I would point out some of the psychological barriers that could be encountered when the technique is unintentionally over-used or misused.