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Want to be More Persuasive? Talk With Your Hands, Study Finds
UBC study finds that purposeful hand gestures can boost persuasiveness and perceived competence [news.ubc.ca]:
Words matter — but your hands might matter more, according to a new UBC study which found that purposeful hand gestures can make speakers appear more competent and persuasive.
The UBC Sauder School of Business research [sagepub.com], analyzed 2,184 TED Talks using AI and automated video analysis. Researchers isolated more than 200,000 hand gestures into 10-second clips and compared them against audience engagement metrics, such as 'likes' on social media while controlling for factors like gender, occupation, language, video length and more.
The team also ran randomized experiments in which participants watched videos of sales pitches where speakers delivered identical scripts but varied their hand movements. Viewers then rated the speakers and the products being pitched.
The verdict: More hand movement can significantly boost impact — but not all gestures are created equal.
Researchers categorized gestures into types, including "illustrators," which visually depict spoken content, for example, demonstrating the size of a fish while describing it, and "highlighters," such as pointing to an object mentioned in the speech. They also examined random, unrelated movements and the absence of gestures.
Illustrators had the strongest effect, making speakers seem more knowledgeable and improving audience understanding. Highlighters and random gestures, however, showed little to no impact.
[...] According to Dr. Zhou, audiences interpret illustrative gestures as a sign of mastery. "If a person uses their hands to visually illustrate what they're talking about, the audience perceives that this person has more knowledge and can make things easier to understand," she said.
[...] "Sometimes we just move our hands without a purpose. It's a habit," said Dr. Zhou. "But if you pay more attention and understand the impact, it can make a big difference."
Journal Reference: Rizzo, G. L. C., Berger, J., & Zhou, M. (2025). EXPRESS: Talking with Your Hands: How Hand Gestures Influence Communication. Journal of Marketing Research, 0(ja). https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437251385922 [doi.org]
