Last week at Slate, Mike Pesca assured us that, Montgomery Burns notwithstanding, steeplers aren’t necessarily evil. Steepling is what you do when you form a tent with your fingers. Touching fingers in succession while steepling is optional.
Pesca cites the Definitive Book of Body Languageby Barbara and Allan Pease, who argue that “steeplers are exhibiting self-assuredness.”
Well, that sounded pretty definitive, but as a steepler myself I wanted to know more. It’s true, the Peases do say that steeplers are a confident tribe: “We found that the Steeple was frequently used in superior-subordinate interaction and that it indicates a confident or self-assured attitude. Superiors often use this gesture position when they give instructions or advice to subordinates and it is particularly common among accountants, lawyers and managers. People who are confident, superior types often use this gesture and, by doing so, signal their confident attitude” (133).
But that can backfire, they warn: “this gesture sometimes convert the Steeple into a praying gesture in an attempt to appear God-like. As a general rule, the Steeple should be avoided when you want to be persuasive or win the other person’s confidence, as it can sometimes be read as smugness or arrogance.”
So, even if we don’t have to beware of steeplers, we should be judicious with our own steepling.
