Body Language of the Politician: The 'Sand Pinch'

Is the 'sand pinch' gesture effective or overused?

Reviewed by Abigail Fagan

Key points

• Gestures play an important role when delivering a presentation.
• The 'sand pinch' gesture helps emphasize important points.
• Many successful politicians display the 'sand pinch' gesture when communicating.

What is one of the biggest fears of most politicians? Becoming forgettable. Likely, most politicians enjoy attention from large groups and having them remember what they said. If they can enhance what an audience remembers, then they influence people’s thoughts.

Gestures

Most communication messages are nonverbal (Hull, 2016). Nonverbal communication is how everyone naturally first communicates, one way is through gestures (Killin, 2017). Babies point at things of interest to emphasize importance.

Gestures are obvious and increase our memory of verbal communication (Dargue et al., 2019). We visually interpret what we see, such as a gesture, and then our motor system activates in response (Borgomaneri et al., 2014). Subsequently, our mirror neuron system often starts our body to prepare to mimic the gesture we just saw (Hale et al., 2020). This is how gestures intermingle with active listening to increase message retention.

Thus, it behooves politicians who want their messages remembered to strategically display gestures that emphasize their ideas. Either from communication consultants or personal experiences, many well-known and successful politicians display a similar gesture intended to increase their audiences’ retention of their messages.

Referring back to our baby example of pointing for importance, we interpret gestures based upon our previous experiences (Schouwstra et al., 2019). Thus, it would then make sense for a politician to point to stress importance but pointing is interpreted as hostile or aggressive (Bucy, 2016). What should a politician to do? Do the ‘sand pinch’ gesture.

‘Sand Pinch’ Gesture Description

The ‘sand pinch’ gesture is a thumb and index finger pinched together like pinching sand. Former President Bill Clinton is often recognized as making the ‘sand pinch’ gesture popular for politicians (Basu, n.d.). Former President Obama made the ‘sand pinch’ gesture regularly in his delivery (Wallis, 2008). Former President Trump, Vice President Harris, Senator J. D. Vance, and Governor Tim Walz continue the legacy of politicians making the ‘sand pinch’ gesture popular. It makes sense that these politicians would use the same gesture as Former President Clinton given his political success.

The ’sand pinch’ gesture is interpreted as the speaker is focused and knowledgeable (Vanessa Van Edwards, 2024). Nonverbal behaviors often influence perceptions, a nonverbal behavior indicating knowledge increases the credibility of the speaker with the audience (Guyer et al. 2019). Plus going back to our baby communication example once again, the politician is able to emphasize the importance of the message without fully pointing. It should come as no surprise then that so many politicians use the ‘sand pinch’ gesture during speeches and interviews because it increases importance of their message, their audience’s retention from using a gesture, their perception of knowledge about the topic, and shows focus.

Conclusion

Does the ‘sand pinch’ gesture lead politicians to success or do successful politicians learn to adopt it? Who knows but the politically successful ones display the ‘sand pinch’ gesture. If more people become aware of the ‘sand pitch’ gesture, does it lose its effectiveness? Do people start to see it as choreographed and inauthentic? For now, politicians are safe to display the ‘sand pitch’ gesture because most people probably are unaware that it can be used as a communication strategy.