Do actions provide a glimpse into inner speech?

I recently binge-watched the show Mindhunters on Netflix and it led me to make some surprising connections to Vygotsky and inner speech. For those not familiar with the show, it is based upon the development of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit and how they created profiles for serial killers still at large by interviewing killers who had been caught. While watching, I began to think about how all the serial killers could not translate their inner speech into social communication, at least not verbal communication. Instead, their actions communicated their inner speech; inability to express latent desires, childhood traumas or feelings of inadequacy manifested in the act of compulsively and gruesomely killing people. As the show demonstrates, we can learn a lot about people’s thoughts based on their actions. Naturally, this reminded me of the common phrase, “actions speak louder than words.” Although spoken words are one tool we can use to socially communicate our inner speech, our actions can also serve this function, albeit hopefully in a more prosocial manner than murdering strangers. Last class we talked about how we can use fewer words as more shared experiences accumulate (as Michael and Shantanu illustrated while waiting for the C train), but I think you can also communicate messages effectively and concisely in some situations even when there are no shared experiences. This form of communication might be easily misinterpreted, and mutual understanding might be limited, but you can get a glimpse into inner thoughts through the actions of another even without shared experiences. 

As I was thinking about it more, however, I realized that although you may be able to understand someone’s actions without shared experiences, I think you are understanding the meaning of their actions rather than the sense of their actions. As an example, I used to work with high school students with emotional and behavioral disorders, and I had one student who would frequently throw his books on the floor and leave the classroom. At first, I only understood the meaning of this—I don’t want to be here. As we accumulated more shared experiences, however, I gained a sense of the different nuances of this action—it could mean the concept was challenging him, that he was hungry, that something bad had happened at home, that he didn’t want to participate in a task or activity later that day. We easily misinterpret the words of others, but how often are we also misinterpreting the actions of others because we lack shared experiences to help us gain the sense of what those actions are expressing?