Give a detailed account of nonverbal communication
as a process to understand others.
Social perception is the process through which we seek to
know and understand other persons. We attempt to understand others by two basic
processes:
Nonverbal communication – which is used to understand
current mods and feelings of others.
Attribution – which is used to understand more lasting
causes of human behavior.
Nonverbal communication – Communication between individual that
does not involve the content of spoken language but relies instead on an
unspoken language of social expression, eye contact and body language. The basic
channels of nonverbal communication are facial expressions, eye contact, body movement,
touch, etc.
Facial expressions – There are six different basic emotions
that can be clearly represented on the human face – Happiness, surprise, anger,
sadness, disgust and fear. It is interesting to note that emotions occur in
many combinations like joy mingled with sorrow.
Link between emotions and expression – Cacioppo 1988
undertook the following research study in the field of facial expressions to
check whether there is any link between emotions and expressions.
Aim of the research – To study the link between facial
expression and underlying emotions and to know whether facial expressions
really reflect underlying emotions.
Research method / design –
Step 1 – Subjects were asked to move various facial muscles
and make or construct certain facial configuration.
Step 2 – While subjects were producing facial
configuration, their physiological reaction were being recorded (heart rate,
pulse rate, level of perspiration).
Step 3 – Subjects were also supposed to report whether they
underwent any emotional changes while making various configurations.
Result – Results of the research indicate that different
facial movements are accompanied by changes in physiological activities. The facial
expression of fear is accompanied by high heart rate, increased pulse rate and supported
by increase in perspiration. Researchers found out that the more closely the
facial movement resembles expression associated with specific emotion, the
greater tendency for participants to report experiencing that emotion. Their finding
suggests that a substantial link exist between facial expression and underlying
emotions.
Universality of facial expression – Ekman 1989 reported
that people of one culture can easily recognize expression of members from
other cultures. To gather evidence the researchers traveled to isolated areas
of New Guinea and asked persons living there to imagine various emotion – evoking
events e.g., friend visits, dead animal, - then the participants in the
research were asked to show by their facial expression how they would feel in
each case. These expressions were very similar to ones that would be shown by
us. Therefore, this research established the fact that there is universality of
facial expression. Many cross-cultural studies point out that between each
culture there is slight variations regarding how various emotions should be
expressed, these are known as Display Rules.
Rosenberg and Ekman conducted a detailed research to check
the universality of facial expression. The research is as follows:
Aim of study – To check whether participants from different
cultures show accuracy in identifying and underlying emotions.
Research design –
Step 1 – Participants view photographs of strangers from
different cultures showing various facial expressions.
Step 2 – Participants were asked to identify the facial
expression and underlying emotion by using anyone of the following technique:
a. Seven
alternative condition (subjects were required to explain underlying emotions by
the emotional labels given to them of happiness, sadness, disgust, etc.)
b. Seven stories
condition (subjects were provided with seven different stories with different emotional
content, explain each facial expression with help of story provided).
c. Free choice
condition (Subjects can use their own description to explain the expression of
strangers in the photograph).
Results – The results of the research indicate that
regardless of the specific technique used, facial expression were readily recognized
as reflecting certain specific emotions. Therefore, irrespective of the cultural
differences’ subjects were able to judge the emotions depicted very accurately.
Eye contact – We often learn much about others feelings
from their eyes. Eye contact is classified as – stare, gazing.
A stare is a form of eye contact in which one person continues
to gaze steadily at another regardless of what the recipient does. It is often
interpreted as a sign of anger or hostility – like cold stare. We interpret a single
level of gazing form others as a sign of friendliness. In contrast, if others avoid
eye contact with us we may conclude that they are unfriendly.
Body language – gestures, posture and movement
Body language are cues provided by the position, posture
and movement of others body or body parts. It also reveals others emotional states,
tehri current moods and intentions.
A research by Aronoff signifies the role of body movement
in dance drama.
Aim – To check whether different body movements are
depicted by different characters in dance dramas.
Research design –
Step 1 – they first identified two groups of characters in
classical ballet – those who played a dangerous and threatening role and those
who played warm sympathetic roles.
Step 2 – They examined examples of dancing by their character
in actual ballets to see if they adopted different kinds of postures.
Results –
The dangerous and threatening characters showed more diagonal
and angular postures.
The warm, sympathetic characters showed more rounded postures.
Further evidence for the conclusion that body posture and
movement can be an important source of information about others is provided by a
research by Lynard Mynier (1993).
Aim – To check whether body movement of body language is an
important source of information about others’ emotions and traits.
Research design – Researchers identified certain
restaurants and manipulated the situation to suit the research study.
The customers (subjects) were exposed to two different
conditions: S1 exposed to profession and unfriendly waitress. S2 exposed to
friendly and warm waitress.
S1 was exposed to waitress who stood and took orders
without forming any eye contact with S1 group. However waitress in S2 sat
beside the customers to take orders. They also formed a great amount of eye
contact with their customers – sitting is regarded as a positive gesture
because it initiates close proximity and also increased eye contact is taken as
a gesture of friendliness. Reaction of the subjects were assessed by the amount
of tip they gave to the waitress.
Results – Results of the research indicated that S1 group
of subjects which were exposed to unfriendly behavior reciprocated in the same
manner by giving very low tips. On the other hand, S2 group of subjects who
were exposed to warm and friendly waitress reciprocated in the same manner by
giving hefty tips to waitress.
To conclude therefore we can say that body language gives
us substantial information about others emotions and whatever emotion is shown
to the target person it is also reciprocated in the same manner.
Touch – Physical contact between two individuals – it is
the most intimate form of Nonverbal communication.
To interpret touch we have to focus our attention on:
Source of touch i.e., who does the touching (a friend,
stranger, persons of ones own sex or the other).
Length and nature of touch i.e., brief or prolonged, gentle
or rough.
The context in which the touch occurs i.e., business, or
social setting, doctor’s office.
Depending on such factors touch can suggest affection,
sexual interest, dominance, caring or even aggression.
Researchers Cruso and Wetzel have given evidence that when touching
is considered acceptable, positive reaction often results.
Aim – To check whether positive touching behavior is reciprocated
positively.
Research design –
Step 1 – the researchers arranged for waitress working in two
different restaurants to interact with customers in one of the three different
ways when giving them their charge.
No-contact condition – refrained from touching the customer
in any manner.
Brief contact condition – touched them briefly on hand
(about 0.5 sec).
Prolonged contact condition – touched them for somewhat
longer period (1.0 to 1.5 sec)
Groups condition result
S1 no
contact low tip
S2 brief
contact moderate tip
S3 prolong
contact highest tip
Behavior was recorded on the amount of tips given.
Results –
Customers who were exposed to the waitress who had no
contact with them gave the lowest tip.
Customers who were exposed to the waitress who had brief contact
with them gave them moderate tip.
Customers who were exposed to the waitress who had
prolonged contact with them gave them the highest tip.
Gender differences in touch – Does one gender initiate more
touching behavior than the other? Research findings indicate that the answer
depends on age. Among grownup couples, males are more likely to touch females than
vice versa. As age increases, this difference shrinks among the older couples
i.e., 40 and above the opposite is true i.e., females engage in touching. This is
so because of one possibility that among younger couples’ relationships are yet
not well established and society gives sanction to males to indulge in such
behavior. However, as age progresses, women’s touching behavior is taken more
as a caring gesture.
Individual differences in emotional expressiveness
The extent to which persons who outward expressions of the
inner feelings is called emotional expressiveness. Friedman administered a test
of emotional expressiveness to several college students. They answered questions
on their personal life. In additional research the investigators related scores
on the test of emotional expressiveness to success in several occupations. They
found that among physicians those scoring high on expressiveness were more
popular with their patients than coming low on this dimension.
Detection of deception
This relates to techniques used to find out if the other person
is lying.
Micro expression – One nonverbal contact that is very
helpful to detect if the other person is lying is micro expression. They are brief
and incomplete facial expressions that occur on individuals faces very quickly
after exposure to a specific stimulus and before other expressions are used to conceal
them. They last for only two tenths of a second.
Inter channel discrepancy – A second nonverbal contact is
inter channel discrepancies. There are different channels of nonverbal communication
i.e., facial expression, eye contact, body movement. It is impossible for individuals
to control all of these channels at once. A person may be able to control his
facial expression and eye contact but may not be able to control his body
movement. This could be possible with any of the three.
Nonverbal aspects of speech – A third nonverbal contact
involves nonverbal aspects of people’s speech i.e., para language when people
lie their pitch of voices often rise and they tend to speak more slowly and
with less fluency. They engage in more sentence repairing behavior i.e., they
start a sentence, then interrupt it and then start again.
Aspect of eye contact – The fourth technique of deception is
frequently revealed by various aspects of eye contact. Persons who are lying often
blink more frequently and show pupils that are more decollated. They may also
show unusually low level of eye contact or an unusually high one.
Facial expression – The fifth technique is that people who
are lying sometimes show exaggerated facial expression e.g., they may smile more
than usual or may show greater sorrow.
