Lecture 13: Communication Part 2 Flashcards
1
Q
top-down influence of touch
A
Hedonic quality of touch is moderated by contextual variables and expectations
2
Q
examples of the top-down influence of touch
A
- Touch is rated as more pleasant when paired with a smiling (vs. frowning) face
- The pleasantness of touch decreased when paired with a disgusting odour
- Heterosexual men rate sensual touch as less pleasant when led to believe it’s delivered by another man; women are more likely to perceive touch from opposite-sex strangers as unpleasant
- To be perceived positively, intimacy of touch must not exceed intimacy of relationship (particularly for women)
3
Q
Top-down processing
A
the combination of cues and broader context both shape perception
4
Q
2 keys components of top-down processing
A
- signals of involvement
- signals of positive affect
5
Q
signals of involvement
A
- Proxemics (interpersonal distance)
- Increased gaze
- Body movement & posture
- Facial animation
6
Q
Proxemics & liking
A
Increases liking for rewarding others, but decreases it for unrewarding others
7
Q
Signals of positive affect & affection
A
- verbal
- touch
- facial expessions
- paralanguage
8
Q
paralanguage and gender
A
Women are perceived as more affectionate when speaking in high pitched voice, whereas men—lower pitch
9
Q
how do we gauge the sincerity of verbal communication?
A
by nonverbal cues
10
Q
multimodal communication
A
- More than just a combination of individual components
- People are judged more likeable when display consistency among verbal and non-verbal cues, as well as among various kinds of non-verbal cues (behavioural consistency)
11
Q
behavioural mimicry
A
- People will often synchronize nonverbal behaviour
- Often nonconscious, unintentional & effortless
- Signals affiliative intent
- Fosters liking
12
Q
behavioural mimicry is more likely to occur when:
A
- We feel a rapport with the other person
- We hold affiliative intent or when our need for affiliation has been thwarted
13
Q
when does behavioural mimicry not lead to liking?
A
- When made to mimic a disliked person
- When our partner is engaging in inappropriate amounts of behavioural mimicry
14
Q
neural synchronization reserach study
A
- Phase 1: participants watched ambiguous movie clips in an fMRI scanner
- Phase 2: consensus-building conversation in groups
- Phase 3: re-watch the original clip & new clips from the same movie
- Conversation synchronizes brain activity within groups
- We see this both for the original clip and the new clips
15
Q
Hyperscanning
A
- collecting fMRI or EEG data from two people simultaneously
- Technique for assessing brain-to-brain synchrony
16
Q
neural synchrony in partners findings
A
- Neural synchrony is higher in romantic partners compared to strangers
- Neural synchrony among romantic partners is higher during moments of social gaze and independent of speech duration and conversation content
- For strangers, the overall duration of social gaze is positively correlated with neural synchrony
17
Q
Generalized shared reality
A
shared perceptions of the world at large
18
Q
Generalized shared reality and closeness
A
Predicts feelings of closeness in the relationship
19
Q
shared reality research study
A
- Phase 1: a threat to shared reality
- Phase 2: joint decision-making task
- Couples high on the baseline measure of shared reality respond to experimental threats to a sense of shared reality by engaging in motivated behaviour to reaffirm their shared reality
20
Q
brain activity and turn-taking in conversations
A
- Coordination of brain activity may enable the extremely rapid back-and-forth of conversation
- Modal conversational response time = 200 ms
21
Q
turn-taking in conversations
A
- Minimizing the time between turns requires a lot of prediction
- Figuring out where the partner is headed, preparing appropriate responses in advance, anticipating when a partner is likely to end their turn, anticipating a partner’s reaction
- Therefore, response times may convey how well one is able to predict another, signalling the extent of social connection
22
Q
turn-taking round robin study
A
- Rotate through conversational partners
- Later, privately rate overall and moment-by-moment connections during interactions
- Faster response times positively predict enjoyment and social connection
- This is also true of conversations with friends
- Connection is best predicted by partners’ response times
- Outside observers use response times as an index of connection between participants
- The same conversation was perceived as more connected and enjoyable when response times were artificially decreased
23
Q
response time and connection
A
- There is likely a reciprocal relationship between response times & connection
- Feelings of connection facilitate fast response times
- Faster response times reinforce feelings of connection
24
Q
talking on slow mode
A
- Faster response times may signal attention and understanding
- But, fast responses are not always desirable (ex. conflict)
- At certain times, slow responses may be desirable
25
when are slow responses desirable?
- Give space for reflection, savouring interaction
- Slow response times in help-seeking situations (ex. Doctor-patient relationships) were associated with feeling heard and understood
- Friends’ conversations have more long gaps than those of strangers
- For friends, associated with heightened connections; for strangers, with awkwardness
- Strangers are more likely to change topics following long gaps, whereas friends are more likely to persist with the same topics
26
virtual communication
Virtual communication poses several challenges
27
challenges with virtual communication
- Lack of nonverbal cues
- Fragmented interactions
28
lack of nonverbal cues in virtual communication
- Makes it harder to interpret messages
- May impede synchronization
- Ex. we see neural synchrony during face-to-face but not face-blocked conversations
- May impose cognitive load
- Fewer cues available for signalling involvement and affection
29
fragmented interactions in virtual communication
- Microdelays can impede synchronization
- Misaligned eye contact
30
month-long experience sampling study during COVID lockdowns
- Mental health was better on days when people spent more time in face-to-face communication can usual
- Face-to-face and digital communication, but not videoconferencing was linked to better mental health
31
who created love languages?
Idea popularized by Baptist pastor Gary Chapman
32
three central assumptions of love languages
- Each person has a preferred love language (preferred way of expressing & receiving love)
- There are 5 love languages: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch
- Couples are more satisfied when partners speak one another’s preferred love language
33
do we have a primary love language?
- People tend to endorse all 5 love languages as meaningful ways of expressing love and feeling love
- Primary love language as identified by forced-choice measure is not reliably associated with scores on continuous measure
- Ex. some studies using continuous measures find that gifts are rated most highly but only 0-4% of participants select this as their primary love language on a forced-choice measure
34
do we need to speak the same love language to be happy?
- There is no evidence that couples who match on primary love languages are happier than those who do not
- All love languages are positively associated with relationship satisfaction regardless of a person’s preference for love language
- May be more accurate to say that maintaining successful relationships requires a balanced diet
35
why are love langauges so popular?
- The quiz is helpful as a diagnostic tool for self-reflection
- The label and intuitive metaphors it provides help us articulate our needs
- But we need to be careful of oversimplifying relationship processes
- Ex. discounting partners who don’t match our primary love language
36
Are some people better at reading nonverbal cues to close the interpersonal gap than others?
- Miscommunication can stem from both failures of encoding and failures of decoding
- We can tease this apart by using behavioural observation
- Women tend to be better encoders and decoders, although they are not better at picking up on deception and tend to be more indirect than men
- Women are particularly better at sending positive messages
- Men don’t realize that they are miscommunicating (overconfidence)
- Men perform particularly poorly in unhappy marriages, although other research has shown that both men and women communicate more poorly with each other when unhappy
37
emotional intelligence
individual variation in the ability to perceive, understand, and manage emotions
38
emotional intelligence by gender
Tends to be higher in women
39
expressivity
warmth, compassion, sensitivity
40
expressivity by gender
Traditionally considered feminine traits and indeed generally higher in women, but men can be expressive too
41
expressivity and communication
- Facilitate intimate communication-- more comfort in expressing feelings
- Women tend to self-disclose more and elicit more self-disclosure (although on structured lab tasks, all-male dyads benefit from disclosure too)
42
is communication a skill or is it about motivation?
- In unhappy marriages, we can still communicate well with strangers
- Recall that motivation is important
- Men’s performance is increased when motivation is higher, although still not quite as good as women
