NVC Flashcards
What are the functions of NVC?
Patterson 1988
To provide information to others
To regulate interaction (e.g. turn-taking)
To express intimacy (e.g. liking)
To attempt to exert social control e.g., making certain hand gestures to communicate power
Presentation - using body language e.g., a strong handshake can be used to create a positive impression
Affect management - how we regulate emotion
Facilitating service or task goals e.g., a professional smile that a flight attendant might give to reassure passengers
What are the evolutionary bases of the work on nvc?
Children born blind will smile and laugh - this means that it isn’t learned and has to be biologically encoded.
breathe in
breathe out
How do people respond to NVC?
Many of our responses to nvc are automatic and happen outside conscious awareness.
A lot of the time people don’t have to put a lot of cognitive effort into some responses because they’re biologically based e.g., reactions to nvc of babies - an innate response to babies smiling/laughing
What are the different channels of nvc?
Facial expression Gaze and pupil dilation Gestures, body movements and posture Touch/bodily contact Spatial behaviour (‘proxemics’) Clothing Non-linguistic aspects of speech e.g., tone Smell (e.g. use of perfumes) - seeking to send a message and control the impression made of us through smell
How might clinical disturbances impact the sensitivity to nvc?
Some clinical disturbances affect non-verbal encoding and decoding (e.g. Schizophrenia, ASD) If someone is on the autistic spectrum, they might have difficulty accurately decoding the body language of others, they might also use inappropriate body language cues themselves.
What gender differences are there in the sensitivity to nvc?
Overall, women are more sensitive to non- verbal cues and decode them more accurately than men.
There are evolutionary reasons for this - for many thousands of years, women were the primary caregivers of infants, so it makes sense for them to be particularly tuned into decoding non-verbal cues.
There is strong cross-cultural evidence for this (e.g. Hall, 1979; Rosenthal & DePaulo, 1979; Rosip & Hall, 2004)
What age differences are there in the sensitivity to nvc?
The older we get the worse we get at decoding non-verbal cues
- older individuals (e.g. aged 70+) are worse at lying and at detecting deception
It seems to correlate with a general decline in cognitive function, which occurs during the human ageing process.
But training can improve sensitivity
How can sensitivity to nvc be improved
It can be improved through training. Sometimes, its incorporated into teacher training programmes and sometimes it’s used by clinical psychologists to help people with mental health challenges.
How can space convey power and control?
E.g. Kane (1971) - violent prisoners and personal space. The researchers found that the most violent prisoners often had a zone of personal space around them that other prisoners would avoid (e.g., empty chairs around them in the canteen because they fear them).
Also in the business world, the higher up the chain you go, the bigger the office you get, even though this is unnecessary in a world where everything is done electronically.
Why is the spatial channel (proxemics) important in nvc?
Spatial metaphors are common e.g., in relationships you might say “we are growing apart”
Space can convey liking/disliking e.g., sitting close to those you like or far apart when they annoy you
Space can convey power and control. E.g. in prison and business settings
Hall (1966) - in different settings we are comfortable with different distances e.g., while people may stay in close proximity to someone because they like them, there are other occasions such as in a lecture hall where they have no romantic or other interest
Culture and proxemics (Hall, 1966) – in europe during business meetings you c an stand a few metres apart, but in arab countries, you should stand so close that you can feel and smell the breath of the person you are speaking to
What is some evidence of the importance of touch as a nvc?
Extremely powerful – linked with emotion and relationships
Even fleeting, incidental touches can have marked effects:-
Crusco & Wetzel (1984) – larger tips if touched on hand by waitress
(Fisher et al., 1976) Greater liking for librarian and library if touched on hand by librarian when returning a book– but only female Ps affected
How are facial expressions used as a channel of communication?
Important for conveying emotion
Ekman et al (1972) - happiness, surprise, fear, sadness, anger, disgust - expressed the same throughout the world
Gender differences - women attend to faces more than men do
‘Micro-expressions’ occur for 2/5ths of a second which people have no control over (Haggard & Issacs, 1966)
Recognising emotion is apparently part of emotional intelligence
What did Ekman et al., (1972) find about facial expressions?
They took images of westerners expressing emotions into non-industrialised societies e.g., tribal cultures in Africa.
They found that happiness, surprise, fear, sadness, anger, disgust - expressed the same throughout the world
This makes evolutionary sense as for a few thousand years humans did not have a sophisticated verbal language and so they needed to have a basic way of understanding each others feelings.
How is gaze used as a channel of communication?
Very powerful and often automatic e.g. pupil dilation and blink rate – many people get a pupil dilation response which happens outside conscious awareness when responding to the image of a baby
In eye-gaze studies, it has been shown that observers pay much attention to eyes
Sometimes a ‘leaky’ channel – when trying to control how others think about is, this is a difficult channel to control e.g., looking at someone that is attractive
Gaze can be used to exert dominance
Gaze as a threat signal e.g., when you stare at certain animals like gorillas or chimpanzees they might interpret it as a threat signal and try to attack you (Exline & Yellin, 1969; Marsh et al., 1978)
What ideas about eye gaze did Morris (1982) argue?
Pupil dilation – In the middle ages deadly Nightshade plant once used in Italy to affect dilation (atropine) because it makes them more attractive to male suitors
Size of pupils acts as a mood signal
Distaste leads to constriction
Excitement leads to expansion
Pupil ‘signals’ are sub-consciously sent and processed
What differences in contact are there in different cultures?
Certain cultures are contact cultures and others are not.
(Jourard, 1966) looked at couples in San Juan (Puerto Rico), Paris and London. They observed couples in cafes from a distance and counted how many times in an hour they touch each other. In Puerto Rico they touched each other on average 160 times, in France 110 times and in London zero!!
What cultural differences are there in NVC?
‘Display rules’ differ cross-culturally – there is an unwritten rule about the appropriate kind of nonverbal communication in different settings.
Same NV acts can mean different things – e.g. finger move across throat = threat signal in UK but “I love you” in Swaziland!
Explain some of the research done in Japan about decoding emotion.
Matsumoto (1992) - compared U.S. and Japanese participants on recognition of 6 emotions. In Japan they have an unwritten display rule about not displaying too much negative emotion, especially in a public setting.
Americans were better at identifying anger, disgust, fear and sadness
No differences on happiness and surprise
Matsumoto (2002;2008)
perhaps events eliciting emotion differ culturally, but facial muscle movements relatively universal
Masuda et al (2008)
Japanese look at expressions of others in the social context more than Americans when decoding facial expressions.
Americans make judgements based purely on their facial expressions, whereas Japanese people look more at the situation and context
How can NVC differ depending on context?
The same non-verbal acts can mean different things in different situations
We need to understand and appreciate the context of communication
For example - seating arrangements for an interview can impact on eye contact, proximity, imply power and status, etc…
What is an example about the influence of setting and role?
Police
Rozelle et al., 1975
Research has shown that police officers would make very quick judgements about guilt based on the body language of the suspects they were interrogating.
They tend to ignore that the setting of a police interview tends to be very anxiety arousing.
What is an example about the influence of setting and role?
Interview
Rozelle et al., 1986 looked at actor-observer divergence. This is the tendency to attribute one’s own actions to external causes while attributing other people’s behaviors to internal causes
In employment interviews, awkward nonverbal communication is often interpreted by the panel as some kind of flaw in that persons ability/character rather than the result of the stressful situation they have been put in..
How quickly do people make assumptions about a person?
Zajonc (1980) - evaluations based on NVC made within first few seconds of an encounter before people even speak.
This early perception often shapes future thinking of the individual.
What is the importance of non verbal enthusiasm?
Washburn & Hakel (1973) - gazing, gesturing, smiling in an interview can create a liking toward the individual
Keenan (1976) - non-verbal approval is reflected in the interviewee
Strong et al (1971) - counsellors with expressive NVC styles are judged more positively by their clients and may be more effective (see also Bourget, 1977 and Claiborn, 1979)
Can humans detect lies and why?
It may be functional that we are not great at detecting lies
Even when we are correct, we can’t tell what the truth is! (DePaulo et al, 1985)
What is meant by leakage hierarchy?
Ekman & Friesen, 1969
Some channels are better giveaways of deception than others e.g., the face is the least leaky channel.
People know that the face is important in terms of non-verbal communication because when people try to deceive, they try to control their facial expressions.
The most leaky channel seems to be vocal cues - not the language we are using but the way they are speaking.
Why are humans bad at detecting lies?
Stiff & Miller (1984) - judges rely too much on stereotypical beliefs about lying that are often misleading
Any awkward or non-fluent behaviour is often mis- interpreted as signifying lying
- however people could have social anxiety or they might be on the autistic spectrum disorder
Ekman & O’Sullivan (1991) - most of us perform no better than chance at detecting lies
How do people use ‘secret tests’ in relationships?
(Baxter & Wilmot, 1984)
The researchers argue that we use secret tests in relationships by asking partners loaded questions and see if they are lying in their response.
They argue that there is a downside to not being good at detecting deception, which is that while individuals may
embed these secret tests in relationships, they aren’t very good at telling if their partner is lying or not?
When are women worse than men in their sensitivity to nvc?
While their general nvc sensitivity is superior, women are worse at detecting lies than men! (Rosenthal & DePaulo, 1979) - but not in all cultures (Hall, 1979)
How can you be a better liar?
By reducing the number of channels you have to control. E.g., calling without video.
Strategically controlling the constraints can make lying easier and make it harder for those trying to detect it.
Lying is easier when available cues for observers are reduced
Give-aways of lying include: hand to face contacts; body shifts; ‘micro- expressions’
However… the same signs can indicate stress, discomfort, etc…
Can you become better at detecting lies?
Levine et al (2005) – training doesn’t really help
Bond & DePaulo (2008) – while deception ability appears to differ for some people, there is no evidence for individual differences in lie detection ability
What did Vrij 2000 find about lie detection?
Vrij (2000) found a 67% accuracy rate for detecting truths and a 44% accuracy rate for detecting lies.
‘Truth-bias’: People’s tendency to judge other’s messages as being truthful
Vrij and Semin (1996) found that 75% of professional lie detectors (police officers, customs officers and so on) believe that liars look away, although gaze aversion has not been found to be a reliable indicator of deception.
Why can it be difficult to lie?
Liars may experience high levels of emotion and cognitive load which is then associated with leakage in certain non-verbal channels and these may be detectable – this may be why high stake lies are easier to detect
How did Vrij 2000 improve the accuracy of lie detection for observers
Ps watched a film of a theft in a hospital and some asked to tell truth about it, others to lie. High cognitive load because liars had to devise their lies immediately after seeing the film
Their verbal content and body language was coded by observers
High cognitive load is associated with: a longer latency period, more ‘ah’ and ‘non-ah’ speech disturbances, a slower speech rate and fewer illustrators and hand/finger movements
When they trained observers to look out for these cues, their accuracy WAS higher than chance
What did ten Brinke and Porter, 2012 find about murderers who were proven to be guilty when they were lying?
were more likely to express disgust and less likely to express sadness than genuine pleaders - sadness is a much harder expression to feign
use more tentative language and fewer words
expressed upper face surprise and lower face happiness - they had a discrepancy between the upper and lower face
blinked nearly twice as quickly as genuinely distressed individuals but showed no difference in direct gaze duration
Micro expressions occurred rarely and could not be used to distinguish truthful and deceptive interviews
