Interviewer evaluations of interviewee nonverbal behavior

Personnel representatives (N = 52) were shown one of four videotaped job interviews in which the verbal content of the 16-min interview was identical, but the interviewee's nonverbal behavior was manipulated. A “low nonverbal” interviewee was defined by minimal eye contact, low energy level, lack of affect and voice modulation, and a lack of speech fluency. The “high nonverbal” interviewee demonstrated the opposite behavior on each of these components. The subjects were asked to rate the videotaped candidates on dimensions previously identified as critical in influencing a job interviewer's decisions. Nonverbal behavior was found to have a significant effect on almost every rating made by subjects in this study. After reviewing the entire 16-min interview, 23 of the 26 subjects who saw the “high nonverbal” candidate would have invited him/her for a second interview. All 26 of the subjects who saw the “low nonverbal” candidate would not have recommended a second interview.     

Recognition of nonverbal affect and schizotypy

The authors assessed the degree to which schizotypal characteristics in a nonclinical population were associated with impairments in the ability to correctly identify emotions as expressed in facial, paralinguistic, and postural cues. Participants completed the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ; A. Raine, 2005), and the 3 receptive subtests of the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy-2 (DANVA2; S. Nowicki Jr., 2005). The SPQ subscales No close friends and Suspiciousness were correlated with impaired ability to correctly identify postural affective cues on the DANVA2. Unusual perceptual experiences were correlated with deficits in the ability to identify emotions on the DANVA2 paralinguistic measure. Impairments in the ability to correctly perceive and respond to expressions of affect may be part of a deficit in social cognition that contributes to development of schizotypal traits.     

Sex differences in nonverbal behavior

A variety of nonverbal behaviors was coded from videotapes of 88 dyadic conversations. The 44 male and 44 female subjects were paired so that each participated in one conversation with a stranger of the same sex and one conversation with a stranger of the opposite sex. It was found that sex of subject, but not sex of partner, had a significant effect on many of the nonverbal behaviors displayed during the conversations. Subjects' scores on the behavioral measures were correlated with their scores on several personality measures and on a post-conversation questionnaire. Sex differences in these correlations were used to generate hypotheses linking specific behavioral differences between the sexes to more general differences between the masculine and feminine interpersonal styles.This study was supported in part by NSF grant GS-3033, awarded to Starkey Duncan, University of Chicago; by NSF grant GS-3127, awarded to Donald Fiske, University of Chicago; by a grant awarded to Starkey Duncan and Donald Fiske by the Social Science Divisional Research Committee of the University of Chicago; and by a University of Chicago Humanities Fellowship awarded to the author. The author is grateful to Starkey Duncan and Donald Fiske for the extensive assistance they provided with this study. The author also wishes to express her appreciation to Jeanine Carlson, George Niederehe, Bruno Repp, Thomas Shanks, and Cathy Stepanek, who assisted in coding the videotaped data and in the statistical analysis. This article is based on the author's doctoral dissertation (Beekman, 1973), which may be consulted for further details.Previous drafts of this article have been circulated under the author's former name, Susan J. Beekman.     

Social influence on metacognitive evaluations: The power of nonverbal cues

Metacognitive evaluations refer to the processes by which people assess their own cognitive operations with respect to their current goal. Little is known about whether this process is susceptible to social influence. Here we investigate whether nonverbal social signals spontaneously influence metacognitive evaluations. Participants performed a two-alternative forced-choice task, which was followed by a face randomly gazing towards or away from the response chosen by the participant. Participants then provided a metacognitive evaluation of their response by rating their confidence in their answer. In Experiment 1, the participants were told that the gaze direction was irrelevant to the task purpose and were advised to ignore it. The results revealed an effect of implicit social information on confidence ratings even though the gaze direction was random and therefore unreliable for task purposes. In addition, nonsocial cues (car) did not elicit this effect. In Experiment 2, the participants were led to believe that cue direction (face or car) reflected a previous participant's response to the same question—that is, the social information provided by the cue was made explicit, yet still objectively unreliable for the task. The results showed a similar social influence on confidence ratings, observed with both cues (car and face) but with an increased magnitude relative to Experiment 1. We additionally showed in Experiment 2 that social information impaired metacognitive accuracy. Together our results strongly suggest an involuntary susceptibility of metacognitive evaluations to nonverbal social information, even when it is implicit (Experiment 1) and unreliable (Experiments 1 and 2).     

Some referents and measures of nonverbal behavior

This paper summarizes some of the measures of nonverbal behavior that have been found to be significant indicators of a communicator’s attitude toward, status relative to, and responsiveness to his addressee. The nonverbal cues considered include posture, position, movement, facial, and implicit verbal cues. In addition to providing criteria for the scoring of these cues, experimental findings that relate to the various cues are summarized.     

How interviewers' nonverbal behaviors can affect children's perceptions and suggestibility

We conducted two studies to examine how interviewers' nonverbal behaviors affect children's perceptions and suggestibility. In the first study, 42 8- to 10-year-olds watched video clips showing an interviewer displaying combinations of supportive and nonsupportive nonverbal behaviors and were asked to rate the interviewer on six attributes (e.g., friendliness, strictness). Smiling received high ratings on the positive attributes (i.e., friendly, helpful, and sincere), and fidgeting received high ratings on the negative attributes (i.e., strict, bored, and stressed). For the second study, 86 8- to 10-year-olds participated in a learning activity about the vocal chords. One week later, they were interviewed individually about the activity by an interviewer adopting either the supportive (i.e., smiling) or nonsupportive (i.e., fidgeting) behavior. Children questioned by the nonsupportive interviewer were less accurate and more likely to falsely report having been touched than were those questioned by the supportive interviewer. Children questioned by the supportive interviewer were also more likely to say that they did not know an answer than were children questioned by the nonsupportive interviewer. Participants in both conditions gave more correct answers to questions about central, as opposed to peripheral, details of the activity. Implications of these findings for the appropriate interviewing of child witnesses are discussed.     

Cognition and affect in evaluations of stereotyped group members

The contribution of cognition and affect to evaluations of stereotyped group members was examined. Subjects were American male undergraduates who evaluated a male homosexual or a male heterosexual applicant to a program in elementary education or fine arts. Cognitive measures used to predict evaluations were the discrepancies between stereotype components for the social category and stereotype components for the occupation; affective measures were four dimensions of mood-affect. Results indicated that negative affect predicted evaluations of homosexuals but not heterosexuals. Homosexuals were evaluated less favorably than heterosexuals for both occupations, despite the fact that homosexuals were perceived as less discrepant from occupational members than heterosexuals.     

Encoding and decoding of nonverbal behavior through facial expressions

Ten males and ten females served as both senders and receivers of nonverbal expressions in an experiment designed to examine various kinds of sending-receiving relationships. While the overall sending-receiving relationship for five types of expressions combined was positive and nearly statistically significant (.10 > p > .05), the category-specific sending-receiving relationships were near zero in magnitude or slightly negative. Sending-receiving relationships that were category specific and involved same-sex communication attempts only were found to be more negative with some being statistically significant. Females were found to be significantly better receivers but not significantly better senders than males. The results were discussed in terms of recent theoretical notions concerning sending and receiving processes.     

Perception of sexual experience: The impact of nonverbal behavior

A study was conducted to determine if nonverbal displays of masculinity and femininity can lead subjects to make inferences about the sexual experience of a person. It was predicted that male and female stimulus persons who displayed nonverbal masculine expressions would be seen as more sexually experienced, and more sexual in general, than those who exhibited feminine expressions. The results strongly supported this prediction. It was also expected that the stimulus persons displaying sex-appropriate behaviors would be evaluated more positively. This prediction was supported only for male stimulus persons.     

The effect of nonverbal teacher approval on student attentive behavior

The effect of contingent nonverbal teacher approval on student attentive behavior was examined in a classroom with 12 retarded children. After baseline data were gathered on contingent verbal and nonverbal teacher approval and student attentive behavior, the teacher was instructed to increase her use of contingent nonverbal approval (smiles and physical contact) and to maintain her baseline level of verbal approval. After a reversal phase, the nonverbal approval phase was reinstated. Nonverbal teacher behaviors increased during the experimental phases, whereas verbal teacher approval (alone or in conjunction with nonverbal behaviors) did not increase. Attentive behavior increased for 11 of 12 students during the phases in which contingent nonverbal teacher approval increased. Correlational data suggested that nonverbal teacher approval accounted for behavior change of the students to a greater extent than did changes in the amount of teacher approval per se or in the teacher's use of verbal approval.     

Power moves: complementarity in dominant and submissive nonverbal behavior

Two studies examine complementarity (vs. mimicry) of dominant and submissive nonverbal behaviors. In the first study, participants interacted with a confederate who displayed either dominance (through postural expansion) or submission (through postural constriction). On average, participants exposed to a dominant confederate decreased their postural stance, whereas participants exposed to a submissive confederate increased their stance. Further, participants with complementing responses (dominance in response to submission and submission in response to dominance) liked their partner more and were more comfortable than those who mimicked. In the second study, complementarity and mimicry were manipulated, and complementarity resulted in more liking and comfort than mimicry. The findings speak to the likelihood of hierarchical differentiation.     

Operant modulation of low-level attributes of rule-governed behavior by nonverbal contingencies

A low-level and nonsalient attribute of behavior (i.e., speed of pressing) was subjected to differential nonverbal operant reinforcement when rules governed a high-level attribute of that behavior (i.e., counting by means of key presses). Unknown to the subjects, reinforcers depended on reduced (slow group) or increased (fast group) speed of pressing rather than on the correct number of presses. The reinforced attribute was modulated according to the arranged speed contingencies independently of the instructed task and independently of subjects' awareness of the critical contingency. A control group receiving random reinforcers demonstrated no systematic speed changes. Possible mechanisms related to behavior changes of this type were examined and discussed, and it was concluded that the behavior changes observed in this situation could be attributed to operant conditioning. The results substantiate the assumption that nonverbal operant contingencies may modulate low-level and nonsalient attributes of rule-governed behavior.     

Effects of nonverbal behavior on perceptions of a female employee's power bases

The authors extended a previous examination of the effects of nonverbal behavior on perceptions of a male employee's power bases (H. Aguinis, M. M. Simonsen, & C. A. Pierce, 1998) by examining the effects of nonverbal behavior on perceptions of a female employee's power bases. U.S. undergraduates read vignettes describing a female employee engaging in 3 types of nonverbal behavior (i.e., eye contact, facial expression, body posture) and rated their perceptions of the woman's power bases (i.e., reward, coercive, legitimate, referent, expert, credibility). As predicted, (a) direct eye contact increased perceptions of coercive power, and (b) a relaxed facial expression decreased perceptions of all 6 power bases. Also as predicted, the present results differed markedly from those of Aguinis et al. (1998) regarding a male employee. The authors discuss implications for theory, future research, and the advancement of female employees.     

Matching attidudes towards cartoons across evaluative judgments and nonverbal evaluative behavior

Summary Attitude responses and behavior were theoretically treated as two modalities in a psychophysical matching task. The total response pattern was expected to vary in terms of (a) covariation between modalities and (b) shifts in central tendencies within modalities. Subjects watched a series of humorous and disgusting cartoons on nonsense and women-related topics and evaluated each cartoon using an attitude rating scale. Their facial expressions were secretly videotaped. The tapes were content-analyzed by raters for the amount of nonverbal mirth and of disgust. Independent variables were: (1) Instruction for self-observation (yes/no), (2) Instructions to identify the kind of cartoon (yes/no), (3) Sex of subject (male/female), and (4) Kind of cartoon (nonsense or women-related). The correlation across the total set of cartoons between the two modalities was r=0.88. Self-observation and kind of cartoon affected the strength of covariation of the modalities: sex of subjects and kind of cartoon had a biasing influence on the central tendency of responses.     

Disagreement and causal learning: Others' hypotheses affect children's evaluations of evidence

When children evaluate evidence and make causal inferences, they are sensitive to the social context in which data are generated. This study investigated whether children learn more from evidence generated by an agent who agrees with them or from one who disagrees with them. Children in two age groups (5- and 6-year-olds and 9- and 10-year-olds) observed the functioning of a machine that lit up and played music in the presence of certain objects. After endorsing one of two plausible causal hypotheses, children observed a puppet either agree or disagree with their own hypotheses. The puppet then generated a further piece of evidence that confirmed, disconfirmed, or was neutral with respect to the children's hypotheses. When they were later asked to make causal inferences about objects they did not directly observe, children in both age groups responded differentially to identical evidence depending on whether the agent agreed or disagreed, and they often drew stronger inferences in response to disagreement. In addition, older children were particularly sensitive to disagreement when the evidence was ambiguous. Our results suggest that children consider the relationship between their own and others' hypotheses when evaluating evidence that others generate. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Predictive gaze cues affect face evaluations: The effect of facial emotion

When we see someone change their direction of gaze, we spontaneously follow their eyes because we expect people to look at interesting objects. Bayliss and Tipper (2006) examined the consequences of observing this expectancy being either confirmed or violated by faces producing reliable or unreliable gaze cues. Participants viewed different faces that would consistently look at the target, or consistently look away from the target: The faces that consistently looked towards targets were subsequently chosen as being more trustworthy than the faces that consistently looked away from targets. The current work demonstrates that these gaze contingency effects are only detected when faces create a positive social context by smiling, but not in the negative context when all the faces held angry or neutral expressions. These data suggest that implicit processing of the reward contingencies associated with gaze cues relies on a positive emotional expression to maintain expectations of a favourable outcome of joint attention episodes.     

Client gender and sex-typed nonverbal behavior: Impact on impression formation

The influence of sex-typed nonverbal behavior of male and female clients on college students' perceptions was investigated. In a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design, 156 male and female college students were exposed to a videotaped interview during which either a male or female client displayed either masculine or feminine sex-typed nonverbal behaviors. Subjects rated the perceived characteristics, prognosis for improvement, and problems of the client. Hypothesized main effects for client gender and sex-typed nonverbal behavior did not obtain. However, the hypothesized client gender by sex-typed nonverbal behavior interaction was found. This result was due primarily to a pervasive tendency to stigmatize the female clients displaying masculine sex-typed behaviors, in comparison to male clients displaying these same behaviors. Possible explanations and implications for these observed effects were discussed.