“Subordination” and Nonverbal Sensitivity: A Study and Synthesis of Findings Based on Trait Measures

We conducted a primary study and a meta-analysis on the relation of trait subordination measures to trait measures of sensitivity to nonverbal cues, in order to test the hypothesis that more subordinate individuals have enhanced ability to decode nonverbal cues. In the primary study, subordination measures included socioeconomic background, two dominance scales, a capacity for status scale, a control by powerful others scale, self-ratings of leadership and social status in high school, and for women, measures of sex role values. Sensitivity to nonverbal cues was measured using three psychometric tests, Results showed little overall support for the subordination hypothesis, and some results were significantly opposite to the prediction. The meta-analysis showed that dominance, capacity for status, socioeconomic status, and women's sex role values all had relations to nonverbal sensitivity that were opposite to the predictions of the subordination hypothesis. Future prospects for the subordination hypothesis with respect to nonverbal sensitivity are discussed.     

Nonverbal signals speak up: Association between perceptual nonverbal dominance and emotional intelligence

Emotional communication uses verbal and nonverbal means. In case of conflicting signals, nonverbal information is assumed to have a stronger impact. It is unclear, however, whether perceptual nonverbal dominance varies between individuals and whether it is linked to emotional intelligence. Using audiovisual stimulus material comprising verbal and nonverbal emotional cues that were varied independently, perceptual nonverbal dominance profiles and their relations to emotional intelligence were examined. Nonverbal dominance was found in every participant, ranging from 55 to 100%. Moreover, emotional intelligence, particularly the ability to understand emotions, correlated positively with nonverbal dominance. Furthermore, higher overall emotional intelligence as well as a higher ability to understand emotions were linked to smaller reaction time differences between emotionally incongruent and congruent stimuli. The association between perceptual nonverbal dominance and emotional intelligence, and more specifically the ability to understand emotions, might reflect an adaptive process driven by the experience of higher authenticity in nonverbal cues.     

Signs of Socioeconomic Status: A Thin-Slicing Approach

ABSTRACT— Socioeconomic status (SES) is a primary determinant of health vulnerabilities and social affiliations. To ascertain if SES is signaled in brief patterns of nonverbal behavior, we had participants of varying SES backgrounds engage in a brief interaction with a stranger. Videos of 60-s slices of these interactions were coded for nonverbal cues of disengagement and engagement, and estimates of participants' SES were provided by naive observers who viewed these videos. As predicted by analyses of resource dependence and power, upper-SES participants displayed more disengagement cues (e.g., doodling) and fewer engagement cues (e.g., head nods, laughs) than did lower-SES participants. Results were also consistent with the thin-slicing literature, in that observers' estimates of SES were reliable with each other and accurately predicted targets' family income, maternal education, and subjective SES. Finally, nonverbal displays of disengagement and engagement predicted observers' estimates of SES, which suggests that these cues are systematic signs of SES. These results have implications for understanding the effect of SES on social interactions and patterns of disengagement and engagement in other realms.     

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.     

Relational message interpretations of nonverbal matching behavior: an application of the social meaning model

The social meaning model asserts that some nonverbal behaviors have consensually recognized relational meanings within a given social community. According to this perspective, the interpretations made by encoders, decoders, and 3rd-party observers of the same nonverbal behavior should be congruent. The authors applied the model to the identification of relational message interpretations of nonverbal matching behavior. Confederates either matched or did not match the nonverbal behaviors of conversational participants while being watched by nonparticipant observers. All three nonconfederate participants provided interpretations of the confederates' relational messages. As the authors had expected, there were moderate correlations between the 3 perspectives, with observers usually providing less favorable assessments than the conversational participants. The authors also examined the influence of positive and negative stimulus behavior on relational message interpretations.     

Perceptual mechanisms that characterize gender differences in decoding women's sexual intent

Men and women often disagree about the meaning of women's nonverbal cues, particularly those conveying dating-relevant information. Men perceive more sexual intent in women's behavior than women perceive or report intending to convey. Although this finding has been attributed to gender differences in the threshold for labeling ambiguous cues as sexual in nature, little research has been conducted to determine etiology. Using a model that differentiates perceptual sensitivity from decisional bias, we found no evidence that men have lenient thresholds for perceiving women's nonverbal behavior as indicating sexual interest. Rather, gender differences were captured by a relative perceptual insensitivity among men. Just as in previous studies, men were more likely than women to misperceive friendliness as sexual interest, but they also were quite likely to misperceive sexual interest as friendliness. The results point to the promise of computational models of perception in increasing the understanding of clinically relevant social processes.     

Relational Message Interpretations of Nonverbal Matching Behavior: An Application of the Social Meaning Model

Abstract

The social meaning model asserts that some nonverbal behaviors have consensually recognized relational meanings within a given social community. According to this perspective, the interpretations made by encoders, decoders, and 3rd-party observers of the same nonverbal behavior should be congruent. The authors applied the model to the identification of relational message interpretations of nonverbal matching behavior. Confederates either matched or did not match the nonverbal behaviors of conversational participants while being watched by nonparticipant observers. All three nonconfederate participants provided interpretations of the confederates' relational messages. As the authors had expected, there were moderate correlations between the 3 perspectives, with observers usually providing less favorable assessments than the conversational participants. The authors also examined the influence of positive and negative stimulus behavior on relational message interpretations.     

Can Deception by Salespersons and Customers Be Detected Through Nonverbal Behavioral Cues?1

Experiments on behavioral lie detection have indicated that observers can detect a communicator's lies with above-chance accuracy, and that detection accuracy may be enhanced when observers pay special attention to certain vocal and body-movement cues. The present experiment asked whether deception in (simulated) sales communications by retail salespersons and automobile customers could likewise be detected nonverbally. Contrary to much of the prior literature, deception-detection in this study was not above chance, apparently because the salespersons' and customers' nonverbal cues simply were not correlated with lying. Though the observers seemed quite suspicious and did not give communicators the “benefit of the doubt”, they could not discriminate the communicators' deceptive communications from their truthful ones. Many—perhaps most—of the lies in sales communications may be told by confident, well-practiced deceivers whose nonverbal behavior is unlikely to reveal their lying.     

Perception of texture by vision and touch: multidimensionality and intersensory integration

A series of six experiments offers converging evidence that there is no fixed dominance hierarchy for the perception of textured patterns, and in doing so, highlights the importance of recognizing the multidimensionality of texture perception. The relative bias between vision and touch was reversed or considerably altered using both discrepancy and nondiscrepancy paradigms. This shift was achieved merely by directing observers to judge different dimensions of the same textured surface. Experiments 1, 4, and 5 showed relatively strong emphasis on visual as opposed to tactual cues regarding the spatial density of raised dot patterns. In contrast, Experiments 2, 3, and 6 demonstrated considerably greater emphasis on the tactual as opposed to visual cues when observers were instructed to judge the roughness of the same surfaces. The results of the experiments were discussed in terms of a modality appropriateness interpretation of intersensory bias. A weighted averaging model appeared to describe the nature of the intersensory integration process for both spatial density and roughness perception.     

Nonverbal behaviors and social evaluation1

Male and female observers watched videotapes of short interactions between previously unacquainted dyads of one sex or the other and then rated one target. An evaluation measure derived from the ratings was positively correlated with a majority of the diverse nonverbal behaviors coded from the videotapes. The significant correlations were all positive and all but one involved social behaviors directed toward the other person. In a multiple regression analysis, nod rate, short vocal back-channel rate, smile time, filled pause rate, and gaze time were sufficient to predict evaluations by either sex. Although no overall effects were found for sex of target, weights for behaviors varied with sex of observer in the second root of a canonical correlation analysis. Consistent with the findings of others, the amount of nonverbal activity, especially socially oriented activity, is related to favorableness of observers' evaluative impressions. The contribution of some behaviors varies with the sex of the observer.     

The road to the unconscious self not taken: Discrepancies between self‐ and observer‐inferences about implicit dispositions from nonverbal behavioural cues

To what extent can individuals gain insight into their own or another person's implicit dispositions' We investigated whether self‐perceivers versus neutral observers can detect implicit dispositions from nonverbal behavioural cues contained in video feedback (cue validity) and whether these cues are in turn used as a valid basis for explicit dispositional inferences (cue utilization). Across three studies in the domains of extraversion and anxiety we consistently obtained reliable cue validity and cue utilization for neutral observers but not for self‐perceivers. An additional measure of state inferences in Study 3 showed that one reason for the lack of mediation in self‐perceivers is their reluctance to use their state inferences as a basis for more general trait inferences. We conclude that people have a ‘blind spot’ with respect to the nonverbal behavioural manifestations of their unconscious selves, even though neutral observers may readily detect and utilize this information for dispositional inferences. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effects of behavioural and cultural expectation cues on the perception of social episodes

The effects of behavioural and cultural expectation cues on the perception of a dyadic encounter were studied, using realistic videotaped interactions as stimuli. Intimate and non-intimate non-verbal interactions and intimate and non-intimate episode definitions were combined in a 2 × 2 design and presented to subjects who rated both information sources separately (N = 20) as well as in congruent and incongruent combinations (N = 48). The contribution of each of these two cues to ratings of the combined episodes was analysed by Frijda's (1969) average relative shift technique, and a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) procedure. Results indicated that behavioural cues dominate perceptions, but this dominance is reduced in incongruent cue combinations, suggesting a weighted averaging strategy. Perceptions of the relationship between the interactants were more resistant to behaviour cue dominance than perceptions of the interaction. An analysis of open-ended accounts by subjects substantiated these findings. The results suggest that cultural expectations of interaction episodes have a salient and non-obvious effect on social perception.     

Nonverbal behavior and the vertical dimension of social relations: a meta-analysis

The vertical dimension of interpersonal relations (relating to dominance, power, and status) was examined in association with nonverbal behaviors that included facial behavior, gaze, interpersonal distance, body movement, touch, vocal behaviors, posed encoding skill, and others. Results were separately summarized for people's beliefs (perceptions) about the relation of verticality to nonverbal behavior and for actual relations between verticality and nonverbal behavior. Beliefs/perceptions were stronger and much more prevalent than were actual verticality effects. Perceived and actual relations were positively correlated across behaviors. Heterogeneity was great, suggesting that verticality is not a psychologically uniform construct in regard to nonverbal behavior. Finally, comparison of the verticality effects to those that have been documented for gender in relation to nonverbal behavior revealed only a limited degree of parallelism.     

Interpersonal perception in Japanese and British observers

We compared performance of Japanese and British observers in deciphering images depicting Japanese interpersonal relationships. 201 Japanese and 215 British subjects were assessed by means of a test consisting of 31 photograph problems accompanied by two or three alternative solutions one of which was correct. Japanese subjects outperformed British subjects on the test overall (z = 3.981, p < 0.001). A two-factor ANOVA (culture x gender) was performed for each of the problems. A cultural effect was found in 17 problems. Surprisingly, British subjects outperformed Japanese subjects in 7 of these problems. There was a gender effect in 4 problems and a culture x gender interaction in 6 problems. The results indicate that cultural experience facilitates nonverbal appraisal of interpersonal relationships, but it may sometimes cause specific errors. Differences in the perceptual cues used suggest that British subjects had difficulty reading Japanese facial expressions.     

Same same but different!? The differential influence of smilies and emoticons on person perception

Emoticons (ASCII-based character strings) and smilies (pictograms) are widely used in computer-mediated communication as substitutes to compensate for the absence of nonverbal cues. Although their usage has been investigated in numerous studies, it remains open whether they provoke differential effects and whether they lead to person perception patterns similar to what is known from face-to-face interactions. Based on findings from research about person perception and nonverbal communication, we investigated the differential effects of smilies and emoticons with regard to recipients' mood, message evaluation, and person perception in an experimental online study (n=127) with a 2(smiley/emoticon) by 2(positive/negative) between-subjects design (with an additional control condition). Results generally support earlier findings, indicating that the valence of the cue (smiley or emoticon) affects the corresponding impression formation. Further, findings concerning the differential influence of both forms of cues show that there are no differences with regard to message interpretation, whereas smiling smilies have a stronger impact on personal mood than smiling emoticons. The perception of a writer's commitment was only altered by smilies, suggesting that they elicit a stronger impact than emoticons.     

The interactive effects of facial expressions of emotion and verbal messages on perceptions of affective meaning

The influence of facial expressions of emotion on perceptions of affective sentence meaning was investigated by pairing happy, angry, suprised, and sad faces of “teachers” with sentences of varying affective tone. Ninety-five students judged the overall meaning communicated by these paired stimuli. The design allowed exploration of unique facial-verbal combination effects, overall cue integration effects, and sex differences. Clear effects of cue combinations emerged. Perceived sincerity was found to be a function of the consistency of evaluative (positivity) but not dominance cues. Perceived positivity was an interactive function of both evaluative cues and dominance cues. Perceived dominance was affected by the interaction of evaluative cues. The subtleties of cue combination were clarified through open-ended dependent measures. Also, as expected, females were found to be more sensitive than males to verbal-nonverbal cue conflict in perceptions of sincerity. However, no other sex differences were found. The findings were discussed with regard to the need for a firm empirical base upon which to integrate verbal and nonverbal research traditions in the communication of affective meaning.     

Identifying emergent leaders from verbal and nonverbal communications.

Subject/observers were accurate in identifying emergent leadership hierarchies on four leadership dimensions when provided records of target groups' meetings containing only verbal communications, only nonverbal communications, or both types of behavior. With knowledge of participation rates controlled by covariance, the subject/observers' accuracy scores retained significance in three of the information conditions demonstrating the presence of verbal and nonverbal leadership cues independent of participation rates. The value of verbal and nonverbal communications to identifying leaders varied with the type of leadership hierarchy being identified. The findings are presumed to hold for leader selection as well. The author proposes that the question of why a group member has emerged to fulfill a leadership role in a group be studied from the point of view of group members' selecting leaders or permitting emergence rather than leaders emitting behaviors.     

Social functioning using direct and indirect measures with children with High Functioning Autism,nonverbal learning disability,and typically developing children

Social perception is an important underlying foundation for emotional development and overall adaptation. The majority of studies with children with High Functioning Autism (HFA) or nonverbal learning disabilities (NLD) evaluating social functioning have used measures of parent and/or teacher ratings. The present study utilized parent and teacher ratings of behavior as well as executive functioning in addition to direct measures of social perception. Three groups participated in this study (control [n = 38] HFA [n = 36], NLD [n = 31]). Results indicated that the HFA group experienced the most difficulty understanding emotional cues on the direct measure while both the HFA and NLD groups experienced difficulty with nonverbal cues. Significant difficulties were reported on the parent rating scale for sadness and social withdrawal for both clinical groups. Executive functioning was found to be particularly problematic for the clinical groups. The direct social perception measure was highly correlated with the measures of executive functioning and reflects the contribution that executive functions have on social functioning. These findings suggest that the clinical presentation on behavior rating scales may be very similar for children with HFA and NLD. Moreover, it appears that measures of executive functioning are sensitive to the clinical difficulties these groups experience. The findings also suggest there is a commonality in these disorders that warrants further investigation.     

Gender differences in dominance and affiliation during a demanding interaction

Evolution theory predicts that in social situations, men will show more behavioral dominance, whereas women will show more behavioral affiliation. To ensure maximum ecological validity, observation in a real-life situation that calls for uniform behavior is the strongest test. To reduce bias because of stereotyping within observers, the author used molecular behavioral observations, in which the verbal and nonverbal behavior of 10 men and 10 women was observed in an executive job selection assessment center where they were actual applicants. Men showed more dominance, especially head shaking, sitting in a closed posture, and using closed questions and directive remarks. Women showed more affiliation, especially in frequency of laughing, sitting in an open posture, and posing open questions.