Social psychology: concepts and applications

Social Psychology

Smiling and Head Tilting

Importance in nonverbal communication according to Brazilian study

The Nature of Rapport and Its Nonverbal Correlates

Defining and developing rapport

Nonverbal correlates of rapport

Method for Teaching About Verbal and Nonverbal Communication

Instructional techniques that make use of the Interpersonal Perception Task (IPT)

Instructional uses of the IPT

Evaluation of the IPT as a teaching method

NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION

The purpose of this paper is to introduce, discuss, and analyze three journal articles on nonverbal communication. Specifically, it will contain a written review summarizing what the studies were, and what their findings were.

NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION

The first journal article profiled a study on head tilting and smiling, and what effect it had on the perception of the person. The importance of this study is two-fold. First, there had been few studies on smiling and the perception of smiling before this study was completed, and most of the studies did not concentrate on different ways of smiling or moving the head. Secondly, this study focused on how these gestures are considered "micropolitical," and so a strong form of nonverbal communication between people. The researchers used four different types of smiles, from none, to a broad smile, and two different head postures, and made slides of each combination, which they showed to a panel of subjects. "The combination of the four levels of facial expression with the two levels of head posture resulted in a total of 8 slides of each stimulus person" (Otta et al. 325). They also used "average" looking people, so the results would not be skewed by a person's attractiveness or appeal.

Ultimately, the researchers discovered that head posture had a "weaker" effect on the viewer than smiling did. What this shows is how powerful nonverbal communication can be, even when first meeting a person. How we perceive their movements and facial expressions can give us clues to how they are feeling, and how we might interact with them. These clues include how happy the person is, how reliable they are, how sympathetic they are, and how optimistic they are. All these qualities were perceived simply from a photograph, not from a physical meeting with the person. The study concluded that smiling is an extremely important form of nonverbal communication, and it is used universally as a recognizable and pleasing form of nonverbal communication.

Adding a smile resulted generally in a more favorable perception of a stimulus person by this sample of Brazilians, as it has for Chinese, Americans, Germans, Colombians, Thais, and Zambians. Smiling is probably a universal response among human beings. Happiness, generally indicated by smiling, is one of the six basic emotions universally present and understood (Otta et al. 329).

The second article discussed rapport as another important form of nonverbal communication, and how rapport changes as a relationship matures. The authors' note,

Clinicians try to develop it with patients, sales personnel try to use it to make a deal, and new acquaintances try to predict from it the future of a relationship with one another. The concept of rapport is so familiar to psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, social workers, ministers, managers, and the general public that almost everyone has a rough-and-ready working definition of it (Tickle-Degnen and Rosenthal 285).

They also note rapport is not a personality trait, and must exist between individuals, and there are three essential components that make up rapport, including "mutual attentiveness," "positivity," and "coordination between the participants." Nonverbal communication is essential in these interactions, because these feelings of togetherness and mutual understanding often take place with no verbal communication after the relationship has been established. Early on in relationships, we tend to present ourselves as positively as possible. After rapport is established and grows, we might not feel the need to present ourselves in such a perfect light, and feel more comfortable, so we can give off nonverbal clues that we are more comfortable and secure in the relationship. "Nonverbal behavior, as a particularly powerful medium of affective communication, would be a key element in the mediation and emergence of feelings of rapport between participants" (Tickle-Degnen and Rosenthal 288). Many nonverbal clues signal a growing rapport between individuals and groups, including "movement among the limbs of the body, shifts in posture, fluctuations in facial expressions, and so on" (Tickle-Degnen and Rosenthal 288). As rapport grows, so does the familiarity with nonverbal communication and nonverbal clues of intimacy and knowledge.

The study concluded that nonverbal communication and rapport go hand in hand, and are extremely important in developing meaningful and lasting relationships among individuals and groups.

The third article discusses teaching nonverbal communication by using the Interpersonal Perception Task (IPT). This study acknowledges the importance of the study of nonverbal communication in psychology and sociology. "Nonverbal behavior discloses critical information about emotions and relationships. Even barely perceptible nonverbal behaviors can have interpretable meaning -- for example, we can recognize a person's facial expressions of emotion from as little as a 1/24th-s exposure" (Costanzo 223). Nonverbal communication can only occur between individuals or groups, it cannot happen in isolation, and nonverbal communication can be even more important than verbal communication in many ways.

The IPT uses photos, as the smiling study did. Participants view photos and then are asked questions about what they have seen. While the scenes contain verbal communication, they also contain nonverbal movement and clues, and there are specific answers for each scene. "The IPT challenges viewers to identify the right answer to each question by using the broad range of communication present in each scene (e.g., facial expressions, words, tones of voice, hesitations, eye movements, gestures, personal space, posture, and touching)" (Costanzo 224). The IPT is extremely useful in assessing how viewers perceive and react to nonverbal communication, and to point out the differences between verbal and nonverbal communication. Teachers can evaluate their students, discover how they react to nonverbal clues and mannerisms, and understand that everyone reacts a little differently to these clues.