PS2030 -Lecture notes 10 PDF

Preview

Summary

Lecture 10: Non-verbal communication (NVC) Lecture Outline: Functions of NVC Different channels of NVC Culture and NVC Lies, deception and NVC Functions of NVC - Patterson (1988) lists some of the functions of NVC o To provide information to others o To regulate interaction (e. turn-taking) o To exp...

Description

Lecture 10: Non-verbal communication (NVC) Lecture Outline: - Functions of NVC - Different channels of NVC - Culture and NVC - Lies, deception and NVC

Functions of NVC - Patterson (1988) lists some of the functions of NVC o To provide information to others o To regulate interaction (e.g. turn-taking) o To express intimacy (e.g. liking) o To attempt to exert social control o Presentation o Affect management o Facilitating service or task goals - Evolutionary approaches (e.g. Ekman’s work on expression of emotion – draws upon Darwin, 1872) – ‘Duchenne smile’ o Children born blind will smile and laugh

Patterson (1995, 1998, 2001):- Parallel- processing model of NVC - He outlined that NVC has four ‘classes’ of factors: § Determinants (biology, culture, gender, personality) • These are the causes of the different kinds of nonverbal cues. • For example, biology, but also culture (such as sticking the middle finger at someone) • Our own personality may also highly influence; for example a more extroverted individual may be more prone to NVC § Social environment (partner, setting) • The environment we find ourselves in influences NVC § Cognitive-affective mediators (expectancies, goals, dispositions, cognitive resources, attention focus, schemas) • Things like stereotypes and cognitive schemes impact how we give off and how we decode nonverbal cues § Person-perception and behavioural processes (impression formation, actor behaviour) • How we form impressions of others which are important and things like act or observe differences in attributions - Many judgements that we make about non-verbal cues happen outside of our conscious awareness; almost as if considered as automatic judgements. o For example, when newborns cry, the parent immediately becomes anxious and agitated. This is a biological factor incorporated between the newborn and parent

-

-

-

-

-

-

Channels of NVC Facial expression Gaze and pupil dilation Gestures, body movements and posture o Stereotype: Italians use their hands to gesture quite a lot Touch/bodily contact Spatial behaviour (‘proxemics’) o How close you stand to someone can communicate liking or disliking Clothing o Clothing may be considered as part of someone’s identity, for example heavymetal lovers usually wear a specific type of clothing range o Someone who wears a leather jacket with chains may be communicating their interest in a certain music genre Non-linguistic aspects of speech o These are things like pauses and delays (ums and ahs), as well as speech tone Smell (e.g. use of perfumes) o People may try to control smells in a way which is like a channel of communication § An individual may not wear the same perfume on a first date, and to the office. Differences in sensitivity There are differences in the way individuals are sensible to non-verbal cues: Some clinical disturbances affect non-verbal encoding and decoding (e.g. Schizophrenia, ASD) § Encoding à you sending out nonverbal cues § Decoding à you understanding others non-verbal cues o Individuals on the autistic spectrum, for example, may be negatively impacts in their sensitivity for non-verbal encoding and decoding Overall, women are more sensitive to non- verbal cues and decode them more accurately than men o This may be due to evolutionary reasons o Strong cross-cultural evidence for this, apart from one exception in which women do worse than men when it comes to NVC (e.g. Hall, 1979; Rosenthal & DePaulo, 1979; Rosip & Hall, 2004) Age affects the ability to decode non-verbal cues o Older individuals (aged 70+) are worse at lying, as well as detecting deception Training can improve sensitivity o There is evidence that individuals can be trained to improve sensitivity

NVC Channels - Examples The Spatial channel - Proxemics - Spatial metaphors are common o Whenever talking about relationships; we say growing closer to somebody, or growing apart from somebody as metaphors for how we feel towards people. - Space can convey liking/disliking o At a night out if you find someone you like, you may convey liking by staying closer to them. Oppositely, if you do not like someone that may be trying to hit on you you may give them the shoulder.

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Space can convey power and control:- e.g. Kane (1971) - violent prisoners and personal space o Kane (1971) found that the more violent prisoners in prisons tended to command an invisible zone of space around them. o So for example, whenever sitting down in a refectory these violent prisoners would leave the chairs next to them free, yet nobody would sit next to them because they still managed to have power and control Hall (1966) - in different settings we are comfortable with different distances o Hall shows that we have a ‘dictionary’ of nonverbal communication, depending on the setting that we are in, the meaning of the non-verbal cues can change. Culture and proxemics (Hall, 1966) o Culture impacts the meaning of distance as well. o For example, Hall (1966) showed that in countries in the Middle East it is quite common to stay very close to someone whenever having a conversation when them; and if the person does not stand so close it can be seen as rude o Oppositely, in North America we do not invade other individuals’ personal space whenever having a conversation with somebody Touch Touch can be considered as an extremely powerful channel, highly linked with emotion and relationships o In fact, something as a fleeting touch or holding somebody’s hand whenever scared and anxious can help calm people down and aid then relax. Research has shown that even fleeting, incidental touches can have marked effects: o Crusco & Wetzel (1984) § Showed that if a waitress touches the hand of a costumer as they present them the bill at the end of the meal, there will be a higher chance for larger tips. § Additionally, they showed that the costumers given the larger tips because they had been touched by the waitress were not necessarily processing the touch at a conscious level. o This illustrates that our response to non-verbal cues doesn’t always happen consciously o Similarly, Fisher, Rytting and Heslin (1976) showed that there was a greater liking for librarian and library if touched on hand by librarian. However, only female participants were affected. Facial expression as a channel Like touch, facial expression is an mportant channel and is highly associated with conveying emotion o Based on this idea, Ekman et al (1972) demonstrated that there is a set of core emotions which are expressed facially in the same way throughout the entire world. o These are: happiness, surprise, fear, sadness, anger, disgust expressed the same throughout the world o He went around the world and showed a series of images which showed emotions and all participants indicated the same emotion for all the images Most researchers feel this is a robust finding and strongly suggests a biological evolutionary component to the communication of emotion

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Specifically, it has been shown that there are gender differences; in fact, women attend to faces more than men do. o This was found by using an eye tracker à women will spend more time looking at a face during a communication encounter than men ‘Micro-expressions’ of < 2/5ths second (Haggard & Issacs, 1966) o These are facial expressions that happen so quickly that they are almost outside our conscious awareness. o Recognising emotion is apparently part of emotional intelligence Gaze This is a very powerful and often automatic o Pupil dilatation and blink rate are automatic and not based on conscious movement o It is thought that pupil dilatation response corresponds to liking Observers pay much attention to eyes o Eye tracking shows that when we look at an image of a face, we spend a lot of time looking at the eyes of an individual o this seems to show that subconsciously we are aware that the eyes are really important and can potentially be a way of communication. Sometimes a ‘leaky’ channel à this is a channel that gives away information On the contrary gaze can be used to exert dominance Gaze as a threat signal (Exline & Yellin, 1969; Marsh et al., 1978) o This is seen in humans, but also in the animal kingdom Pupil dilation is associated with liking o Deadly Nightshade plant once used in Italy to affect dilation (atropine) à women believed that bigger pupil dilation made them more attractive Size of pupils acts as a mood signal Pupil size has been used as a proxy measure for something like racial prejudice o Distaste leads to pupil constriction o Excitement leads to expansion Pupil ‘signals’ are sub-consciously sent and processed

Culture and NVC - Example: touch (Jourard, 1966). Couples in San Juan (Puerto Rico), Parisand London. o Jourard (1966) § Studied the interactions between couples at outdoor cafes, and he found that if you observed a couple in San Juan for an hour, they would touch each other, (hand to face or hand on hand) over a hundred times in an hour. § He observed couples in Paris and showed that the interactions are significantly lower maybe 20 or 30 times an hour. § In London he found that, on average, couples were touching for an average of zero times in an hour o Jourard (1966) is a nice example of why we call some cultures, contacts, cultures and not expression is easy to explain why in some cultures, touch is much more prevalent as a nonverbal communication. - ‘Display rules’ differ cross-culturally o Different cultures differ in ideas about when it is appropriate or inappropriate to display certain kinds of non-verbal cues - In different cultures the same NV acts can mean different things – e.g. finger move across throat = threat signal in UK but “I love you” in Swaziland!

-

-

-

-

Culture (2): Decoding emotion Matsumoto (1992) - compared U.S. and Japanese participants on recognition of 6 emotions o Americans were better at identifying anger, disgust, fear and sadness o No differences on happiness and surprise Matsumoto (2002; 2008): o Based on his 1992 study he argues that perhaps emotions like anger and fear are expressed in private in Japan o Additionally, events eliciting emotion differ culturally, but facial muscle movements relatively universal Masuda et al (2008) o Japanese look at expressions of others in the social context more than Americans when decoding facial expressions Additionally, Japanese individuals will also look at social context to decode the expression and emotion the person is feeling.

Complexity and the effect of setting and role The complexity of NVC Nonverbal communication is an extremely complex form of communication. - Its complexity arises from its ability to mean different things in different situations, while maintaining the same non-verbal acts - 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...

-

-

-

-

The influence of setting and role Rozelle, Druckman & Baxter (1975) - police officers and citizens o Researchers showed that police officers were taking into consideration the suspect’s body language and trying to decipher it, but without taking into consideration the setting the suspect was in. o They were not taking into account the impacts of the setting an the fact that if when being interrogated there may be the possibility to be anxious and jittery even if innocent Actor-observer (A-O) divergence o Therefore we are at risk of seeing actor-observer divergence: where actors perceive different reasons for their behavior than observers do. o Essentially the actors, the interviewed person, tends to understand that the setting is impacting their behavior; while observers tend to not give as much importance to the setting the actor is in Rozelle et al (1986) - employment interviews are often affected by A-O divergences o The study showed that members of interview panels tend to be affected by this phenomena, and usually tend to not give interviewees the benefit of the doubt if they perform badly Zajonc (1980) - evaluations based on NVC made within first few seconds of an encounter

Non-verbal enthusiasm Non-verbal enthusiasm through body language highly impacts your surroundings and the people you work with - Washburn & Hakel (1973) - gazing, gesturing, smiling in an interview o This discussed the importance of maintaining gaze whenever in a conversation, as well as the importance of positive gestures in the conversation or interview such as head nods and smiling. - Keenan (1976) - non-verbal approval is reflected in the interviewee o This showed that in employment interviews, if the people doing the interview have NV enthusiasm this tends to impact the person interviewed. § So if the employer shows NV enthusiasm, the interviewee tends to perform better - Strong et al (1971) - counsellors with expressive NVC styles are judged more positively by their clients. o Additionally, this NV enthusiasm may be reflected on how effective their counselling is (see also Bourget, 1977 and Claiborn, 1979) Lies, deception and NVC Can we detect lies? - Individuals are not great at detecting lies, and there is the possibility that this is made as functional thing. o If thinking about pour relationships and how thee are influenced by what we say, it may be made as a functional act to not be able to detect all the lies that we are presented with o Especially as some of the lies we say are white lies made to not hurt our close ones - Even when we are correct, we can’t tell what the truth is! (DePaulo et al, 1985) o Research suggests that even when we can detect lies, we can’t necessarily tell what the truth is. So we can understand if someone is telling a lie but we will not understand what the truth is - ‘Leakage hierarchy’ (Ekman & Friesen, 1969): face least ‘leaky’, body and vocal cues most ‘leaky’ o Leaky non-verbal cues are the channels where the truth is ‘leaking out and we cannot control it. For example, our eyes are very expressive, and these are leaky as a channel - Whenever lying we try to control all our NVC channels, yet we rarely can control all of those channels o There is evidence from the animal kingdom that animals use deception to try and change the behavior of other -

-

Stiff & Miller (1984) - judges rely too much on stereotypical beliefs about lying that are often misleading o Researchers compared what individuals think are deception cues with what really are deception cues, and results showed that usually there is no concordance in results. o We tend to interpret any awkward or non-fluent behaviour as a deception cue, as signifying lying; while often it has nothing to do with it. Ekman & O’Sullivan (1991) - most of us perform no better than chance at detecting lies

o This work suggests that when showing individuals examples of people lying, on average these individuals performed no better than chance at detecting these lies o The study also conducted the tests on different occupations and found that the only occupation in which people performed above average: American Secret Service Agents -

-

-

-

-

-

-

Generally, it is easier to train someone to become a better liar, rather than train someone to become a better decoder of lies. Our lack of skills in detecting lies can sometimes be problematic: o Baxter and Wilmot (1984) discussed this lack of skills in something called ‘secret tests’ in relationships: § Whenever discussing with a partner, we might try to make them jealous in a ‘secret test’; because if they do get jealous it means that they really do like us o However, whenever we do ‘secret tests’ we are often not very accurate in telling whether they are really jealous or simply acting like jealous Rosenthal & DePaulo (1979) concluded that women are worse at detecting lies than men. o This was done through the ‘secret test’ tests However, this difference between men and women is not consistent not in all cultures (Hall, 1979) Situational constraints (Morris, 1982) In some settings we have more control on certain channels in comparison to others. o A defendant on the stand, may be placing their hands and legs under the stand so that nobody sees because of that situational constraint Lying is easier when available cues for observers are reduced Give-aways of lying include: o Hand to face contacts o Body shifts o ‘Micro- expressions’ § These are facial expressions that we cannot control and are very very fast However, the give-aways of lying are the same signs that can indicate stress, discomfort and more Levine et al (2005) – training doesn’t really help o This study showed that training does not help, in fact there is the possibility to find a kind of placebo effect o Whereby you give people lie detect training and you tell them the wrong thing; they may get a little better at detecting lies because the training makes them more sensitive to NVC not because they get better at lying. There is some evidence that you can get better at being sensitive towards microexpressions Bond & DePaulo (2008) – no evidence for individual differences in lie detection ability

-

-

-

-

-

-

RESEARCH STUDIES Vrij, Edward, Roberts, & Bull (2000) Vrij (2000) found a 67% accuracy rate for detecting truths and a 44% accuracy rate for detecting lies. However people tend to have a‘Truth-bias’ o This is the tendency to judge other’s messages as being truthful (Levine, Park, & McCornack,1999; Vrij, 2000). 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 (DePaulo et al., 1985; Vrij, 2000; Zuckerman, DePaulo, & Rosenthal, 1981). Liars may experience high levels of emotion and cognitive load and these may be detectable o This may be why high-stake lies are easier to detect (DePaulo, Kirkendol, Tang, & O’Brien, 1988) § Example experiment: Ps watched a film of a theft in a hospital and were asked to come up with a story about the movie. Some Ps were asked to tell truth about it, others to lie. § The lie conditions created a high cognitive load as liars had to devise their lies immediately after seeing the film § Experimenters observed and coded participants’ verbal content and body language: • 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 • Accuracy WAS higher than chance ten Brinke & Porter, 2012 They studied videos of 78 (35 deceptive) individuals who made televised pleas for the safe return (or information leading to the arrest of an unknown suspect in the murder) of their relative were gathered from news agencies in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States o They then compared genuine versus deceptive pleas o Strong evidence for conviction – e.g. forensics. They showed that the deceptive murderers: o Were more likely to express disgust o Less likely to express sadness than genuine pleaders o Use more tentative language and fewer words o Expressed upper face surprise and lower face happiness o 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 You can train law enforcement and legal professionals to be more sensitive to deception cues like these (see also Mann, Vrij & Bull, 2004)...