Engaging Gaze and Other Eye Behaviors

NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION

This book is dedicated to Sherri, one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.

Sara Miller McCune founded SAGE Publishing in ���� to support the dissemination of usable knowledge and educate a global community. SAGE publishes more than ���� journals and over ��� new books each year, spanning a wide range of subject areas. Our growing selection of library products includes archives, data, case studies and video. SAGE remains majority owned by our founder and after her lifetime will become owned by a charitable trust that secures the company’s continued independence.

Los Angeles | London | New Delhi | Singapore | Washington DC | Melbourne

NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION An Applied Approach

Jonathan M. Bowman

Copyright © ���� by SAGE Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved. Except as permitted by U.S. copyright law, no part of this work may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without permission in writing

from the publisher.

All third party trademarks referenced or depicted herein are included solely for the purpose of illustration and are the property of their respective owners. Reference to these trademarks in no way indicates any relationship with,

or endorsement by, the trademark owner.

FOR INFORMATION:

SAGE Publications, Inc.

���� Teller Road

Thousand Oaks, California �����

E-mail: order@sagepub.com

SAGE Publications Ltd.

� Oliver’s Yard

�� City Road

London, EC�Y �SP

United Kingdom

SAGE Publications India Pvt. Ltd.

B �/I � Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area

Mathura Road, New Delhi ��� ���

India

SAGE Publications Asia-Pacific Pte. Ltd.

�� Cross Street #��-��/��/��

China Square Central

Singapore ������

ISBN: ���-�-����-����-�

Printed in the United States of America

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Acquisitions Editor: Lily Norton

Editorial Assistant: Sarah Wilson

Senior Content Development Editor: Jennifer Jovin-Bernstein

Production Editor: Gagan Mahindra

Copy Editor: Diane DiMura

Typesetter: Hurix Digital

Proofreader: Susan Schon

Indexer: Integra

Cover Designer: Janet Kiesel

Marketing Manager: Staci Wittek

BRIEF CONTENTS Preface Acknowledgments About the Author Chapter � Nonverbal Communication Origins Chapter � Nonverbal Communication Features Chapter � Identity and the Nonverbal Codes Chapter � Kinesics: Engaging Motion and Gestures Chapter � Proxemics: Engaging Personal Space and Interpersonal Distance Chapter � Haptics: Engaging Physical Contact and Touch Chapter � Oculesics: Engaging Gaze and Other Eye Behaviors Chapter � Vocalics: Engaging the Voice and Other Vocalizations Chapter � Physical Appearance: Engaging Identity and Physical Features Chapter �� Environmental Elements: Engaging Fixed and Semi-Fixed Features Chapter �� Chronemics and Olfactics: Cultural Codes of Time and Scent Chapter �� Nonverbal Communication Moving Forward Glossary References Index

DETAILED CONTENTS Preface Acknowledgments About the Author Chapter � Nonverbal Communication Origins

Models of Communication Linear Model of Communication Transactional Model of Communication

Defining Nonverbal Communication Why Isn’t ASL Considered Nonverbal? Nonverbal Communication Primacy

Primacy of Species Primacy of Individual Primacy of Interaction

Nonverbal Communication Channels Channel Reliance

A Summary of Nonverbal Communication Origins Closing Questions Key Terms

Chapter � Nonverbal Communication Features Principles of Nonverbal Messaging

Nonverbal Messaging Is Ubiquitous Nonverbal Messaging Functions in Many Ways Nonverbal Messaging Is Widely Used Nonverbal Messaging Impacts Meaning-Making Nonverbal Messaging Has Primacy Nonverbal Messaging Is Ambiguous Nonverbal Messaging Is Accepted

Digital vs. Analog Representations Message Processing

The Attention Stage The Comprehension Stage

Dialogic Comprehension Empathic comprehension Analytic comprehension

The Memory Stage Nonverbal Communication—Our Innate Ability A Summary of Nonverbal Communication Features Closing Questions Key Terms

Chapter � Identity and the Nonverbal Codes Managing Identities

Sex and Gender Race

Culture Personality Other Identities

Identity, Relationships, and Nonverbal Codes Prominent Nonverbal Codes

Kinesics Proxemics Haptics Oculesics Vocalics Physical Appearance Environment Olfactics Chronemics

A Summary of Identity and the Nonverbal Codes Closing Questions Key Terms

Chapter � Kinesics: Engaging Motion and Gestures Kinesics Communication, Movement, and the Face

Affect Displays Neurocultural Theory Ekman and Friesen’s microexpressions Social signaling

Communication, Movement, and the Hands and Body Illustrators Regulators Adaptors Body Orientation

A Summary of Kinesics: Engaging Motion and Gestures Closing Questions Key Terms

Chapter � Proxemics: Engaging Personal Space and Interpersonal Distance Proxemics

Intimate Zone Personal/Casual Zone Social/Consultative Zone Public Zone

Proxemic Violations Physiological Arousal Perceptions and Expectancy Violations Theory

Deviation Valence Threat Threshold

Interactional Motivations Similarity Difference

Proximity A Summary of Proxemics: Engaging Personal Space and Interpersonal Distance Closing Questions Key Terms

Chapter � Haptics: Engaging Physical Contact and Touch Haptics and Human Development

Early Influences The Harlow Monkey Experiment

Classifying Touch Types of Touch Functions of Touch

Ritualistic Touch Positive Affect Touch Control Touch Playful Touch Task-related Touch Hybrid Touch

Diverse Attitudes Toward Touch Affection Exchange Theory Attachment Theory A Summary of Haptics: Engaging Physical Contact and Touch Closing Questions Key Terms

Chapter � Oculesics: Engaging Gaze and Other Eye Behaviors Oculesics

Looking Toward Gaze Mutual Gaze and Eye Contact

Eye Movement Pupil Dilation

Oculesics and Emotional Displays Attraction/Interest Affection/Interest Threat

A Summary of Oculesics: Engaging Gaze and Other Eye Behaviors Closing Questions Key Terms

Chapter � Vocalics: Engaging the Voice and Other Vocalizations Vocal Characteristics

Vocal Properties Vocal Qualities The Use of Silence

Communication Accommodation Theory Principles of CAT Strategies of CAT

Convergence Divergence

A Summary of Vocalics: Engaging the Voice and Other Vocalizations Closing Questions Key Terms

Chapter � Physical Appearance: Engaging Identity and Physical Features Identity and Self-Esteem Theories of Identity Group Membership

Identity Badges In-Groups and Out-Groups Appearance and Identity

Natural Features Body Shape Facial Attractiveness

Artifacts and Adornments Artifacts Adornments

Body Modifications Tie-Signs and Expressions of Uniqueness A Summary of Physical Appearance: Engaging Identity and Physical Features Closing Questions Key Terms

Chapter �� Environmental Elements: Engaging Fixed and Semi-Fixed Features Environmental Elements Fixed-Feature Environmental Elements Use and Volume of Space

Materials Lines and Curves

Semi-Fixed-Feature Environmental Elements Artifacts Visual Continua

Light Color

Environmental Noise Sounds Temperature

A Summary of Environmental Elements: Engaging Fixed and Semi-Fixed Features Closing Questions Key Terms

Chapter �� Chronemics and Olfactics: Cultural Codes of Time and Scent Codes and Culture

Created by Culture Creating Culture

Group Membership Revisited Chronemics

Biological Chronemics Conceptualizations of Time

Olfactics

Active Scents Passive Scents

A Summary of Chronemics and Olfactics: Cultural Codes of Time and Scent Closing Questions Key Terms

Chapter �� Nonverbal Communication Moving Forward Nonverbal Communication in Review

Communication Potential of the Codes Absorbing Popular Media, Moving Forward Examining Ethical Behavior, Moving Forward Recognizing Diverse Perspectives, Moving Forward Assessing the Self, Moving Forward Applying Nonverbal Principles Across Contexts, Moving Forward A Summary of Nonverbal Communication Moving Forward Closing Questions

Glossary References Index

PREFACE Aren’t you tired of treating a textbook like an optional feature of a course? I know I am! Nonverbal messaging is one of the most exciting topics in the study of human communication, and yet the structure of most course textbooks has students disinterested within the first few weeks. It’s not that the entire course is filled with dull material; instead, the way that the nonverbal communication course has been constrained by texts has underserved students by under-engaging them from the very beginning. As students, teachers, and scholars of nonverbal messaging, we are likely familiar with scholarly literature that describes the importance of first impressions. Why, then, are we subjected to texts that initially lead to disengaged students, when we know about the importance of those first interactions with a course?

By choosing Nonverbal Communication: An Applied Approach , an instructor can scaffold learning to the pace of their own course while taking advantage of the narrative style that keeps students interested. In addition, the writing style meets the needs of current students who otherwise disengage with the very material that may aid in better navigating those daily experiences in a diverse world. While the nonverbal communication course continues to be taught as a foundational course at the advanced sophomore or junior level, most of the textbooks have been written at the advanced undergraduate or graduate level and follow a formulaic style. Rather than being written by teachers and scholars who have immersed themselves in the lived experience of students, many of these books focus on the minutia of nonverbal codes to the exclusion of the relational contexts that best demonstrate an application of nonverbal communication research. Indeed, often a text only gains momentum and finally becomes a truly engaging read in the last couple chapters.

Rather than waiting until the end of the semester to get students’ and teachers’ attention, Nonverbal Communication: An Applied Approach has taken a narrative style and applied approach that is informed by the important theories and research-driven knowledge of our interdisciplinary area of study. At times, such a text may need to sacrifice a focus on the minutiae of a particular researcher’s advanced theoretical assumptions and comprehensive treatment of a theory in order to better convey the larger goals of that researcher’s work. To be sure, most scholars teaching nonverbal communication long for a book that can better engage students and cut back on unnecessary complications in what can be read as relatively parsimonious theories. In order for a nonverbal communication course textbook to be seen as practical, applied, and worth purchasing, the text must take complex course material and breathe life into the work, targeting material to the complex technology-driven lives of today’s undergraduates. By covering the same synthesized scholarship with a new narrative style and a more consistent structure, the material comes alive without losing the summative knowledge of decades of interdisciplinary research.

ENGAGING THE AUDIENCE The textbook Nonverbal Communication: An Applied Approach is aimed primarily at sophomore- and junior-level courses in nonverbal communication, regardless of the specific discipline in which the course is taught (e.g., communication studies or psychology). In addition, honors-level faculty could also assign a weekly scholarly reading from among the chapter references to supplement the text. Such a course typically has an introductory human communication course as a prerequisite that not only introduces human communication but also previews the exciting content in nonverbal communication courses, depending upon the institution. At the same time, this book is written in such a way as to highlight the needed foundational material so that it can even be taught as a

stand-alone core or general education course with great facility. Regardless of institution or discipline, the nonverbal communication course is typically taken by a major or minor in communication (one of the faster growing majors at colleges and universities in North America) or a major or minor in psychology, or perhaps even by a student with an interest in marketing or advertising because of the added value of understanding some nonverbal communication patterns across contexts.

STRUCTURE AND FEATURES OF THE BOOK While the switch to Nonverbal Communication: An Applied Approach should completely change the level of student engagement with the material, the structure of the book is consistent enough with the overall nonverbal communication market so as to not require a complete reworking of instructors’ lesson planning. Indeed, the book starts off with an overview of both nonverbal messaging and the communication contexts and human behaviors in which this universal form of messaging occurs. Moving next to the most significant nonverbal codes, theory-driven conversations begin to emerge as students discover those codes in applied situations that they are likely to encounter in their own lives. Finally, a few intentional relational contexts at the end of the book allow the student to really explore the application of nonverbal course materials in a narrative way.

The main pedagogical devices for Nonverbal Communication: An Applied Approach include integrated box features found in each chapter of the book that highlight important content for the work (rather than serving as additional extraneous information, as so often occurs in many academic textbooks). The foci of these boxes will include the important application and integration of material, designated by a specific action verb often used in nonverbal messaging research. Each chapter includes a box called Measure that focuses on the measurement of a nonverbal construct, using methods from nonverbal research to illustrate operationalization. An important series of boxes in each chapter that focus on issues of diversity and social justice content are titled Engage, highlighting nonverbal communication by including practical, real-world examples of nonverbal communication in diverse contexts. Next, a feature in each chapter called Examine includes opportunities for personal reflection as well as the consideration of the ethics of nonverbal communication as it relates to each chapter. To illustrate course material using modern applications, the Absorb feature references YouTube video clips from current television or film to explore a nonverbal communication behavior in an example from recent media. Finally, each chapter includes Apply scenarios that help students consider how to practice content related to each section within their own social worlds, encouraging students to become more fluent in navigating unique contexts.

In addition to these newer and innovative pedagogical features, many tried-and-true textbook features are also included in Nonverbal Communication: An Applied Approach to ensure that students are able to successfully navigate such important course content. These include the use of learning objectives and guiding questions at the start of each chapter following an application-based opening vignette, many key terms throughout each chapter, an end-of-chapter summary with closing questions, a glossary, and finally, line drawings or photographs that help to illustrate essential course content or show contexts in which that content emerges.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I’d like to thank my beautiful family (Sherri, Michael, and Nala) who always offer encouragement and prayer support. They mean the world to me. I’d also like to thank the incredible team at SAGE led by my editor, Lily Norton, and all the people who have made my time at SAGE so lovely: Jen Jovin-Bernstein, Sarah Wilson, Monica Eckman, Terri Accomazzo, Gagan Mahindra, and the rest of the group that has been working so diligently behind the scenes. Finally, I’d like to acknowledge the hundreds of students both current and former who have made my career so incredibly joyful over the years. I can’t wait to see what we accomplish for the world together!

A COMMUNITY OF SCHOLARS Many scholars and teachers came together to ensure that this text more than met the needs of students and instructors as they come together to learn about nonverbal communication. Your work and commitment to our discipline is without peer. Thanks to the following individuals for their comments on earlier drafts of Nonverbal Communication: An Applied Approach:

Raymond Blanton, The University of the Incarnate Word

Maria Brann, IUPUI

Stellina M. A. Chapman, State University New York at New Paltz

Monica L. Gracyalny, California Lutheran University

Trey Guinn, The University of the Incarnate Word

L. Jake Jacobsen, University of Nebraska at Kearney

Lynn Meade, University of Arkansas

Sara N. Morgan, Old Dominion University

Diana Karol Nagy, University of Florida

Kekeli K. Nuviadenu, Bethune-Cookman University

Naomi Bell O’Neil, Clarion University of Pennsylvania

Jillian K. Pierson, University of Southern California

Robyn Rowe, Missouri State University

Sheida Shirvani, Ohio University–Zanesville

Lisa J. van Raalte, Sam Houston State University

Robin N. Williamson, University of St. Thomas-Houston

Cheryl Wood, The George Washington University

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jonathan M. Bowman, PhD,

professor of communication studies, teaches courses in human communication processes and the methods through which we obtain that knowledge about communication. He is heavily involved in the National Communication Association where he currently serves as the chair of the Nonverbal Communication Division. Bowman’s research focuses on communication processes associated with intimacy and close relationships, with publications addressing nonverbal messaging, male friendships, and small-group communication. He has authored, coauthored, or edited four books, and his most recent book Masculinity and Student Success in Higher Education can be purchased anywhere books are sold. He was the recipient of the National Communication Association Ecroyd Award for Outstanding Teaching in Higher Education, the highest teaching honor in the discipline internationally, as well as the national Western States Communication Association Distinguished Teaching Award. Bowman has also received a Keck Faculty Fellowship for his focus on undergraduate research, an Innovations in Experiential Education Award for his commitment to high-impact practices, as well as an Outstanding Preceptor Award for excellence in teaching and advising. He serves as a mentor to undergraduates in multiple capacities, particularly those students involved in student government, Greek life, academic honors, and campus faith-based organizations.

� NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION ORIGINS

iStock.com/gorodenkoff

Learning Objectives After reading this chapter you will be able to do the following:

Explain types of nonverbal primacy

Compare models of communication

Define nonverbal communication

Understand the impact of channel on messaging

Mika wasn’t thrilled about attending a friend’s start-of-semester get-together, but his new roommate dragged him along to the location a few blocks from campus. Mika didn’t know most of the attendees and wasn’t particularly motivated to meet someone new, so he spent a lot of time looking at memes on his mobile device or pretending to take a few phone calls. After someone spilled a drink on his shoes for what must have been the third time, Mika decided to call it a night and head home. Just as he was headed toward the door, he locked eyes with the most attractive person he had ever seen. After feeling frozen for what seemed like an eternity, he nodded his head and gave a shy smile right as the other person started to turn away. Resigned to leave again, he suddenly saw a smile in response out of the corner of his eye. Mika decided to stick around and give the evening another chance as he switched his phone to airplane mode and ran his fingers through his hair.

From the first impressions that we form about one another to the lifelong social interactions that shape and guide our lives, communication is the primary social process. Without communication, it would prove nearly impossible to navigate our daily lives. Communication allows us to signal a variety of things to one another, from letting our caregivers know we are hungry to warning each other about dangerous predators.� Indeed, most living creatures engage in some form of communication, from the ants marking a trail toward a picnic basket, to the pride of lions using a sophisticated group hunting strategy to avoid starvation. Communication allows groups of creatures—both human and nonhuman—to navigate a complex environment that otherwise may be difficult to survive on one’s own.� Human communication includes the most complicated forms of messaging, as humans use systems of established rule-driven strategies to send messages among themselves for a variety of reasons. Just as we read in the story of Mika above, messaging can be subtle; from indicating interest to avoiding interaction, a variety of verbal and nonverbal messages help us to move throughout our social world.

Guiding Questions

What kinds of messages help form a first impression in a context like the one above?

How do nonverbal signals impact our social experiences?

MODELS OF COMMUNICATION When considering how humans send messages to one another, it is first helpful to ensure that everyone has a similar shared understanding of the basic models of communication. In order to establish a shared vocabulary about the process of communication, we begin with the linear model of communication, which focuses on the transmission of messages to an audience. Then, we will expand that model to include a more transactional understanding of human interaction.

Linear Model of Communication

Over �� years ago, scholars Shannon and Weaver came up with a model of communication messaging that is still one of the most widely known models of communication today.� As can be seen in Figure �.�, this linear model of communication focuses on the transmission of a verbal or nonverbal message to another person or persons. Because of that focus on one-way transmissions, the linear model starts with the person who originates the message, called the sender. The sender begins the process of encoding, converting his or her thoughts into a specific message that he or she hopes an audience will understand. By sending that message through one or more channels, or ways of transmitting a message like a phone call or a written document or even a gesture, he or she can convey that message directly to the target person, also known as the receiver. Once the receiver has heard or seen the message, he or she then begins decoding the meaning from the message and trying to understand the intent of the sender. When Cheance receives a text “Starving! Must eat now LOL” from her new girlfriend Annabelle, as the receiver she needs to decode the message in an attempt to try to understand what Annabelle’s intent was; are they canceling their later reservation and eating separately on their own, or are they getting together earlier than they had previously planned?

Description

Figure �.� Linear Model of Communication

Although perhaps not a comprehensive model thus far, we now have a working set of vocabulary terms about messaging, as well as a basic understanding of how people send messages to one another. Still, the Shannon and Weaver model goes a couple steps further than this general approach, including in the model the concepts of context and noise. Context is defined as the setting in which communication occurs, not only the physical location but also the time and social situation wherein messaging happens. This context influences both the creation and the transmission of a message for a variety of reasons (i.e., influencing the sender’s mood and even restricting the channels that they find available to them.) For example, Evan may be interested in sending a particularly funny meme to his best friend when he’s in church on Sunday morning, but may not do so, in part because of the emotional experience that he’s having or because of his inability to get to his cell phone without offending the other congregants around him. As such, that funny text may have to wait until later that day. That being said, if he looks across his church congregation and sees Ryan in another pew, he might find himself making a funny face or at least trying to catch his best friend’s eye, despite being situated in a context that would suggest other more

reverent behaviors. The concept of noise, on the other hand, describes any barrier to hearing or understanding that detracts from the successful transmission of a message.� Noise might be as simple as a physical sound that stops you from perceiving a message (e.g., physical noise), to a mental state that distracts someone from correctly understanding a message (e.g., psychological noise). In addition, noise could also be a receiver’s physical state like hunger or sleepiness that interrupt his or her ability to decode a message (e.g., physiological noise), or even may include a situation where individuals don’t understand these symbols that are being used in the message due to specific words or pronunciations (semantic noise). The more noise present in a communication context, the more difficult it will be for a receiver to successfully decode the message that a sender has encoded. Take a look at an example of one possible effect of noise in this chapter’s Apply feature, next.

iStock.com/FatCamera

Box �.� Apply Impacts of Noise on a Homecoming Conversation

Clarice and Sarah had been fighting for a long time. Not only had their mutual friends noticed the lack of respect that they had shown to one another at a variety of social events over the past year, but they often commented upon the disrespectful eye rolls and sighs that each exhibited when the other walked into the room or tried to join the conversation. Finally, Clarice decided that “enough was enough.” At the homecoming football game, Clarice finally decided that she and Sarah needed to have a conversation to talk over their issues with one another. Right before the halftime show on their way to order food, Clarice dragged Sarah away from their mutual group of friends over to a patch of grass away from the snack bar. She started a long monologue about their friendship and how they used to be close, taking responsibility for her own contribution to the deterioration of their relationship. As they both sat side by side watching the marching band on the field, Clarice suddenly realized that Sarah didn’t even know that Clarice was talking. With all the distractions on the field, combined with the sounds and the sights of the homecoming festivities, Sarah was just enjoying the evening breeze, oblivious to the relational goals of Clarice. Discouraged, Clarice decided to stop talking and watch the halftime show herself, vowing to maybe try again some other time if she ever got an opportunity.

Even with the most detailed messaging plan, features of the context or of the relationship can impact our communication attempts. The ability of one person to effectively understand the message of another person is influenced by a variety of factors.

APPLY: Consider the features of the context in which Clarice and Sarah just interacted. What were all the individual types of noise that impacted the quality of this communication situation? What should Clarice try to avoid the next time that she wants to try to reach out to Sarah? How have you had noise disrupt your own attempts as messaging?

Transactional Model of Communication

The linear model of communication is a relatively decent way to think about how one person might send a message to someone else. That being said, most communication is perhaps not quite as one sided as this model

may suggest. In most situations, people are sending messages at the same time to each other, with each person serving as both a sender and a receiver of messages throughout the interaction. The transactional model of communication better captures our understanding of that back-and-forth between people, as seen in Figure �.�.� In this model, we are able to add in the concept of feedback, which is the verbal and nonverbal responses that someone gives in reaction to a message that they are receiving—a set of responses that influence future messaging. When Brooke and Adam were discussing restaurants in trying to decide where to have dinner, Adam’s funny facial expressions helped her adapt her messaging on the fly; Adam’s happy or sad faces each time that she suggested a different cuisine type or location helped her eventually decide that they should order some pizza and chill on the couch with a good movie.

Description

Figure �.� Transactional Model of Communication

Besides the addition of feedback, you’ll notice that the transactional model of communication also goes beyond simple unidirectional messaging, or one-way messaging in which people take turns alternating between sender or receiver. Instead, this model highlights that people take on roles as both sender and receiver at the same time (e.g., transactional messaging), with messages and feedback being sent and received simultaneously throughout most communication interactions. When Derek got back from a campus retreat having decided that he wanted to pursue a calling to become a priest, he knew that it would involve some difficult conversations with people he cared about—most of all, his girlfriend Jae-Min. In the conversation, he tried to explain his reasons for breaking up with her, while at the same time expressing his love for her and managing the fact that he was causing her quite a bit of pain. For her own experience, Jae-Min was working hard to manage her own emotions about losing Derek, while also trying to keep alive the spark of hope that Derek seemed to express about his new ambitions. Both Derek and Jae-Min sent verbal and nonverbal messages to one another, from their discussions of hope to their smiles, anger, and tears. As they have difficult conversations like these, couples are often able to manage and adapt their messaging to one another. The tone and manner of these messages can strongly impact how people interpret both nonverbal and verbal messages, as evidenced in the popular media highlighted in this chapter’s Absorb feature.

iStock.com/slavemotion

Box �.� Absorb Sarcasm on Popular Media

Jimmy Fallon is known for his character Sara on The Tonight Show’s popular recurring bit, “Ew!” In the clip below, Sara’s friend Addison (played by John Cena) drops by after a long absence, and the two friends reminisce and catch up about life.

“‘Ew!’ with John Cena” from The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. March �, ����. Running Time: �:��. Available on YouTube.

Although ridiculous at times, the clip shows some great examples of how tone of voice and context can help clarify the meaning behind otherwise ambiguous phrases. Both Sara and Addison say the word “Ew!” quite frequently throughout the clip. A casual observer might first think that both Sara and Addison are exclaiming that everything is gross or disgusting, but after a while it becomes clear that Sara doesn’t always have a negative view of everything that she says “Ew!” about.

ABSORB: How much does the meaning change for the word “Ew!” throughout the video clip? How many different meanings can you discover for the word as you watch the video? What are the different cues that you rely on to determine what Sara actually means, each time that she exclaims her trademark phrase?

DEFINING NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION The words that we use are very important. Indeed, the verbal content of the message (e.g., the verbal communication) can have critical impact on the people, places, and things with which we interact or engage. From a student ordering a burrito exactly how she wants, to an FBI agent negotiating a hostage situation, it is important to make sure the words that we use convey the messages that we hope they convey. At the same time, much of what we don’t say is just as important; our gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, and eye contact (among others) can all have a strong impact within an environment. In our example from the opening of the chapter, Mika didn’t say a single word yet he knew that he had a chance to get to know an attractive party-goer, based on a series of unspoken messages. Those messages are considered nonverbal because they do not use language to convey meaning.

Recently, nonverbal communication has been defined as “any communicative characteristic or behavior that intentionally or unintentionally conveys a message without the use of verbal language.”� In this case, verbal language would include words or behaviors that directly stand for a specific word or words. For example, consider the offensive gesture of extending one’s middle finger in the direction of another person. Most everyone within the larger North American culture has a clear understanding of what specific words go alongside such a gesture, even though they aren’t reproduced here. Even though tone and context can change our understanding of what was ultimately intended by using such a gesture (e.g., giving someone a wink while flipping them “the bird” may imply humor and friendship rather than animosity) the gesture itself is considered formal language (and is therefore verbal communication).

Another important point contained in the definition of nonverbal communication highlights the idea that nonverbal communication can be either intentional or unintentional, as shown in this chapter’s Inspire feature. This is quite significant, because we are not always aware of our communicative behaviors when we send a message, oftentimes messaging others even when we don’t intend to be doing so.� Carl and Alysa were hanging out after class at the local campus coffee shop. When Alysa offered to pay for Carl’s iced caramel macchiato, she had no idea that her shy smile was interpreted by Carl to be a form of flirting. At the end of the interaction, Alysa thought she had made a new platonic friend, while Carl had already begun picturing future romantic getaways together.

iStock.com/alvarez

Box �.� Examine

The Ethics of Unintentional Communication

Have you ever accidentally hit reply-all to an e-mail when you meant to send a private message to just one person? Or have you responded to a text on a group chat when you meant to send a personal message to a friend? Sometimes, our messages reach a wider audience than we had originally intended.

That same type of accidental messaging occurs with nonverbal communication, but perhaps to an even greater extent. Maybe a crush was able to notice your blush at their accidental eye contact, or a parent saw the way you rolled their eyes when they didn’t understand a technology that seems so simple to every single one of your peers. These messages can have a similar impact as those verbal messages at the start of this box. People may just as easily take note of the nonverbal messages that you hoped would never be seen.

Enrique loves his wife Kayla, and holds her in the highest regard. However, last week he caught Kayla looking out the window at their neighbor Jake as he was doing some yard work shirtless. When Enrique called her out on it, Kayla joked that he shouldn’t care if she ogled the neighbor, as he was too young for her anyway. Enrique noticed that she was trying to laugh it off, but she couldn’t stop herself from blushing at being caught in her daydreams.

INSPIRE: What should people do when confronted with an unintended message? Do you think that you should be held responsible if one of your unintended nonverbal cues cause someone else to do something that gets them in trouble or hurts a relationship? We may want others to give us the benefit of the doubt when we express our feelings unintentionally through nonverbal cues; are we willing to do the same for those around us?

WHY ISN’T ASL CONSIDERED NONVERBAL? One common misconception about a class in nonverbal communication is that it is going to be a sign language class. Interestingly, sign languages in general—and American Sign Language (ASL) specifically—are actually considered verbal forms of communication.� ASL is a system of language that is communicated through gesture. Even though no words are audibly spoken, hand gestures and facial expressions combine to send specific and discrete language-based messages. Not all verbal messages are necessarily vocal/auditory messages, as we can use verbal communication to visually send messages through the written word or through the interpretation of specific gestures used in sign language. These signs are considered verbal communication because each sign has a direct verbal meaning attached to the sign, one that is codified and made formal much in the same way that languages are formed and acquired throughout a culture. Indeed, when Sarah, who is deaf, tries to order food at a restaurant without using vocal sounds, she may try to point to items on the menu or mime certain types of food. If she is fortunate enough to find a restaurant that employs a server that uses ASL, she can simply sign the items that she wants, using for example the sign for taco—a chop of the blade of one hand into the folded palm of the other.

NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION PRIMACY One of the key reasons why nonverbal communication is so important to human interaction is that it has represented many important firsts for individuals, for interpersonal interactions, and even for the species as a

whole. For this reason, we often describe nonverbal communication as having primacy.� We typically pay attention to nonverbal messages first and foremost in an interaction. Juanito and Marieta are celebrating their fifth anniversary as a couple. After a great dinner and evening of salsa dancing, Juanito pulled a gift out of his jacket pocket, and presented it with a great flourish. Marieta’s eyes lit up, and she smiled coyly as she said, “I thought we decided not to give each other gifts this year! You’re terrible.” After opening the envelope and discovering two tickets to a show by her favorite musician, Marieta squealed and gave Juanito a kiss squarely on the lips. “I can’t believe you did this, you monster!” she whispered, drawing him in for another kiss. Even though all of Marieta’s words should have made Juanito think his gift was unwelcome, he knew he had made the right decision because he was paying attention to her nonverbal behaviors. The surprise and delight on her face, coupled with some passionate kissing for good measure, made it clear that Juanito had made this an anniversary to remember.

iStock.com/wundervisuals

Primacy of Species

Over the course of human history, researchers have discovered that humans’ early ancestors were not able to use verbal language.�� In fact, verbal language likely began with homo sapiens, although some scholars have noted that bone structures in Neanderthal may have allowed for complex sound to be vocalized.�� However, primates of all sorts are able to live in community and share the division of labor, including caring for children and sharing food that has been hunted or gathered. How did such interactions occur if verbal language wasn’t a part of the lives of our early ancestors? Nonverbal communication like grunts or slight vocalizations were likely the early auditory forms of communication, and facial expressions or gestures may have been able to indicate important things like danger or submission or even the presence of spoiled meat. The idea that nonverbal communication came first over the course of our species’ evolution is known as phylogenetic primacy, highlighting that our nonhuman ancestors had likely figured out social signaling before humans existed in our current form.

Primacy of Individual

Not only is nonverbal communication the earliest type of communication for our species, but also it’s the earliest form of communication for each individual member of our species across the lifespan. The idea that nonverbal communication comes before any other form of communication in each individual experience is known as ontogenetic primacy. It’s a pretty complicated phrase to describe a very simple concept: from the moment of birth, infants have to communicate with other humans nonverbally because they haven’t yet acquired a verbal language system.�� Starting with those early moments of life, most infants can communicate their needs through crying and receive help from a caretaker in return. These infants receive love and affection without understanding or using formal language, and they are still able to communicate basic emotions (like contentedness) during those early interactions. Even the earliest experience of nursing allows for nonverbal communication to occur far before a verbal language system is required. For example, consider a child crying to indicate hunger to his mother. Assuming that child is being breast-fed, the mother will pick up the child and hold to her chest, the two will make eye contact, and then even the grasping and kneading behaviors of the child are an early form of touch expression. Think about that one interaction and all that it entails: sound, touching, being touched, eye contact, and other forms of auditory communication and affection. Indeed, small children are often given positive affirmations for those early attempts at communicating despite not having learned a formal language.

iStock.com/hadynyah

To be sure, the vast majority of children do eventually develop a verbal communication system.�� From learning what to ask for—or in some cases what to demand—children quickly learn that verbal language allows for greater specificity in achieving their goals. That being said, most young parents will acknowledge the greater urgency that is conveyed by nonverbal forms of expression like crying or a tantrum. Why does ontogenetic primacy matter within the human experience? It is, at its most basic, each person’s earliest form of communication in their own lifespan. Whether you had a good upbringing or an unhappy early life, nonverbal communication is the way that you communicated throughout those earliest interactions.

Primacy of Interaction

Our ancestors used nonverbal messaging to communicate long before modern humans were around, and each individual human on this planet has explored their social world through nonverbal messaging long before any understanding of a verbal language system is developed. In addition to those forms of primacy, each time we interact with someone we exhibit a common form of primacy as we pay attention to their nonverbal behaviors before we consider any words that they might be using. This type of primacy is known as interactional primacy, and it highlights that our first impressions are often based on nonverbal characteristics and behaviors of another person. Consider the first day of an in-person class, perhaps your favorite class from high school (or even the class that you are in right now). From the moment your instructor walked into the room, you began to make decisions about them based solely upon the way they looked or acted, and also based on how it seemed that they treated the people around them.��, �� Did you think they were going to be a difficult teacher, or relatively simple? Did they seem easy-going or harsh and severe? Did you think that the instructor was going to be a good one, or were you worried that it might be smarter to enroll in a section with a different instructor? Is the instructor likely to be funny, to be cranky, or to be serious? You probably paid attention to a wide variety of personal characteristics of the instructor in order to determine how you might best engage them over the course of the semester before they even had a chance to say a single word. In this chapter’s Measure feature, we look at how this interactional primacy may influence our subsequent perceptions of a person.

Box �.� Measure Self-Assessments and First Impressions

Our briefest interactions with others often influence how we feel about them. At the slightest observation of someone else’s behavior, we can make correct and incorrect guesses about a wide range of other personal characteristics.

Scholars have figured out some relationships between our initial perceptions of other people and the attitudes toward those people that result from our perceptions.�� The following is a shortened and modified list of questions inspired by some early research on first impressions and attitude formation.

Instructions: Think carefully about someone you just recently met, someone with whom you have not interacted significantly—perhaps the barista at the coffee shop on the corner or a new neighbor. Then, write the number (e.g., � through �) that best corresponds with your attitudes toward each statement

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Strongly

Disagree

Disagree Somewhat

Disagree

Undecided Somewhat

Agree

Agree Strongly

Agree

__________ 1. This person seems considerate of others.

__________ 2. I imagine that this person is highly intelligent.

__________ 3. I don’t think this person seems humorless.

__________ 4. I would expect that this person will do very well in life.

__________ 5. I can’t imagine it is likely that this person is easily irritated.

__________ 6. This person is probably quite popular.

Add up your score and see what you get. The lowest score you can receive on this assessment is �, while the highest score is ��. The higher your score, the more likely your first impression of that person was influenced by an impression of interpersonal warmth, or a belief that the person would be pleasant and likely to be a good friend. The lower your score, the more likely you evaluated that person as cold or unpleasant.

MEASURE: Are you surprised by your score of that other person? Was your impression of this relatively new person warmer or colder overall? Think about the things that person did or the ways that they behaved that may have impacted your evaluation of them as a person. If your scoring of the other person is low, what kinds of observed behaviors might you avoid in your own life? If your scoring of the other person is high, what positive characteristics do you hope you incorporate into new interactions?

NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION CHANNELS These first impressions are made based upon a variety of different things that each person observes and evaluates. Indeed, nonverbal messages can come through almost any of our senses, from seeing a co-worker’s facial expressions, feeling the affectionate touch of a best friend, smelling the cologne or perfume of a romantic partner, or hearing the heartbeat of a child during a long embrace. (Taste is the only sense through which we don’t directly have a nonverbal code, and even then burgeoning research is looking at the area of how food and

communication are intermixed.�� As such, some scholars even highlight taste as a way of communicating!) And to be sure, these are only the face-to-face channels of communication, not counting the range of nonverbal messages that can still be expressed in mediated ways.

Nonverbal communication also occurs across a variety of mediated channels, like phone conversations, text messages, e-mails, television and film, radio, Skype or FaceTime; the list is as long as the number of communication technologies that exist. In the written word through messaging like text messages and e-mails, emoticons and emojis—text-based images or graphics that replicate facial expressions or other visual cues— serve as proxies for nonverbal communication. On phone conversations or on the radio, the vocal characteristics of the speaker, including the pauses between speaking. serve as nonverbal indicators which may contain information about the speaker’s emotional state. Television and film contexts provide for a rich expression of nonverbal messages, but lose some of the interactivity of actual interaction. Skype, FaceTime, or other real-time video messaging services allow for a variety of real-time interactive nonverbal messages to be shared, but some scholars argue that they lack some of the important features of messages allowed through face-to-face interactions.�� We explore the impact of channel selection in this chapter’s Engage feature.

iStock.com/svetikd

Box �.� Engage Diverse Channels, Diverse Choices

Across the diversity of a modern society, it is very common to have regular interactions among people from different backgrounds who have new perspectives based on their everyday life. Brandi was excited to move to a university located deep in a city center, as her main life experiences before that point occurred in a suburban setting where everyone appeared relatively similar at first glance. Upon arriving for her second year of college after a summer working at a regional camp, Brandi reflected on the many different ways that she knew how to make friends and meet new people. While she was probably pretty popular at camp that summer—she didn’t like to brag—Brandi had a lot of difficulty getting to know her neighbors she encountered in the hall in her new downtown apartment building. She regularly tried to look people in the eye directly and extend her arm for a handshake, but she often found that she had been “left hanging” by her neighbors, whether intentionally or not.

Although Brandi quickly learned that not all of her neighbors relied primarily on face-to-face channels to navigate their daily lives, she did find it strange that so many of her neighbors had their faces buried in their phones or tablets and took little to no interest in her at all. After a conversation with one friendly long- term resident helped her realize that people valued privacy in such a densely populated environment, Brandi realized that her own way of doing things was not always the most common—or even most desired —in every environment.

ENGAGE: What things might Brandi do that her classmates and new neighbors find to be strange? Do you think Brandi will end up behaving similarly to those around her in a few years, or will she keep up her outgoing “suburban” ways? How have you managed your relationships across a variety of channels as you transitioned to college life?

Channel Reliance

Many scholars have even looked at characteristics of these channels more intentionally, trying to determine which channels are most important for communicating a full range of messages. Indeed, humans have a form of channel reliance in which we tend to rely on specific channels (like vocal or visual cues, for example) for specific types of messages (e.g., paying the most attention to vocal cues when receiving a deceptive message).��, �� This channel reliance will be discussed across multiple chapters in this book where appropriate. Significantly, the interactivity of a variety of channel types may impact our ability to receive an intended message, as the degree to which we can engage the message sender may influence what nonverbal characteristics we pay attention to.��

A SUMMARY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION ORIGINS Although the transactional model of communication is the preferred way of thinking about the basic elements of human communication, most all models highlight the complexities of messaging. Whether you prefer to use the linear model or the transactional model of communication, it is difficult to ignore the variety of ways that we send to the people in our lives through both verbal and nonverbal messaging. Nonverbal communication includes a specific set of characteristics or behaviors that send messages to our friends, family, coworkers, romantic partners, and any other individuals that we engage with throughout our lives. Because nonverbal communication has come first throughout our existence, humans tend to rely on nonverbal messages much more than any verbal forms of communication. Just like verbal messaging, these nonverbal messages are sent by an individual using a specific channel; often, that same individual is receiving messages simultaneously, trying to decode the intended message despite many noise and features of the context that may impede the successful transmission of the message. With so many different nonverbal and verbal messages present in our daily lives, it is not surprising that we grow increasingly reliant upon certain types of messages over the course of our life span, influenced in part by the interactivity of the channel through which we received that message. Throughout the rest of the book, we will explore specific features and contexts of the nonverbal messages in our daily lives.

CLOSING QUESTIONS Knowing the impact of first impressions, how will you manage your nonverbal self to make sure that your messages fit your goals?

In what way do you expect to use nonverbal communication to influence your close relationships in the future?

KEY TERMS

channels �

channel reliance ��

context �

decoding �

emojis ��

emoticons ��

encoding �

feedback �

interactional primacy ��

linear model of communication �

message �

noise �

nonverbal communication �

ontogenetic primacy ��

phylogenetic primacy ��

physical noise �

physiological noise �

primacy ��

psychological noise �

receiver �

semantic noise �

sender �

transactional messaging �

transactional model of communication �

unidirectional messaging �

verbal communication �

vocal/auditory messages ��

Descriptions of Images and Figures Back to Figure

The flow diagram is present within a large oval labeled “Context”. The flow diagram shows a sender sending a message to a receiver through a channel. The message is presented as a one-way arrow. Surrounding the flow diagram and within the context is noise.

Back to Figure

The flow diagram is present within a large oval labeled “Context”. The flow diagram shows a sender and receiver and a receiver and sender connected through a message that travels through a channel. The message is presented as a double-headed arrow. Surrounding the flow diagram and within the context is noise. A channel of feedback flows from the sender and receiver to the receiver and sender, and vice versa.

� NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION FEATURES

iStock.com/Nosystem images

Learning Objectives After reading this chapter you will be able to do the following:

List the main principles of nonverbal messaging

Distinguish between digital and analog messages

Describe how humans process messages

Explain how nonverbal communication is innate

Chance and Kelly rarely hung out anymore. It’s not that they stopped liking each other, but they didn’t seem to have as much in common as they did back when they were in high school student government together. Plus, they were busy. Once she got to college, Kelly got a part-time job at a campus coffee shop and a full-time boyfriend; at the same time, Chance got involved with the Pride community and began a minor in gender studies to complement a full load of engineering coursework. When Kelly happened to be near Chance in the student union, she didn’t immediately recognize Chance because of the new hairstyle. Chance had been happy to see Kelly from a distance. Happy, that is, until Kelly walked closer and kept walking right on by en route to her shift at the coffee shop without even a word. Chance was concerned that all the recent hours spent at the Pride Resource Center rubbed Kelly the wrong way, and sent Kelly a text, fearing their casual friendship had taken a turn for the worse. A later text of explanation from Kelly didn’t calm Chance’s fear that she might be unhappy with their friendship.

Guiding Questions How do nonverbal messages lead to misunderstanding?

To what extent can individuals manage the impressions that they are sending to one another?

PRINCIPLES OF NONVERBAL MESSAGING In their discipline-defining book, scholars Judee Burgoon and Thomas Paine highlighted some important characteristics of nonverbal communication that are still significant today.� Even though communicators have

experienced dramatic changes in communication technologies over the past years, the basic principles of nonverbal messaging are just as true now as they were decades ago, regardless of nonverbal channel.

Nonverbal Messaging Is Ubiquitous

The first characteristic of nonverbal communication is that it is everywhere. Every single interaction between humans contains some nonverbal component, regardless of whether that interaction occurs face to face, over the telephone, by text message, through a computer, on a boat, on a train, or on a plane. Whenever humans interact, they use nonverbal messaging in some way. According to a receiver-based perspective of communication, even the unintended behaviors of everyday life can be perceived to have some communicative value, so that student sleeping in class next to you right now may be unintentionally letting your instructor know that he or she is more sleepy than he or she is interested in class. This receiver-based perspective of communication is in keeping with the oft-repeated maxim that you may have heard in another more introductory communication class: “One cannot not communicate.”� This statement reminds us time and time again that we are always sending messages regardless of intent. From the facial expressions we make when we think no one is looking, to the pause between when we receive and then reply to a text message, other people are constantly ascribing meaning to the behaviors and characteristics we exhibit throughout our life.

Nonverbal Messaging Functions in Many Ways

We can use nonverbal messages in almost any situation. Nonverbal communication can help people in giving directions to a stranger, influencing someone to buy a fundraising raffle ticket, indicating a desire for a romantic encounter with a new partner, or even deceiving someone about your feelings toward the horrible birthday gift you just received. Sometimes the nonverbal messages occur alongside the verbal messages (e.g., alongside words) that you are sending and receiving with a communication partner. Other times, the nonverbal messages are the sole method of communicating—like when you are at a concert that is particularly loud and you want to let your friends know that you are leaving early, but they wouldn’t be able to hear any words you might say so you must resort to gestures instead.

iStock.com/PeopleImages

Nonverbal Messaging Is Widely Used

In every culture and across every location, people use a variety of nonverbal behaviors to send messages to one another. Some scholars have discovered that the facial expressions we use are near universal, meaning that people understand some common nonverbal messages regardless of their background.� In almost every situation across most any location on earth, for example, people are likely to know the difference between an angry face and a smiling happy face, regardless of their unique culture or background.�

Have you ever traveled abroad? Or spent time with people or with families that don’t speak the language that you personally grew up with? You may have found it relatively easy to interact with these people, even if you didn’t have a single word of verbal communication shared between you.

Sherold enjoys having friends from around the world, and during a gap year before college, he wanted to meet up with friends in a restaurant near the Mexico–U.S. border. When he arrived at the restaurant, he realized he had no way to alert the staff to his significant tomato allergy. By pantomiming the shape of a round fruit, pointing to the

color red, and making a choking motion by wrapping his hands around his neck, he was able to communicate enough information that the server appeared to understand. Retreating to the back and returning to the table while holding a medium-size tomato—shaking her head and wagging her finger at it—the server was able to confirm what Sherold meant by his “performance,” and the delicious meal ended up being a highlight of Sherold’s trip. Even though Sherold didn’t speak a word of the local language, he was able to use nonverbal messaging to communicate a relatively sophisticated message across cultures in a way that felt natural to him. In this chapter’s Engage feature we have another example of cultural differences influencing nonverbal behavior.

Box �.� Engage Nonverbal Behaviors in Diverse Contexts

North America is filled with a variety of people from all over the world. While Derek’s family has lived in his hometown for generations, Derek’s boyfriend Marcus has recently emigrated from Europe—and Marcus’s extended family is still learning the local language. Although Derek likes Marcus’s family quite a bit, he feels a little left out because of not knowing exactly what they are saying. Plus, there was “the incident.” Last time he visited the house, Derek used the restroom and ran out of toilet paper. Coming out from the bathroom and realizing his own boyfriend had taken a quick trip to the store, Derek had a heck of a time trying to get another roll without having a shared language system. Although he was able to eventually get them to figure it out, Marcus confides that his family still makes some odd gestures every time Derek’s name comes up.

Aside from being one of the more awkward moments of his life, Derek feels like an outsider as he navigates his boyfriend’s life. Recently, his best friend Sadie encouraged him to think about all the nonnative English speakers that he interacts with daily, immigrants and new citizens who don’t have his considerable English speaking skills. Derek realized that he himself has been complicit in making others feel badly when they don’t embrace the majority language, even to the point of dismissing them as people without relevant opinions or feelings.

ENGAGE: What is our obligation when communicating with diverse others? Does that obligation change when we don’t share a common language? Nonverbal communication is often described as a “universal language.” Does that idea of universality impact our opinion at all when realizing that we can, in fact, send messages to one another—and have had that shared nonverbal language system since our earliest years as a child?

While not every nonverbal message translates well across cultures or locations, as aforementioned many facial expressions are similar across cultures. In addition, many gestures are directly related to the things that they represent, so the meaning is likely similar among most people. Raising one’s hand in the air above your head when describing a person likely means “tall” across cultures, and rotating your arms like you are swimming will likely convey something about water in many places around the world. Other nonverbal messages may not transfer as well, like when mimicking typing on a keyboard to represent a computer or clicking an imaginary mouse; in areas where computer usage is not widespread, obviously describing such technologies would be difficult or impossible even with verbal language.

iStock.com/miodragignjatovic

iStock.com/portra

iStock.com/isayildiz

iStock.com/skynesher

Nonverbal Messaging Impacts Meaning-Making

Nonverbal messages can add great significance to an interaction, such as giving a dear friend a comforting hug at a funeral. Such a gesture may convey more than words alone could possibly communicate, helping someone to know the depth of closeness and empathy shared between friends. Nonverbal messages can also inadvertently send a message other than the one intended, however, such as when a coworker puts a hand of support on the shoulder of their colleague, only to have such behavior interpreted as a sexual advance. The behavior that one person intended to use to show friendship and familiarity could be taken for something which ultimately destroys the collegial relationship.

While nonverbal behaviors can add to one’s understanding of an intended message, it can also lead to someone being still further confused about a sender’s intent, sometimes even with dramatic results. When Chia-Yen was driving on a winding, hilly road in the foothills just outside of the city, she came to a stop sign on a blind corner. Noticing that someone in another car was having trouble using a manual transmission, she waited and waved the other car through and let that other person have her turn. Unfortunately, that car then pulled out and was immediately struck by an oncoming car. Even though it was a minor collision, Chia-Yen felt guilty when she realized that the driver of the other car thought she was giving him the “all-clear” signal when she only meant to give him her turn at navigating the intersection. A relatively simple wave of the hand meant two different things to two different drivers on the road that day.

Nonverbal Messaging has Primacy

As discussed in Chapter �, nonverbal messaging is a “first” for us in many ways. It’s the first way that we learned to communicate as a species (i.e., phylogenetic primacy), the first way that we learned to communicate across our individual life span (i.e., ontogenetic primacy), and the first way that we continue to learn information about others through first impressions (i.e., interactional primacy).� Because nonverbal communication has primacy by coming before verbal language in so many ways, we have a longer history with—and a greater reliance on—nonverbal messages than we have with words and other linguistic features. When Shelly turned a corner in the mall and suddenly saw her “frenemy” Barbara from down the street, her face naturally turned into a look of contempt before she even had time to think about it. By the time she reached Barbara, Shelly had composed a smile and politely asked how Barbara was doing, but the overall tone of the interaction had already been set by an unintentional facial expression before words were spoken.

iStock.com/nicoletaionescu

Nonverbal Messaging Is Ambiguous

Even though nonverbal messaging is universal in a variety of ways, there is just enough ambiguity across nonverbal behaviors to be useful in certain situations. Occasionally, people may want to send a message that can’t (or shouldn’t) be put into words, whether it is a criticism or disagreement with an important relational partner, a statement that needs to be off the record, or even a humorous jab that might be too edgy to say outright. In those cases, nonverbal behaviors offer an opportunity to get a message across without the sender being held accountable for the verbal content that would have replaced that message.

For example, when Santiago was giving his presentation at work last week, no one wanted to tell him that he was boring and taking too long; at the same time, someone needed to get the meeting moving along or they would be there all day. Santiago’s supervisor helped wrap things up by looking at his watch, quietly yawning, and stretching his arms in such a way that Santiago got the hint without being publicly embarrassed. Later that evening, Santiago put on his favorite silk shirt and was immediately confronted by his wife Stacia, who blocked his path, raised her eyebrows at the shirt, and handed him a conservative polo. Instead of obviously criticizing Santiago’s clothing options, Stacia also sent a message in a straightforward yet ambiguous way that did not hurt Santiago’s feelings as much as a direct criticism of his favorite shirt might. To further refine your own ways of dealing with cultural differences in communication, check out this chapter’s Apply feature where you can consider another example of a difficult communication situation.

Box �.� Apply Trusted Expressions of Excitement and Interest

LaShonda was trying to figure out what to get her niece Aaliyah for her eighth birthday party, but was having trouble deciding between some options. As she was looking at possible toys online and trying to figure out which one to get, she decided to FaceTime her sister’s family and have a conversation. After the usual pleasantries, LaShonda decided it was time to sneakily figure out what to get. She mentioned a few toys, and noticed that Aaliyah’s face really lit up at the mention of a remote-control robot that looked like a dog, and then a few moments later LaShonda’s sister mentioned that the best option would be a different toy that didn’t seem to really grab anyone’s attention. After exiting the FaceTime conversation, LaShonda clicked over to the two different options for the birthday present, and her mouse hovered over the “add to my basket” button for each of the two toys. LaShonda was in a bit of a conundrum.

LaShonda really struggled with what toy to purchase in this scenario. LaShonda’s sister clearly highlighted a toy that her niece wanted, but Aaliyah looked so excited at the thought of that small remote-control robot puppy. While both toys were great options, LaShonda really wanted to have her toy make a splash at the party.

APPLY: Which toy do you think LaShonda eventually purchased for Aaliyah? Why do you think that is the case? How does this entire scenario illustrate how much stock we put in nonverbal messages over verbal messages? Do you think the conversation would have had a different outcome if it had just happened over a normal phone call?

Nonverbal Messaging Is Accepted

For a variety of reasons, people tend to trust nonverbal messages over the verbal messages that may accompany them.�, � Perhaps because of the primacy of the nonverbal channels of communication, or maybe because people know that nonverbals can be used to send information that one would prefer to remain off the record, the receivers of messages often believe the messaging implied by nonverbal communication, even when it is in direct contradiction to the verbal messages sent in the same interaction.�

This reliance on the nonverbal components of an overall interaction is one reason why sarcasm works so effectively: The nonverbal messages occur alongside the verbal statements, and the facial expressions or tone of voice serve to negate the words or phrases that are spoken by the messenger.

Ken and Myles have been married for a couple years now, and Myles loves to tease Ken about his family and their strange mannerisms. When Myles gets a particularly good joke in about the way that Ken’s father snores on the couch during a family visit, Ken jabs Myles in the side with his elbow and says, “Oh stop it, I hate you.” Because Ken had a smile on his face, a soft casual tone to his voice, and kept good eye contact, Myles is confident that Ken means the exact opposite of what he said. If Myles accepted Ken’s verbal message rather than his nonverbal behaviors, they might have a long and uncomfortable conversation in store for the ride home after the visit.

iStock.com/franckreporter

iStock.com/yipengge

DIGITAL VS. ANALOG REPRESENTATIONS In light of our previous discussion of the characteristics of nonverbal messaging, it becomes useful to further clarify the distinction between nonverbal and verbal behaviors. One useful way to think of the difference between nonverbal and verbal behaviors has to do with the distinction between digital representations and analog representations during interactions.�, �� A digital representation is one in which the components of the message have an arbitrary relationship to the thing that is being signified. This arbitrary relationship is assigned by cultural experience, much in the same way that a specific set of letters are put together to form a word that is then assigned to represent a concept. Consider, for example, the digital clock face represented on the previous page. If you break it down to its most basic form, the passage of time is signified by a bunch of little lines moving places all over a screen to create easily recognizable patterns that mean something. In the case of the clock face in the picture, the lines have been lit in such a way as to indicate that it is currently �:�� a. m. A box of vegetables delivered to a store might be clearly labeled c-o-r-n, a string of letters that we have arbitrarily decided can be used to represent a particularly delicious ingredient in making taco shells.

iStock.com/Emily_m_wilson

Analog representations, on the other hand, are ones where there is a direct link between the message and the thing being signified. An analog clock, for example, has minute hands which move around a dial to signal the

passing of time. As seen in the Photo, a sketch of an ear of corn in front of a farmer’s market stand looks enough like the vegetable that people know exactly what the vendor is selling. Unlike digital representations that rely on culture-specific symbols much like language, analog representations use signs that inherently relate to or imply the object of discussion.��

Typically, verbal messages are considered two be digital representations of something, because they consist of a string of symbolic letters or sounds that have come to represent a specific concept. Nonverbal messages are often described as analog representations, because one need not have much (or sometimes even any) cultural background to gain a solid impression of what message a skilled communicator is trying to convey.

MESSAGE PROCESSING This ability to successfully send or receive nonverbal messages is an important part of the concept of message processing,��, �� which is the combination of encoding and decoding messages in human interaction. Think about the models of communication that we looked at in Chapter �. When people are engaging in the encoding of messages, they are constructing a message to send to their interaction partner, likely working to figure out how best to produce a message in order to reach the audience. Thinking of the right words to say? Making sure that a facial expression matches your emotion? Each of these are examples of encoding behaviors that people engage to get their point across to an audience. Once the message is encoded, it is sent through a channel to the receiver, who then begins the process of trying to interpret meaning from a communication act or behavior. The receiver then begins decoding the message received, in an attempt to understand or act upon the verbal or nonverbal messages received. We go into the stages of communicating—the encoding and decoding involved in message processing—in the next section as we explore the ways that humans send and receive nonverbal messages among one another. While some early research focused on the ways that nonverbal messaging influenced how we attend to verbal messages,�� most scholars now understand that nonverbal messages are more than just an added “bonus” to the verbal messages that people use in interpersonal interactions. Here we look at a three-stage model of nonverbal message processing that explains how humans are able to successfully receive messages from one another.��

iStock.com/FatCamera

The Attention Stage

In order for someone to receive a message from an interaction partner, first they must be attending to that partner, a behavior that occurs during the attention stage. Rather than just seeing or hearing messages that are being sent, one must listen and observe while engaging with another person. We are naturally likely to only give our attention to a small subset of verbal and nonverbal messages in any situation, often because of the presence of different types of noise as highlighted in Chapter �.�� The ability to screen out any distractions requires a great deal of mental energy, and only when one is intentionally giving attention to a communicator can they then begin to receive verbal or nonverbal messages. Interestingly, research has shown that women are significantly more likely to give attention to nonverbal messages, highlighting a sex difference that may contribute to better understanding of nuance in communication.�� As more and more things compete for our attention in our daily lives, it is increasingly difficult to attend to the verbal and nonverbal messages of a particular individual, or to be attended to by someone else. Some businesses even have a formal training system for employees on how to

appear to pay attention to a customer, because a lack of attention is so widespread that it is even beginning to be considered “normal” in modern times.�� Fortunately, nonverbal communication has the potential to be quite engaging, with people able to use gestures, vocal variety, direct eye contact, and kinesic movements to re-engage an audience that appears to be losing interest quickly.��, �� In this chapter’s Absorb feature we look at the attention of audience members in a popular late-night talk show.

Box �.� Absorb Attention on Popular Media

James Corden is famous for his spontaneous audience interactions during The Late Late Show with James Corden. With an audience full of people who came specifically to watch the show, he still highlights the difficulty of paying attention when a lot is going on in his recurring game “Were you paying attention?” in the clip below.

“Were You Paying Attention?” from The Late Late Show with James Corden. March ��, ����. Running Time: ��:��. Available on YouTube.

As someone watching from home, it seems ludicrous that individuals would spend an entire day of their lives focused on trying to see a live recording of a late night talk show, and then not be able to recount details of the very show they are in the middle of taping. That being said, the majority of audience participants were unable to recall even those significant moments from the program.

ABSORB: How does the clip illustrate just how easily individual attention is divided? How do you think you would respond in a similar situation? Quick, without looking, what color was James Corden’s tie in the video clip? As you might imagine, even the most in-your-face details may be difficult to remember when so many things are competing for our attention.

The Comprehension Stage

The next stage of processing messages has to do with how we engage material to which we have given our attention. Specifically, the comprehension stage involves a listener’s attempt to actually understand the verbal or nonverbal messages, rather than just hear or see them (but not critically engage them). Scholars Stewart and Huston argue that there are three main forms of active listening, or attending to a conversational partner in order to create understanding.��, �� Indeed, these same attempts at comprehension apply for nonverbal messaging as well and are adapted accordingly.

Dialogic Comprehension

Dialogic comprehension can emerge from an active process of paying attention to one another’s verbal and nonverbal messaging. In this active form of engagement and observation, both parties seek to co-construct shared meaning and understand each other’s thoughts and feelings through conversation and dialogue, while also attending to the nonverbal displays of one another. In this chapter’s Measure feature you can assess your own ability to take the perspective of another person.

Empathic Comprehension

Empathic comprehension can also emerge from active attention, in which partners develop an understanding of one another and attempt to use all available information to assist in adopting the perspective of one’s conversational partner and interpreting the world through that perspective.

Analytic Comprehension

Analytic comprehension is a form of active comprehension in which one party seeks to analyze or critique the message and the implications of a communication interaction in order to determine the truth or veracity of the verbal and nonverbal messages.

Box �.� Measure Self-Assessments and Perspective-Taking

People often are self-involved when it comes to managing their own relationship difficulties. That is, most people naturally want to act in what seems like their own best interests, even if it may ultimately damage the relationship that they have with their interaction partner, whether a friend, family member, or romantic partner.

Scholars have figured out a way to measure whether someone is likely to try to understand where their interaction partner is coming from, a behavior often described as perspective-taking.��, �� The following is a shortened and modified list of questions inspired by some original research on empathy and perspective- taking.

Instructions: Think carefully about a person that you interact with regularly, someone close enough that you might have normal moments of conflict as part of your relationship. With that person in mind, consider whether the following statements describe you well. Write the number (e.g., � through �) that best corresponds with your fit with each statement.

1 2 3 4

Does Not Does Not Somewhat Describes

Describe

Me At All

Describe

Me Well

Describes

Me

Me Very

Well

__________ 1. I seem to know how this person feels very often.

__________ 2. When I’m upset with this person, I try to put myself in their position.

__________ 3. I try to understand this person by imagining how things look to them.

__________ 4. I try to look at this person’s side of things before making a decision.

__________ 5. I know what it is like to “walk a mile in this person’s shoes.”

__________ 6. I am a pretty good judge of this person’s feelings.

Add up your score and see what you get. The lowest score you can receive on this assessment is �, while the highest score is ��. The higher your score, the more likely you are trying to engage in empathy in this relationship. The lower your score, the less likely you try to engage in perspective-taking with this one relational partner

MEASURE: Are you surprised by your score? Was it higher or lower than the score you expected? Think about the things that may impact whether you try to understand your interaction partner, including specific characteristics of the relationship and the context. What might cause you to be more or less likely to consider their perspective during a disagreement?

The Memory Stage

Finally, the third stage of message processing is called the memory stage, and focuses on our ability to recall information about an interaction. This stage focuses on not only information about the content of the interaction, but also information about the context in which the interaction occurred, the relational information implied by the manner of interaction, as well as other nonverbal characteristics of the messaging beyond the simple verbal information that usually comprises recall. Obviously, it is nearly impossible to remember all parts of an interaction, both verbal and nonverbal; that being said, the greater the degree to which communicators attempt to actively engage one another, the more likely they will be able to have significant recall of important features of the interaction. Indeed, although much research on recall focuses on verbal communication, the nonverbal messaging associated with human interaction is among our earliest and most primal communication skills.��

Box �.� Examine The Ethics of Analysis

Our modern media landscape encourages us to reconsider whether people are telling us the truth. When we are trying to evaluate the truthfulness of someone’s words or the sincerity of their actions or emotional displays, it is essential to consider our own biases that we might have toward that person as we are making our analysis. For example, it is common for people to dismiss the statements or expressions of

politicians from a different political party, or to disregard the explanations of athletes who play on a rival team. When watching a basketball game, people are quick to dismiss something even as provable as a potential foul on the court when it happens to a member of the visiting team.

Although it is tempting to discount a statement of an unliked person as untruthful, or to write off the crocodile tears of a man or woman confessing a personal failing, good communicators must evaluate others’ statements and interpersonal situations based upon a variety of information inputs. For example, what is this person’s history of truthfulness? Is there some personal trigger evident when I encounter this person, one that makes me want to jump to conclusions without having heard their statement or without having considered relevant evidence? Do I have reason to doubt the veracity of this individual’s verbal or nonverbal messages? In our modern society, we are often tempted to dismiss information that could prove helpful in making judgements of our own, often at our own peril.

EXAMINE: Considering our own biases allows us to approach message analysis in a more ethical way. What kinds of things trigger you to distrust someone? Are there any sociodemographic categories (e.g., age, gender, race, religion, political party) about which you need to have a broader mind? Oftentimes, we are able to overcome much bias simply by acknowledging the areas in which we might be inclined to jump to conclusions. Even more importantly, interacting with people who are very different from ourselves can also allow us to challenge our previously held beliefs.

NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION—OUR INNATE ABILITY As mentioned earlier in the chapter, nonverbal communication is a near-universal skill. There is something inherent in being human that means that people will be able to communicate in some way without verbal messaging. An inherited trait that is further enhanced throughout a lifetime of cultural learning, the ability to send or receive messages nonverbally is a fundamental characteristic of being a human being. Indeed, scholars regularly note that learning difficulties associated with poor nonverbal skills are often much more difficult to remediate than those associated with verbal skills like speech or reading ability.��, �� Indeed, children who are less skilled at using nonverbal messaging are often frequently the victim of a variety of forms of bullying or social ostracization,�� likely the result of an inability to pick up on the subtleties of human interaction deemed necessary to navigate the nuances of childhood playgrounds.

iStock.com/Courtney Hale

Despite this innate ability to send or receive messages nonverbally, it becomes very obvious during adult social situations that some people are more skilled at communicating nonverbally than are others. Nonverbal communication is an important part of social competence or social intelligence.��, ��, �� Indeed, socially intelligent adults can perceive a wide variety of individual observed characteristics based on subtle nonverbal behaviors, including abstract characteristics like professional success, religious identity, political ideology, sexual orientation, and a variety of other characteristics that may otherwise be available as information only through the process of self-disclosure (i.e., revealing personal information about the self through verbal conversation).��

While scholars have worked to try to measure this ability to send or receive nonverbal messages,�� we can

probably easily identify in our own lives those who are more or less skilled at communicating nonverbally or picking up on social skills.

A SUMMARY OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION FEATURES Our understanding of the characteristics of nonverbal communication is extended even further by highlighting the key principles of nonverbal messaging. First, nonverbal messaging is everywhere, a characteristic which is highlighted in three of those principles: Nonverbal messaging is ubiquitous, nonverbal messaging is widely used, and nonverbal messaging is widely accepted. Some specific caveats are also highlighted in those principles, pointing out that nonverbal messaging functions in many ways, nonverbal messaging impacts meaning-making, and nonverbal messaging is ambiguous. Lastly, it’s important to remember the final principle that was initially discussed in Chapter �: nonverbal messaging Has primacy. One characteristic that helps in that primacy is the direct nature of nonverbal representation; rather than being digital and therefor arbitrarily related, nonverbal communication is analogic and has a direct relationship to the thing it represents. Finally, we turn our attention to considering the ways that individuals process nonverbal information, highlighting the importance of active attention in human interaction.

CLOSING QUESTIONS Now that you are aware of the possible misinterpretations of nonverbal messages, what will you do to make sure that people better understand your intent?

Given that people form impressions of you based upon your verbal and nonverbal messaging, what do you plan to do to best manage those impressions?

KEY TERMS

analog representation ��

analytic comprehension ��

attention stage ��

comprehension stage ��

dialogic comprehension ��

digital representation ��

empathic Comprehension ��

memory stage ��

message processing ��

self-disclosure ��

social competence ��

social intelligence ��

� IDENTITY AND THE NONVERBAL CODES

iStock.com/monkeybusinessimages

Learning Objectives After reading this chapter you will be able to do the following:

Define the concept of nonverbal codes

List each of the nonverbal codes

Explain and give examples of each code

As a recent college graduate, Josefina was thrilled to get a position at a downtown marketing firm. Despite having beat out over ��� other applicants for the position, Josefina was concerned at the end of the first week when she found out she was her supervisor Kizzy’s second choice for the position. As a result, Josefina wanted to show her new supervisor how diligent and qualified she truly was. By the end of the ��-day probationary period, Josefina’s supervisor wrote a glowing review describing how well she was fitting in. In the review, Kizzy acknowledged how warmly Josefina greeted new clients with a smile, direct eye contact, and a firm sustained handshake. She also highlighted Josefina’s attention during meetings and ability to appear focused, using direct body orientation and frequent nods or smiles to indicate her attention. Kizzy also mentioned her professional dress with slacks and a muted blouse-and-blazer combination, in addition to her amazing timeliness in which she proved herself to be the first to arrive to every client meeting. Josefina was happy to have the opportunity to continue to succeed at the firm despite her early misgivings.

Guiding Questions How do we use nonverbal messages to manage our identities?

Through which nonverbal codes should we attempt to reinforce a message?

How do we use different nonverbal codes to create a gestalt impression?

MANAGING IDENTITIES How would you describe yourself? What are the specific descriptions that help you explain to others who you are? Identity is a word that describes the relatively unchanging or stable set of perceptions or ideas that we hold about

ourselves.� It is quite useful to consider the most basic building blocks of an individual’s identity as we begin to consider our nonverbal behaviors and how they indicate who we think we are.

Sex and Gender

One of the primary identities that emerges in our modern world have to do with our perceptions of how we do or don’t fit into traditional sex roles. Among our earliest experiences are moments where we are socialized to behave like boys and girls, men and women. Much research has looked at the various influences on our gender development, from the early messages our parents tell us like “boys don’t cry” or “be a pretty little lady,” to the different toys that are marketed to boys and girls and whether they emphasize fighting and dominance (typically for boys) or nurturance and cooperation (typically for girls). Over time, we develop an understanding about a variety of nonverbal characteristics that help us to act out a gender identity including how much space we take up in public, whether we act tough or accept needed help, the types of clothes we wear, and even the facial expressions we allow ourselves to show to both known and unknown others.

Nonverbal communication becomes one of the most common ways to portray ourselves as having a specific sex (defined in biological terms, this includes genital, chromosomal, and hormonal displays of maleness and femaleness�) or gender (a culturally defined understanding of what social behaviors are generally believed to be representations of masculinity, femininity, or both (androgynous), or neither (undifferentiated). At �� years old, Kyoko has a very specific understanding of how she “should” behave as a woman; unfortunately, as a current study-abroad participant in the United States, she is discovering that her perspective is different from the culture that surrounds her, since her views are so strongly influenced by her childhood as a Japanese national. She suddenly sees her own Harajuku-style clothing choices as overly feminine and almost infantile when compared to many of her New England classmates, totally unaware of her classmates’ actual views of her stylings as “pretty punk-rock.” To explore further the use of personal pronouns when talking about these gender concepts, see the Examine feature in this chapter, next.

iStock.com/electravk

Box �.� Examine The Ethics of Personal Pronouns

In the English language, we often use gendered pronouns to describe the actions of another person. The structure “She forgot her phone when she went to her work today” may make a lot of sense when answering your own romantic partner’s missed call, but in most other situations, it is not appropriate to guess the gender identity of an unknown other despite a variety of nonverbal displays that may hint at a particular gendered life. It is tempting to rely on long hair, the use of makeup, or even on feminine colors (e.g., pinks or purples) or cuts of clothing (e.g., long, flowing, or even gauzy layers) to assume that someone wants to be seen as a woman. Additionally, masculine, wide, expansive gestures or short hair with accented musculature may make someone appear more manly, but even the most masculine of clothing (i.e., a tuxedo) may not be a reliable indicator that the wearer is a man.

While some people may bemoan the “difficulties” of making their own communication match the lived experiences of the people around them, it is incredibly easy to avoid mislabeling someone as a “him” (“he”)

or “her” (“she”) when that person actually uses another different pronoun. An important best practice to be adopted by the skilled communicator is to simply ask someone what pronoun they use. Rather than asking them what pronoun they prefer—which implies that there is a “real” pronoun that should be used but isn’t— simply asking someone about their pronouns is easy and much less awkward than someone might assume. For people who never give their own pronoun a second thought, a simple step can eliminate a discouraging moment of someone’s day.

EXAMINE: A simple clarifying question can help us better navigate the social realities of our modern world. Although many people may engage in nonverbal displays of gender that you automatically assume imply a masculine or a feminine identity, what might that person feel if you incorrectly use the wrong pronoun? Have you ever had someone make an incorrect assumption about you based upon some intentional or unintentional nonverbal display? What is the best response that you can use if someone uses the wrong pronoun when describing or interacting with you?

Race

Other identities are also just as significant as our understanding of sex or gender, specifically those related to our racial heritage. Because race is so often “displayed” for others to see before other impressions are given the chance to be formed—for example, racial heritage can be somewhat displayed through skin or hair color, the roundness of one’s eyes, general hair texture, and even facial structure—it is not unusual for people to feel that people are seeing them more for their race than for any other characteristic (perhaps besides gender).� Although there isn’t any biological basis for the many stereotypes associated with racial heritage, unfortunately many people must navigate their world with the additional burden of unwarranted perceptions of their behavior, character, biology, or ethics. At the same time, some people may be unjustly gifted with unearned privilege based upon their racial heritage, typically referred to as white privilege for Caucasians in North America.� (Similarly, men often benefit from male privilege.) Although privilege is often an emotionally charged topic because of all the feelings such a conversation may bring to the surface, it is important for people to learn more about how they have participated in society and to consider the ways in which they may have benefitted in different ways from unequal power structures.

Individuals may have different perceptions of their own racial identity, depending upon the experiences that they have had with members of not only other races but also with individuals that share their own racial background. Xochitl, for example, was taught to embrace her Chicana identity and was very politically active in local Latinx advocacy organizations. As a result, she is able to quickly identify with strong role models that share her background. Her own mother had a very different childhood, not learning until later in life that her racial identity was a strength to be acknowledged or highlighted, rather than simply a detriment to deal with as she tried to assimilate into a majority culture. In this chapter’s Absorb feature we see an example from popular media of how identity characteristics like these can influence perceptions of our interaction partners.

Box �.� Absorb Nonverbal Identity Displays on Popular Media

Talk show host Seth Meyers plays with notions of racial and sexual identity in the recurring segment “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell” on his Late Night with Seth Meyers show. Because of his visible whiteness and maleness

—and his self-admitted heterosexuality—Seth claims that certain jokes are off-limits because the punch lines involve issues of blackness, queerness, or of women’s lived experiences. Watch as Seth navigates identity in the clip below.

“Jokes Seth Can’t Tell: Possible Shoplifters, Artisan Lemonade.” from Late Night with Seth Meyers. July ��, ����. Available on YouTube.

Consider the nonverbal reactions of Seth’s writers when he finally tells an admittedly inappropriate joke at the end of the segment. With just a couple facial expressions and some vocal variation, both women are able to easily convey their shock and (faux) outrage at Seth’s attempt at humor.

ABSORB: How do the different identities impact your reaction to the jokes in this sketch? In what ways do you as an audience member make assumptions about each panelist based on the nonverbal displays of identity? Imagine the difference in your reaction (if any) were Seth Meyers the only one telling each of the jokes, alone at his desk. Do you think you would feel differently about the segment?

Culture

People often think of culture as something associated with one’s national origin or racial background. In fact, culture is much more about the combination of the various groups to which we belong. In addition, those groups are often located within a particular geographic region, where local ways of doing things can emerge that influence individual identity beyond members’ other group memberships. Margie, for example, grew up in a rural area where horseback riding and the rodeo were part of daily life. Despite considering herself to be a “girly” young woman because of her interest in fashion and makeup techniques—after all, Margie was taught to never go out of the house without eyeliner, boots, and a tight French braid—she knew how to fix a tractor and regularly participated in a variety of intense western horsemanship events. When she mentioned to her new college roommate Cheryl that she was her “daddy’s little princess,” a whole series of misconceptions emerged starting with both the terminology as well as the self-characterization that Margie used; Margie was the physically strongest and most confident young woman that Cheryl knew—always seeming to fill up all available space with her expansive gestures and direct eye contact—and those terms and descriptors were not a good fit based upon her own understandings of her own city life. How do you imagine you might have accidentally created a wrong perception of your own identity by trying to be humorous or by using a stereotype as a self-descriptor?

iStock.com/Woodkern

Personality

In addition to these more commonly considered identities, people often have closely held thoughts about their own ways of navigating their world based upon their personalities. While an extrovert might look forward to an evening out at a large party (because they tend to get their energy from social interaction with a variety of others), an introvert likely prefers to recharge with a dear friend or loved one in a more personal context. Imagine the significant nonverbal differences in eye contact and facial expression between an individual who wants to meet new people at an event (exhibiting direct eye contact, an open body orientation that welcomes others, and engagingly forward smile) as compared to someone who desperately wants to leave because they have had their

fill of new faces and unremembered names, making themselves appear both smaller and more unapproachable as they head toward the exit furtively with an unwelcome facial expression and repeated glances at a watch.

Also consider a different form of personality-driven identity, such as where the Type A personality in a class working group likely researched and completed a class project and submitted it to their faculty member early for feedback,� while the serial procrastinator sitting a couple rows back is busy figuring out if they need to get home by � p.m. or � p.m. in order to make the midnight deadline. Far more than personality descriptors as simply being one way to describe the general tendencies of an individual, it is not difficult to internalize and then strongly identify with a variety of personality and character traits—for both good and bad impact on our own lived experiences.

Other Identities

Finally, there are many other aspects of individual experience with which people may identify with strongly, weakly, or even not at all. Are you a student athlete, a member of the marching band, or someone totally uninterested in sports culture? Are you attracted to people of the opposite sex, the same sex, or some combination of both or neither? Does the idea of attending a large Comic-Con fan event inspire you to save your money, or conversely does it cause you to look up the definition of the term Comic-Con instead? A variety of interests and activities may influence your sense of self to varying degrees; for some people, they may so strongly identify with something that their world almost seems to revolve around it, while you may have never spent any time giving that topic a second thought. Tom is a huge fan of the Disney theme parks, reading histories of the parks, keeping up with the current trends and new attractions on an almost daily basis and even sleeping in a vintage Disneyland T-shirt. He becomes almost unhinged—raising his voice and making extreme gestures and facial expressions—when people try to relate to him by mentioning their own love of carnivals or even Six Flags coaster parks. To Tom, the immersive nature of the Disney parks makes all other properties seem like a distant second. To someone who isn’t a theme park fan, though, there really isn’t much difference between Disneyland and the local county fair. Tom’s abrupt response incorporates a variety of nonverbal messages that help him clarify to others the important aspects of his own identity.

IDENTITY, RELATIONSHIPS, AND NONVERBAL CODES People often send messages about their own personal identities using nonverbal messaging. When people send nonverbal messages to one another, they may do so in a variety of ways. In the example that started the chapter, Josefina used her voice, eye contact, facial expressions, clothing, and time management skills to send a valuable message about herself as a new employee. In so doing, her job supervisor formed an overall positive opinion, based upon each of these distinct sets of behaviors—behaviors which, importantly, did not use any words to convey a message. Each of these behaviors falls under a different nonverbal code, or category of communicative behaviors that have been grouped by nonverbal characteristics that they share.�

Although some scholars occasionally combine nonverbal codes into larger groups like contact cues (e.g., haptic and proxemic codes) or time and place cues (e.g. chronemic and environment codes),� each code is best understood on its own. While codes often occur alongside each other at the same time in any interaction, this chapter explores some nuances of each code as distinct from each other nonverbal code.

PROMINENT NONVERBAL CODES

Although people typically use multiple codes at the same time when sending messages to one another, it is useful to separately consider each of the nine major nonverbal codes before we encounter them throughout the book.

Kinesics

The first major nonverbal code that we will discuss is probably the one that contains elements you expected to study in a course on nonverbal communication. This nonverbal code most explicitly deals with movements and motion-based behaviors known as kinesics, and will be introduced more comprehensively in Chapter �. Encompassing a wide variety of behaviors, this code includes facial expressions, a wide variety of illustrative gestures, motion-based ways of regulating conversational flow, and additional forms of communicating that use movement to send a message to our interaction partners. In addition, this code contains other forms of movement like motion-based ways to regulate conversational flow, or even that weird leg-jiggling thing you do when you are excited for class to be over; occasionally people unintentionally convey messages that they are antsy or stressed using motion, such as tapping one’s leg in class, clicking the end of a ballpoint pen habitually, or even braiding a friend’s hair on a long bus ride.

Proxemics

The next major nonverbal code (and the author’s personal favorite), proxemics involves communicating through the use of personal space and interpersonal distance. Each person has acquired their own slightly different understanding of personal space based upon their own cultural background and experiences.� One of the most commonly used conceptualizations of interpersonal distance comes from Edward T. Hall, who describes various classifications of approximate distances and the types of relationships we’ll allow into each of those spaces.� In Chapter �, we will look at the typical interaction distances between various types of people in North America across a variety of situations, exploring how those situations help us manage our relationships with the people we meet in those spaces.

iStock.com/PeopleImages

Box �.� Engage Diverse Attitudes Toward Personal Distance

While the distances may vary across cultures, there is a near-universal understanding that there is some distance that is considered “good manners” within each individual culture. These differences in proxemic distances can lead to misunderstandings when interacting with people who don’t share a similar perspective.

When Rachel first met Dan, she thought of him as a “close talker” and felt like he was getting in her personal space. She worried about whether he might be hitting on her, considering that he always stood so close. Dan, for his part, regularly went home and told his husband that his new coworker Rachel seemed uncomfortable in their face-to-face conversations, despite working well together over the phone. Dan incorrectly wondered if it might have something to do with the fact that he had recently transferred from a different part of the country, or wondered whether maybe she had a problem with his sexual orientation.

Dan and Rachel are each using personal space in ways that seem normal to them, even though they clearly are not normal to their workplace interaction partners. Cultures vary across regions, across countries, and even across cultures within the same large city. If Dan and Rachel can confront the misunderstandings about personal space directly, they may come to a shared understanding that helps them move past the awkward beginning to their work relationship.

ENGAGE: How does Dan’s and Rachel’s different use of personal space impact each interaction partner? What would be your attitude toward personal space if you were in this situation? Have you ever encountered someone who shared a very different understanding of proxemic distance than you? How did you manage that situation?

Haptics

The closest unit of personal space can even get so close as to include one actually touching another person. The nonverbal code dealing exclusively with touch is known as haptics, and it covers all forms of messaging related to physical contact. From the embrace of a lover to a slap on the face from a frenemy, touch is one of the best ways to communicate both affection and aggression.�� As we will discuss in Chapter �, haptics are one part of the earliest messages that we receive as an infant, spanning a variety of caretaking and affectionate behaviors like being burped or hugged or bathed as an infant. Over the course of the life span, our complex understanding of touch emerges—including a developing culture-based understanding of what is considered appropriate or inappropriate touch—and we develop ways to evaluate how we use touch to send messages and to communicate a variety of messages in both personal and professional contexts.��

Oculesics

The nonverbal code dealing with the use of one’s eyes to send a message is known as oculesics, and it is one of the most important ways to indicate attention to a partner, or to convey affection or a threat. When Dominic wanted to let his teammate know that he was really upset with him, he stared at him angrily during the team’s post-game meeting. Later that night, when Dominic saw a former lover enter the post-game party at the local pub, he also used eye contact to send a message of a very different sort. Oculesic behaviors are among the most significant ways of perceiving the world around us, with around ��% of our social information received through sight.�� In Chapter �, we discuss the multiple forms of communication where people use their eyes to send a message to another person.

iStock.com/Image Source

Vocalics

Focusing on the ways in which we present verbal language to one another, the code of vocalics focuses on how we express ourselves using both words and voice qualities. In Chapter �, we will revisit in great detail the specifics of different qualities of the voice. Things such as rate, pitch, vocal tone, vocal variety, and even accent are each helpful in adding a piece to the puzzle about a conversation partner’s intent and emotional state. By understanding these nonverbal components that can accompany a verbal message, communicators can more clearly navigate the complicated world of feelings and emotions and intentionality that seem so different and

unique from person to person. When Sarah called Aiko on the phone during a crisis, Aiko knew immediately that something was wrong. Even though Sarah only talked about inane stuff like a trip to the grocery store, Aiko could tell by the tone and pitch of Sarah’s voice that she was having a rough time. Pressing Sarah to find out what happened, Aiko finally got Sarah to reveal that she had discovered that her partner was lying about an alcohol addiction which Sarah didn’t know how to handle. Aiko was able to use her own vocalics to make sure that Sarah knew she was comforted and supported and later met up with her to walk over to some campus resources that could help Sarah out.

Physical Appearance

A large part of identity in North American culture that has to do with the ways that we perceive ourselves based upon our looks. Indeed, we are also constantly making judgments and assessments of others based upon their physical appearance. Discussed further in Chapter �, the nonverbal code of physical appearance deals with our faces and bodies, our clothing, and the artifacts that we carry with ourselves.�� Each of these things is an important part of communicating information about ourselves to the world around us. For example, when Jorge first got to college as a new transfer student, he met some students during transfer orientation but also found that many continuing students had already made friends with one another in the previous years. That being said, Jorge noticed a group of men and women hanging out while wearing T-shirts related to videogame culture. An avid gamer himself, Jorge also paid attention to the fact that a bunch of those people looked genuine and relaxed, so Jorge felt comfortable approaching that group in order to try to make new friends as he asked about where to best get his videogame “fix.”

iStock.com/aywan��

Environment

The setting in which we find ourselves has a surprisingly large influence on our messaging. The nonverbal code associated with our environment focuses on features of the communication context. While we don’t necessarily acquire the environment as a nonverbal code, we do learn reactions to environmental features, discovering how best to communicate across a variety of contexts. Normally a loud and outgoing person, the first time that Guillaume walked into a large Catholic cathedral, he immediately fell silent. The soaring ceilings and the dim lighting immediately signaled a sense of quiet reflection that was unusual for the agnostic young man. While he didn’t necessarily have a belief in a higher power, or even a sense that he was in some special kind of place, the environmental features signaled that it was a place for calm reflection and Guillaume responded accordingly.

A variety of environmental features may impact the messaging that occurs in that context, signaling cultural norms about behavior or impacting the comfort or perceived intimacy of the physical space. Some elements are relatively difficult to change (requiring major renovation or construction), while others are relatively easier to change (rearranging furniture or repainting a wall), things which may not seem like much but definitely impact the communication environment in significant ways. The moods and communication patterns often associated with particular environmental features are discussed in greater detail in Chapter ��.

Box �.� Apply Making Your Space Reflect Your Identity

Katya’s parents teased her that she seemed to be going through a “bit of a goth phase” even though Katya herself argued it wasn’t that at all. Over the summer, Katya brought a gallon of dark dove grey paint to her bedroom and covered over all the bright pink walls, finally removing the sponge-painted unicorn designs she put up in third grade. After all, Katya had just turned ��, and she was over what she called “all that baby stuff.” Putting up vintage posters of classic punk bands alongside quotes from modern philosophers, Katya was working hard to show that she was developing her identity in new and interesting ways. Although her parents jokingly derided the marked change in Katya’s living situation, they were impressed at her initiative to make her room her own.

For her part, Katya really struggled with her own identity, particularly as the youngest sibling in a large family. She tried to use color and art to highlight her emerging adulthood, often in ways that her parents and other siblings failed to comprehend. Regardless of what the rest of the family thought, Katya felt fortunate to be able to have a place of her own that she could retreat to in order to get away from the problems she struggled with in everyday life.

APPLY: What was the immediate benefit of Katya’s redecoration of her space? How do you think she should handle the teasing from her parents and siblings? What do you think the specific choices she made said about her new identity? What ways do you try to make your space represent who you are as a person?

Olfactics

Although we may only lightly touch on the topic of scent in Chapter ��, it is important to highlight a rarely discussed nonverbal code. Olfactics is the nonverbal code focusing on the sense of smell, and the ways that we send messages using scent—both on our bodies and in our environment. Craig used to be teased about his body odor as a preteen, and later his overuse of body spray as a high schooler. Now, Craig showers every morning and uses expensive body washes and colognes to ensure that he smells fresh and clean throughout the day. Jonathan, on the other hand, is obsessed with the ambient smells in his environment. He wants to make sure that his home smells clean and welcoming during an upcoming dinner party event, so he heats up vanilla extract in the oven and curates a variety of air fresheners and diffusers throughout the house so that each room has a signature scent.

Chronemics

Interestingly, our use of time can also send a definite message, even if we are unintentional in the ways that we deal with time. This use of time will be discussed further in Chapter ��. The nonverbal code dealing with issues of time is known as chronemics, and we are constantly sending time-related messages even when we least expect it. Consider the response latency, or the amount of time that it takes to respond to someone; Cheryl can get really annoyed with Peter even if he never saw her message while his phone was charging. Alternately, think about Darren, who showed up to an interview a couple minutes late because of traffic; for some employers, being � minutes late is seen as right on time. For this job interview, however, Darren was told that he missed his opportunity and subsequently never even got a chance to sit down with the human resources representative. Lastly, consider Valerie, who likes to make her appointments wait a few minutes before she sees them, in an attempt to let them know that she is busy—and to make herself seem important. Clearly, we may be sending or receiving messages using time, regardless of our intent to do so.

Box �.� Measure Self-Assessments and Common “Scents”

Interestingly, while we may have lots of different names and descriptions of a variety of scents, most smells are evaluated as somewhere on a continuum of “good” to “bad” smells.�� Each person places an individual smell somewhere along the continuum based on a variety of personal experiences.

Instructions: Think carefully about the list of common scents below, and then rank them in order from � (most pleasant) to � (least pleasant). Compare the order of your list with another classmate and discuss what differences you might find.

Gasoline  Lavender  Cinnamon  Skunk  Garlic  Roses  Detergent  Coffee  Peppermint

Most Pleasant 1.__________________________________

2.__________________________________

3.__________________________________

4.__________________________________

5.__________________________________

6.__________________________________

7.__________________________________

8.__________________________________

Least Pleasant 9.__________________________________

Discuss the similarities and differences in the list with your classmate. For example, Heath loved to work with his dad in the garage as a child, and the smell of gasoline brings him right back to those early experiences. Rick, however, has horrible flashbacks to a car accident when he first got his driver’s license; most any car smells are unpleasant to him because of his own personal experiences.

MEASURE: Consider your list and the list of your classmate’s. How do personal experiences influence your attitudes toward certain smells? Were there any scent ranking differences that you were surprised by? Did your classmate have any noticeable reactions to any of the rankings you made for your own list?

A SUMMARY OF IDENTITY AND THE NONVERBAL CODES The different attitudes that we have about the self can impact the manner in which we express ourselves in a variety of ways. Some common factors that influence our sense of self include our sex and gender, our race, our individual personality characteristics, and the various cultures in which we find ourselves. Nonverbal codes can help convey these identities, with a large range of behaviors and characteristics serving as messages across a variety of channels and senses. Each of the nonverbal codes serves as a category of nonverbal behaviors that are grouped based upon some common characteristics, and these codes often co-occur with one another. Kinesics focuses on the use of motion in communication, whether through gestures or even the motion associated with making affect displays (e.g., facial expressions). Proxemics deals with personal space and the distances we normally interact apart from each other. Haptics, on the other hand, focuses on the closest use of space, that of touch across a variety of personal and professional contexts. The study of oculesic messages focus on various forms of communication using one’s eyes, while vocalics focus on the wide variety of vocal/auditory sounds we can make to send a message. Physical appearance highlights how the ways we look and the clothing and artifacts we keep with our body may send messages to those around us. Environmental features serve to constrain or encourage a variety of communication patterns based upon cultural norms, hinting at rules of appropriateness for both topic and manner of communication. Finally, olfactics focuses on how smells communicate information, and chronemics highlights how the use of time can also communicate information to the people with whom we interact. Looking at the complete list of nonverbal communication codes, one is struck by the incredible complexity of messaging that occurs within human contexts. Indeed, everyone has a lot of information to sift through in order to best understand each person with whom they interact and the unique identities that each person represents.

CLOSING QUESTIONS What can you identify as a main way that you use nonverbal messages to manage your identity?

Given what you now know about the nonverbal codes, which codes do you plan to most rely on to send and reinforce a message?

Considering your close relationships, what nonverbal codes do you most pay attention to as you create an overall gestalt impression?

KEY TERMS

androgynous ��

chronemics ��

environment ��

extrovert ��

gender ��

haptics ��

identity ��

introvert ��

kinesics ��

nonverbal code ��

oculesics ��

olfactics ��

physical appearance ��

proxemics ��

response latency ��

sex ��

Type-A ��

undifferentiated ��

vocalics ��

� KINESICS: ENGAGING MOTION AND GESTURES

iStock.com/gawrav

Learning Objectives After reading this chapter you will be able to do the following:

Compare the functional and structural approaches to kinesics

Understand the impact of facial expressions on conveying emotion

Describe different categories of kinesic behaviors

Nala had always been an independent thinker. From her earliest days, she considered herself to be both regal and approachable, taking her cues from the animated character after which she was named. As she grew older, she began to learn more about the benefits of her position as the youngest member of her extended family; she quickly had her single-parent father bending to her every whim and expectation. Nala knew how to influence her father’s daily decisions with an upturned face and a well-timed gesture, eager with the anticipation of some desired event. As she visited the houses of relatives who spoke a second language throughout her childhood while her father was traveling for work, Nala quickly figured out how to use her face and hands to communicate exactly what she wanted. Her transition to college, however, was a bit of a sharp lesson. Used to getting her own way as the only child, Nala was unprepared for the necessary compromise and mutual negotiations required for having a roommate. Fortunately, Nala quickly learned how to interpret how her roommate’s facial expressions related to their underlying meanings, internalizing an understanding of these nonverbal behaviors in order to better navigate their shared living arrangement.

Guiding Questions What is the role of facial expressions in human interaction?

How do people use gestures and other motion-based behaviors to structure interactions?

How can people negotiate a balance between how they feel and how they display emotions?

KINESICS

Recently introduced in Chapter �, kinesics is the nonverbal code that focuses on movements and motion-based behaviors. From the widening grin on someone’s face at a comedy club to the frantic signaling of someone trying to get a driver to slow down on a residential street, humans have become quite adept at sending messages without using any verbal language. Indeed, it is quite common for people to report being able to understand “exactly” what a sibling or parent is thinking simply from the look on their face in a given situation.

iStock.com/kate_sept����

In fact, family often becomes the social structure through which we learn many of our earliest and most significant forms of communication, both verbal and nonverbal in nature.� Our earliest patterns of communication are established at a young age, and typically the majority of those patterns emerge as a function of the family structure and the communication system in which each young child finds themself.� Indeed, our earliest communication attempts occur within our own unique family structure, as infants use nonverbal communication in an attempt to signal their needs to a parent, sibling, or other caregiver.� In fact, all of our early communication attempts within and among members of our family structure are necessarily nonverbal for the first stages of our human life, for we as humans don’t develop the ability to communicate with verbal language until many months have passed (as discussed in Chapters � and �). Jericha learned at an early age to distinguish the different sounds that her newest sibling Reese made, knowing instantly whether Reese wanted to eat, burp, or get a diaper changed. As Reese grew, Jericha continued to keep close watch on her youngest sibling, learning quickly what different faces meant and anticipating his reaction to most any external stimuli. Significantly, at the same time that Jericha was studying Reese, young Reese was also watching his big sister Jericha, learning what faces she made when she was happy (e.g., smile) or concerned (e.g., frown) and trying to mimic those faces himself. Eventually, through the process of intermodal matching, Reese learned what emotional situations were likely to result in specific facial expressions, quickly discovering the cultural rules that helped to shape his own later displays of emotion as he discovered how to match his face to his feelings.

COMMUNICATION, MOVEMENT, AND THE FACE People can communicate a wide range of important messages through their faces—from using the muscles in the face to convey a specific emotion to hinting at specific messages using the movement of the eyes. Humans have become quite reliant upon looking at the face of an interaction partner to gather important information, and we often are quite aware of situations where someone appears to be looking directly at us with intent.� Whether the look is because someone is trying to scrutinize our face to understand our facial expression or because that person is trying to use eye contact to get our attention, we are naturally programmed to notice when someone is engaging in gaze behaviors.� Monica was excited to ride the subway for the first time; having grown up in a small suburban town, she had never gotten the opportunity to engage in a behavior that many people considered to be a normal part of daily life. After a full day out on the town, however, she was startled to notice that a handsome older man was staring directly in her direction. Far from being flattered, Monica was alarmed—and showed it—as she stared back at the direct and unflinching prolonged gaze of this man. As she looked to other passengers to make sure she could get help if needed, she suddenly realized that many of them were all also staring blankly in her direction. Her choice to sit directly under the subway’s system map had meant that people appeared to look at her when in reality they were looking at the wall just above her head. Struggling to compose herself, Monica made a facial expression of her own like she had just remembered something important, promptly burying her face in

her smartphone like many other passengers. In this chapter’s Absorb feature, we look at a popular media representation of popular celebrities trying to manage their own facial expressions in a high-stakes situation.

Box �.� Absorb Facial Expressiveness and Lie Detection on Popular Media

When Jimmy Fallon has guests on his weeknight variety talk show The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, it is quite common for him to play an unusual funny game with one or more of the guests. In this clip, watch as Jimmy plays his signature game “Box of Lies” with celebrated Hollywood star Chris Pratt.

“Box of Lies with Chris Pratt,” from The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. June ��, ����. Running Time: �:��. Available on YouTube.

Consider the game’s use of facial expressions and tone of voice as cues for each player to try to determine the truthfulness of their competitor. Even though the pair are face to face, they look one another directly in the eyes as they try to convince each other to guess incorrectly about the contents of their box. Both parties rely heavily on the facial expressions of the other, often with hilarious (and often incorrect) results.

ABSORB: What do you guess each player is most relying on to determine whether their competitor’s statement is true or false? Do you think each partner is working hard to manage their own facial expressions? Why do you think they set up the game in order to force each player to gaze directly into each other’s eyes? Which of the two players do you personally think did the best job, and why?

Affect Displays

When we talk about the use of our face in communicating our feelings, it is important to remember that each facial expression is a way to reveal an internal emotion in a public manner, with that facial expression known as an affect display (where the term affect describes an emotion). Even though there are a variety of emotions that people can possibly display, scholars often talk about the six most commonly discussed emotional displays of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust.� Indeed, much research on intercultural expressions of emotion have found that these specific affect displays are recognizable across the human experience and occur in every population of people to some degree.� Indeed, research has shown that people are able to easily understand the facial expressions of other people in part because of their characteristic facial cues�, � as follows:

Happiness is characterized by smiling and raised cheeks.

iStock.com/mstudioimages

Sadness is characterized by eyebrows that are raised and drawn together, with parted lips that have depressed corners.

iStock.com/deagreez

Fear is characterized by raised eyebrows and eyelids, and stretched lips surrounding an open mouth.

iStock.com/aaronamat

Anger is characterized by low eyebrows and raised eyelids, with a tight raised upper lip and a depressed lower lip surrounding an open mouth.

iStock.com/peopleimages

Surprise is characterized by a head tilted upward sporting raised eyebrows and eyelids over eyes that are moved down, typically with a jaw that is dropped.

iStock.com/deagreez

Disgust is characterized by a raised chin with wrinkled nose, where the upper lip is raised over an open mouth with a tongue sticking out.

iStock.com/drbimages

Neurocultural Theory

Although initially scholars may have wondered whether the ability to produce and recognize facial expressions was a product of biology�� (i.e., the universalist position) or of culture�� (i.e., the cultural relativist position), scholars have long argued that these affect displays are actually a combination of our innate biologically based inherited behaviors and our culture-specific learned behaviors.�� Specifically, Neurocultural Theory argues that we have inherited a basic understanding of how to display emotion that is instinctual; we then display those emotions as filtered through our learned cultural display rules that tell us how we are “supposed” to display emotion within our culture (e.g., American men are allowed to display the emotion of anger but should refrain from displaying the emotion of sadness).��, �� These display rules may cause us to diminish the expression of a certain emotion, to enhance it so that others think we are feeling it more strongly than we actually are, or to even replace that emotion with another different emotion; we may even display no emotion at all (e.g., flat affect). This combination of factors, then, explains how humans can have both cultural and biological influences on the facial expression of emotions and are able to navigate complicated situations that may arise.

iStock.com/Orbon Alija

Chester received socks for Christmas every year, and each year he sarcastically asked that he be given something else the following year. After all, his friends all received video games and expensive toys. His first year

in college, however, Chester had been looking forward to his holiday celebration and even eagerly anticipated the annual family joke of socks for Christmas. When Chester opened his present and discovered a gift card for the local department store, he pretended to be excited even though he secretly missed the routine of his earlier years. His parents told him that he was a “college man now, and old enough to buy your own socks.” Even though he knew he had been asking for something different every Christmas, Chester had to hide his disappointment that a youthful era had ended and that he had finally gotten what he had (ostensibly) wanted. To explore yet another situation where people often find themselves having to manage their nonverbal facial features like Chester above, check out this chapter’s Apply feature, next.

Emotional expressions can also be enhanced by the use of eye contact in a way that subtly alters their meaning. Consider, for example, having an angry facial expression while also making direct eye contact with a rival. What might you be trying to communicate in such a scenario, beyond the idea that you are experiencing anger? Or consider a situation where you make brief eye contact with someone, look away, and immediately register an expression of disgust. In what way does this add specific meaning to the affect display (i.e., disgust) that you are showing in this scenario? In each of these situation, our eye contact (or lack thereof) can add an additional layer of meaning to the affect displays that we use in our interactions. Just as display rules may govern our use of specific facial expressions, so also do we learn about the impact that our use of eye contact might have within a specific cultural context. Eye behaviors like these will be discussed in great detail in Chapter �.

Box �.� Apply Monitoring Nonverbals Around Small Children

Jaden was terrified to get his first vaccinations. His older brothers had talked with him for hours about how painful their shots were, exaggerating the needles to seem the size of crayons. As Jaden walked down the hallway in the clinic, he puffed out his tiny chest and made a low growling sound. When the assistant came to swab the injection site with alcohol so they could get started, Jaden narrowed his eyes at her and snarled, baring his teeth in her general direction. Seconds later, he started screaming at the shocked assistant, balling his fists up and getting ready to take a swing at her. Horrified, Jaden’s mom rescheduled the vaccinations and dragged Jaden out to the car, tight-lipped and beet red. After a few minutes of tense silence in the car on the way home, Jaden’s mom started yelling at Jaden before even asking what had happened.

As you have read, much of infants’ communication behaviors are patterned after the ways that family members communicate with one another. Indeed, the display rules associated with each culture ensure that small children are likely to display certain emotions based on what they have discovered is optimal or more or less accessible within their own family structure. Jaden, for example, quickly learned that boys don’t cry because he saw his older siblings and father keep a straight face, even when confronted with situations that probably should have made each person cry. At the same time, he internalized his older brothers’ rough play and responses to confrontations. Jaden was determined to be the “top dog” that his brothers always admired, whatever that meant.

APPLY: What do you think caused Jaden to behave in such a manner? How can you explain his behavior based upon the concepts of display rules and intermodal matching. Do you think that Jaden is a bad kid? What are your attitudes toward the rest of Jaden’s family? What should his family have done in this situation?

Ekman and Friesen’s Microexpressions

Interestingly, the Neurocultural Theory as discussed above highlights a situation where our innate biology may trigger our face to begin to express a certain emotion, and then our cultural background helps to override that expression, either by enhancing or diminishing—or even replacing—that specific expression of emotion.��

Surprisingly, Ekman and Friesen argue that there is a microexpression or brief flash of emotion on each individual’s face that occurs between the moment that we begin to display our innate emotion and that we begin to override that emotional display into something more culturally appropriate. This “flash” of emotions is incredibly fast, just a fraction of a second, but scholars argue that we can subconsciously become aware of this microexpression and register it in our interactions with other people.�� Chet got accepted into his first-choice school and was thrilled because it meant he would finally be able to transfer out of state to be closer to his long- term girlfriend. When he ran to his mother to share the good news, he noticed she seemed a little sad, even though she had been very supportive every step of the way throughout his application. Even now, Chet’s mom seemed to happily begin making a list of things to purchase for the cross-country move, but Chet couldn’t shake the feeling that she would rather have him closer to home. Look at this chapter’s Measure feature to explore your own perceptions about your use of facial expressions.

Social Signaling

Even as we talk about the cultural and inherited functions of emotions and emotional expression through the face and eyes, we may wonder why humans developed the ability to express emotions in the first place. Interestingly, the first emotional displays may have originated as a nonverbal communication system within the early family structures as humans tried to send messages to each other about something impacting their lived experience.�� A great example of this is the affect display for disgust, which is literally the facial expression that one would have if they were trying to spit out spoiled or distasteful food while also preventing more from entering their system.��

Scholars have argued that in early humans, the distended tongue and open mouth demonstrates an active attempt to spit out bad food while the wrinkled nose and closed eyes are attempts to close the system to any additional bodily contamination from, say, a rotting animal carcass discovered by early prehistoric man. Eventually, the practical nature of the facial expressions for confronting spoiled food may have signaled to other nearby individuals that the food was distasteful and should not be approached. After many years of evolutionary and social history, humans could show the affect display for disgust in order to communicate that something was gross or undesirable, without actually needing to remove any spoiled food from their own mouth. In this way, emotional displays through facial expressions became a form of signaling to one another about an underlying emotional state or opinion; when someone makes that specific facial expression, they must be dealing with something (or someone) disgusting. Over many years of social evolution, humans can now show that (or any) facial expression to signal an underlying emotion, without needing to explain the emotion—or to even actually feel that emotion in the first place!

Box �.� Measure Self-Assessments and Facial Expressivity

Even though everyone has likely experienced that terrifying moment when you let someone know you feel angry or upset even when you don’t want them to know, we all vary in how much we want to share various emotions with other people. Sometimes we express our negative emotions in certain situations, while in other contexts we may work hard to hide the way that we truly feel.

Scholars have figured out a way to measure our perceptions of the degree to which we feel like we express our positive and negative emotions to other people.��, �� The following is a shortened and significantly modified list of questions inspired by the original researchers’ �� items that measured a person’s perceptions of their own emotional expressivity.

Instructions: Think carefully about your attitude toward the following statements. Write the number (e.g., � through �) that best corresponds with your attitudes toward each statement.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Strongly

Disagree

Disagree Somewhat

Disagree

Undecided Somewhat

Agree

Agree Strongly

Agree

__________ 1. I laugh out loud when I hear funny jokes.

__________ 2. I find that it is better to suppress my anger than to show it.

__________ 3. When I’m happy, people can tell what I am feeling.

__________ 4. People typically don’t notice when I am feeling stress.

__________ 5. If things go my way, my joy is written all over my face.

__________ 6. Even when I’m upset, I can keep a calm exterior.

__________ 7. People can look at my face and see exactly when I’m feeling good

__________ 8. I don’t let people see me cry when I see a sad movie.

Separately add up your score on the odd numbers and your score on the even numbers. The lowest score you can receive on either one is �, while the highest score is ��. The odd numbers measure your

willingness to express your positive emotions, while the even numbers measure your attempts to hide your negative emotions.

MEASURE: Are you surprised by your scores on the odd questions or the even questions? Which one of the two was higher? Think about the things that may impact your willingness to show positive or negative emotions. How do you think your own family experience has impacted the ways you display your emotions to the people around you?

iStock.com/Sasha_Suzi

COMMUNICATION, MOVEMENT, AND THE HANDS AND BODY The human face is not the only place for motion-based messaging in our discussion of nonverbal communication. Indeed, you probably didn’t even consider facial expressions as being motion-based before our discussion in this chapter. But, the one thing that you likely did imagine would be part of a discussion of movement had to do with the ways that we move our hands and bodies as we interact with other people. In fact, this is probably one of the first things you considered when you thought about taking a class in nonverbal communication. Monica, for example, feels disrespected by one of her supervisors at an on-campus internship. In talking with her faculty members about advice they might have for the situation, she is constantly making gestures to highlight the extent of her hard work, the length of time that the uncomfortable situation has been happening for, and even slaps her own wrist to demonstrate that she constantly feels like she is being told what to do. This use of gestures helps to strongly send a message about the extent of her distress about her internship experience and results in some helpful advice from faculty and staff that know her well.

Illustrators

When people talk about “gestures,” they are typically describing illustrators, or the ways in which we use motion with our hands to communicate a message or to aid in the communication of a message. When Eliza wanted to explain to her husband Jim how wide she planned to plant her new vegetable garden, she used the spread of her hands to send a message about the width and length of each raised planter that she expected to build. Jim then had an idea about how much lumber he would need to budget for when they went to the hardware store later. Later, at her job in human resources for a local manufacturer, Eliza was explaining to her employees how the cost of health care had changed over time, using the swoop of her hands to give an idea of the sharp increase in prices over the past few decades. Hand gestures like Eliza’s can be particularly useful in sending a message, but in this chapter’s Examine feature we explore some ways that gestures can actually prove somewhat harmful.

Box �.� Examine The Ethics of Expansive Gestures

People use power to influence their interactions with others, specifically with regard to their attempts to gain access to privilege, prestige, or resources that are scarce or desirable. One of the more significant ways of claiming that power may be the manner in which an individual uses kinesic behaviors like gestures

and body posture in order to send the message that they are a powerful person or someone whose favor is desirable.��

Men are often the worst offenders at claiming power through gestures or body positioning, even though many occasions do not necessitate having one person demonstrate power over the others present. By using expansive, large gestures, a man may make himself appear larger or more in control of his space— thus gaining more power over the other men and women in the room.�� Indeed, some people have begun advocating that women also begin to use powerful gestures, to take up more space, and to try to make themselves appear taller or more imposing in an attempt to gain more power over an interaction partner. However, one wonders whether this attempt to wrest power from other individuals using kinesic behaviors is a wise choice in terms of group experience. Might it not be better for all group members to instead participate collaboratively, rather than trying to take power and control for oneself?

EXAMINE: Consider the ethics of gaining power at the expense of your peer group or of unknown others. What are the justifications for engaging in such behaviors? What are the arguments against using kinesics to access control or resources within a set of relationships? Men are historically taught cultural norms that encourage such behaviors, and more and more discussions are advocating that women should behave similarly to gain access to power. Is there a third option that encourages people to not express power in these contexts? Is such a third option simply a naïve hope that will ultimately oppress women who opt out of such power displays? What is the most ethical way to deal with these social realities, in your opinion?

Regulators

Another important function of kinesic behaviors is to regulate conversational flow. From setting the cadence of the interaction to indicating switches in turn-taking, regulators allow interaction partners to more smoothly know when it is their turn to talk, and whether others wish to have a chance to speak or to retain the floor.�� By combining gestures and head movements, people can more fluidly engage one another with far less conversational overlap or missteps. When Chad and Derrick spend time with a client at their consulting firm, they could easily talk over one another because they are both so outgoing and talkative. Fortunately, they appear to work like a united front and are able to “pass the ball” back and forth to one another by gesturing toward one another or nodding their heads at each other when it is their turn to talk. In this chapter’s Engage feature, we look at the ways that people may differ in regulating interaction across cultures.

Box �.� Engage Diverse Ways of Regulating Interaction

While there are many common ways of letting someone know that it is their turn to speak in North America, like looking at someone while nodding or pointing directly at someone whose turn it is to speak, these are not necessarily held in the same esteem across a variety of cultures. For example, in some cultures the opportunity to speak may be given to the oldest person present, in an attempt to show respect to one’s elders. In other cultures, pointing directly at someone is considered incredibly rude or even downright offensive. When Garret and Sammy were working with a new set of clients, Sammy noticed that she was often not acknowledged in her interactions with the all-male liaison team that handled her account. Sammy

tried to figure out how best to broach the subject with her coworker Garret, as she felt undervalued and a bit out of touch with the goings-on of the current project as a result. At the same time, she was relatively new to the company despite her experience and worried that Garret might not take her side of things.

Garret and Sammy are in a difficult position, as they don’t have much background about their new working partnership with the members of the liaison team. Even more so, Sammy is in the unique position of having the least power and the least privilege of anyone in the room. Sammy wants to impress her new boss, she wants to wow her new clients, and she also wants to be seen as a valuable and contributing member of the shared liaison team as a while.

ENGAGE: How might Garret and Sammy’s preexisting relationship offer insight into how Sammy should handle this situation? Does the international nature of the liaison team possibly offer insight into the situation where she finds herself? Have you ever been in a scenario where people treated you differently than you expected to be treated? What advice would you give to Sammy on how to navigate this encounter with her boss? What advice would you give to both Sammy and Garret in dealing better with the liaison team? How would you handle this situation yourself?

Adaptors

When people are stressed or excited, their bodies often need an opportunity to release some of that extra energy. Adaptors are kinesic behaviors that allow an individual to relieve some of that energy and can serve as an indicator of both arousal or heightened awareness.�� When someone is tapping their leg in class or biting their nails during a boring conversation, they are engaging in a self-adaptor, using their own bodies as a way to occupy themselves. For the person using a gadget like a fidget spinner or clicking the end of a ballpoint pen habitually, they are using an object-adaptor to release some of that excess energy. Finally, the child who braids a friend’s hair on a long bus ride or the person who squeezes a friend’s hands constantly during a bumpy airplane flight are each using an other-adaptor, in which the body of another person is used as a way to relieve stress through this motion-based behavior. Although many of the adaptors are not necessarily mindful behaviors, there may be some adaptors (e.g., braiding hair) that are done more intentionally than others.

iStock.com/Ranta Images

Body Orientation

One of the last specific types of kinesic behaviors that we will discuss in this chapter is one that uses our entire body to perform as we move our torso toward or away from interaction partners. This body orientation is often described as “open” or “closed” depending upon where we aim the center of our torso. For those of you that might remember the Care Bears who shot a beam of colored light out of their stomach/chest and could aim it in certain directions, imagine that your body orientation is similarly described by where you aim the imaginary beam that emerges from your own torso. When you face the trunk of your body directly at the body of an interaction partner, this open body orientation indicates an openness or willingness to engage and interact with that person. When Lori and Janey meet in the hallway at work, their bodies demonstrate their good relationships with one another and their willingness to engage. A closed body orientation, however, highlights less desire to interact with another person or even a lack of time to truly engage one another. When Catherine and Frances wanted to have a

personal conversation with one another without interruptions, they turned their bodies away from anyone else to highlight the confidential nature of what they were saying.

Sometimes, people may turn their faces toward a potential interaction partner without actually displaying an open body orientation. In this case, people often give off the impression that the partner may have their attention, but that they should keep their interaction brief or that the interaction is generally unwanted. When Pauline walks by Ron’s office and he asks her if she has a second, her response of “only a second” is far less impactful than the fact that she didn’t take the time to turn her whole body in his direction but rather only turned her head.

iStock.com/Lorado

A SUMMARY OF KINESICS: ENGAGING MOTION AND GESTURES Movements of the hands, body, or face offer a unique channel for messaging, as these kinesic behaviors are among our earliest attempts at communication with others. For most people, the family unit is the first experience with engaging in communication behaviors, as we learn how to engage in affect displays from interacting with our family members, even as we begin to develop an understanding of how our culture wants us to override our biological urges to communicate our internal feelings in an appropriate way. Indeed, our facial expressions (especially when combined with our use of eye contact and other eye-related movement) are among the most powerful ways to send messages to other people, forming one of the earliest types of social signaling. Add to that the range of gestures and positioning that we produce as social information with our hands and body, and we begin to see the complex ways that he have developed a greater understanding of how best to navigate our social world using motion-based messaging.

CLOSING QUESTIONS Knowing what you have learned about the role of facial expressions in human interaction, how might you modify your own use of facial expressions?

In your opinion, what is the politest way to use gestures—and other motion-based behaviors—to structure your own future interactions?

In what ways have you figured out the best ways to manage both how you feel and how you display emotions about how you feel?

KEY TERMS

adaptors ��

affect display ��

body orientation ��

closed body orientation ��

cultural relativist position ��

display rules ��

flat affect ��

gaze ��

illustrators ��

intermodal matching ��

microexpression ��

Neurocultural Theory ��

object-adaptor ��

open body orientation ��

other-adaptor ��

regulators ��

self-adaptor ��

universalist position ��

� PROXEMICS: ENGAGING PERSONAL SPACE AND INTERPERSONAL DISTANCE

iStock.com/SolStock

Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, you will be able to do the following:

Distinguish among the four zones of interpersonal distance

Understand how proximity may lead to perceptions of similarity

Describe the impact of expectancy violations on interpersonal attraction

Shelby was frequently uncomfortable at her new university. As a trans woman of color, she found that she was often on the receiving end of some questioning glances from the people that she interacted with regularly. It felt like every one of the choices she made—from the shoes she wore, to the bathrooms she used—were under constant scrutiny. Fortunately, she found a group of people in her themed residence hall that helped her to feel like she fit in. Each of her new friends seemed to be struggling with self-presentation in some way, with Ibrahim having difficulty wearing religious apparel as part of his identity, and her roommate Carolyn dealing with her brush with fame as a newly popular YouTube personality. From the outside, this assortment of new friends seemed an unusual grouping, but they had already developed a unique pattern of behaviors and inside jokes that helped bond them. After only a few months at college together, each student found more and more ways that they communicated similarly to one another. Eventually, each also found themselves paying more attention to their shared similarities rather than to the differences that they had first noticed on move-in day.

Guiding Questions Why do people seek out others who are similar to themselves?

How does proximity impact our perceptions of the people in our lives?

PROXEMICS The second major nonverbal code that we will discuss, proxemics, involves the use of personal space and interpersonal distance. Each person has acquired a slightly different understanding of their own personal space

based upon their own culture.� It is important to note, however, that while the distances may vary across cultures, there is a near-universal understanding that each culture has its own understanding of some distance that is considered “good manners.” These differences in proxemic distances can lead to misunderstandings when interacting with people who don’t share a similar perspective. When Rachel first met Dan, for instance, she thought of him as a “close talker” and felt like he was getting in her personal space. She worried about whether he might be hitting on her, considering that he always stood so close. Dan, for his part, regularly went home and told his husband that his new coworker Rachel seemed uncomfortable in their face-to-face conversations, despite working well together over the phone. Dan incorrectly wondered if it might have something to do with the fact that he had recently transferred from a different part of the country and was still seen as a sort of outsider.

One of the most commonly used conceptualizations of interpersonal distance comes from Edward T. Hall, who describes four different classifications of approximate interaction distances as seen in Figure �.� (p. ��).� Each category includes the amount of space between two people, and has implications for the likely nature of the relationship between two people interacting with in those spaces. Let’s start with the closest of these four distances, an area appropriately called the intimate zone.

Intimate Zone

Ranging from � inches—actual touch–to �� inches, the intimate zone is the closest of Hall’s interpersonal distances. In the intimate zone, we only allow our closest interpersonal relationships, and as such, relatively few individuals are allowed to enter. In the intimate zone, we are aware of every aspect of the other interactant, from the sound of their breathing to the scent of their cologne or perfume. From accidentally bumping into one another to feeling one’s body heat because of such close quarters, the intimate zone allows each person to have kinesthetic awareness of each other (i.e., to fill one another’s senses). This much closeness would be overwhelming, except when occupied by each person’s most trusted interpersonal partners, as seen in this chapter’s Apply feature.

iStock.com/Morsa Images

Box �.� Apply The Intimacy of Kinesthetics

Gared wasn’t a huge fan of people. I mean, sure, he had some good friends and he loved his mom deeply, but he didn’t like the general unknown “others” that made up the mass of humanity. Theme parks and concerts were anathema to Gared, as they were “filled with teens and hormones and unattainable dreams” as he often liked to say. In general, he couldn’t be bothered with people that he didn’t know very well; while he was very well-liked by people that knew him, there were very few others who fit that category. When Gared studied abroad and fell in love, however, he found himself in both a culture and a relationship that didn’t care much for privacy or solitude, and he often found himself thrust into situations filled with many people in close quarters.

Gared’s culture of origin—that is, the culture in which he grew up—was characterized by allowing independence and individuality. If you grew up in North America, you had a pretty good chance of either experiencing that pattern yourself or at least seeing that represented in the movies and television shows

that you were exposed to as a child and young adult. Not all cultures value the ability to get away from other people like Western cultures, however, and independence is uniquely suited for people from such a background. In contrast, much of the world encourages the constant regular enmeshment of people and lives and bodies that Gared despised. Each culture has its own norms and values, and many of these norms have to do with personal space and the use of touch and the potential for contact. Just as Gared is having a hard time adjusting to his new relationship and his adopted culture, someone from that location may have some trouble assimilating to Gared’s friends and family. Cultural norms are—well—cultural, and as such they vary widely even within the same country.

APPLY: What do you think is likely the most difficult change for Gared? How do you think Gared’s behaviors and attitudes influence his new relational partner’s life? Do you think Gared is confused or stressed or surprised regularly in his “adopted” culture? If you were Gared’s partner, what would you say to your friends before you introduced Gared to them? How do you think Gared is likely to behave differently upon his return to his culture of origin?

Personal/Casual Zone

Ranging from �� inches to about � feet, the personal/casual zone is reserved for close friends and family members. Relatively many more individuals are welcome to enter our personal/casual zone as compared to our intimate zone, but typically these are still people we feel comfortable with or even people that we know quite well. Allowing someone to get so physically close to us means that we still have a degree of trust, but the presence of the other isn’t quite as overwhelming as it would be if that person were in the intimate zone. Rather than being a perfect sphere, the personal/casual zone is often described as an egg-shaped bubble surrounding each person, as seen in Figure �.�, shaped that way since our sense receptors (e.g., eyes, noses) typical face forward.

Social/Consultative Zone

Ranging from � feet to � feet, the social/consultative zone allows us to interact with others in a variety of professional or acquaintance-based contexts. Workplace conversations, interactions with members of an extended social circle in a public setting, or getting things accomplished at one’s place of business all typically occur in the social/consultative zone. That distance of � feet is not arbitrary, but instead reflects the cultural concept of keeping someone “at arm’s length” because this unknown other individual cannot suddenly move to strike or attack, an important evolutionary adaptation.�

Figure �.� Our Egg-Shaped Personal Space

Public Zone

Ranging anywhere above � feet (to infinity), the public zone is where we are most comfortable keeping unknown others with no professional obligations. Whether you are hanging out at the beach or walking your dog at the park, in most normal situations you are relatively comfortable with a stranger staying beyond � feet away from you in public settings.

Interestingly, we only allow certain people into certain zones, based upon our preexisting relationship with them.�

For example, you might be very comfortable allowing your romantic partner to give you a quick embrace but might

be very unwilling to shake hands with an unknown other on the street. Just as the relationship type may influence the proxemic zone that you are comfortable allowing someone into, similarly the proxemics distance may also influence your evaluation of your relationship with another person. If you have a positive attitude toward someone and they interact more closely than you otherwise expected, this may cause you to subconsciously reevaluate your relationship with that person and decide that you are closer than you had previously thought. These proxemics violations—part of the larger Expectancy Violations Theory� discussed later in this chapter—are a driver of the perceptions that we have about a variety of people in our personal lives. In the Examine feature, we consider the ethical implications of personal space violations.

Figure �.� Zones of Interpersonal Distance

Box �.� Examine The Ethics of Personal Space

Consider any throwback movie you have seen where kids are bullying one another on the playground. What’s the first thing that you notice? The bully is typically getting right up in his victim’s personal space. Think about your own experiences where someone has tried to intimidate you or tried to convince you to do something against your better judgment. Wasn’t there an element of them trying to get closer than they perhaps ought to have gotten?

In the theory we are about to present, Expectancy Violations Theory, one major takeaway point is that people can use personal space violations to influence the outcome of their interactions with others. To be sure, there may be cases of positive violations within positive relationships for positive reasons, but that may not always be the norm. It isn’t difficult to imagine a scenario where someone can use their understanding of proxemic violations to manipulate others in ways that may not be healthy or ethical. As with most any social science theory, a good communicator needs to take the knowledge they have gained from the research and apply that knowledge ethically.

EXAMINE: Consider the ethics of using personal space as a tool to influence others’ behaviors. What might be the negative repercussions of a personal space violation? How might someone be triggered or experience trauma by the incorrect or inappropriate use of proxemic violations? Far from just being a social tool in our toolbelt, we need to remember that people might have strong negative reactions to known or unknown others getting in their space.

PROXEMIC VIOLATIONS As discussed, there are culturally agreed-upon norms for the use of personal space that vary across cultures. In Western cultures like much of Europe and North America, residents are known for preferring relatively larger proxemic distances between interaction partners than in some other countries. Watching movies set in Asian cultures, for example, one often sees people in crowded marketplaces or subway environments where the mass of people seems almost unbearable to a non-Asian viewer. A Westerner lining up to buy stamps at a post office in some African countries may be surprised to find that people stand in queues very close to one another, in many

cases almost touching the bodies of the people lined up in front of or behind them. In any scenario where one finds a challenge to his or her own notion of acceptable interpersonal distance, it leaves the observer to wonder what the impact of these proxemic violations are likely to be. Interestingly, scholars have discovered that these violations likely lead to a physical response (physiological arousal) and to an evaluative response of one’s interaction partner.

Physiological Arousal

It makes sense to most anyone that a fight-or-flight response must likely be a natural outcome of a personal space violation. That is, if someone gets closer than they otherwise ought to be, then from an evolutionary perspective, we likely need to immediately determine an appropriate response. Is the person a threat? Is the person likely to try to cause us harm or steal our resources? Is the person attempting to engage in a romantic or sexual act? Our minds and our bodies immediately jump into action in an attempt to allow us to best evaluate what we need to do in order to manage the situation.

Many of the effects of physiological arousal may not be immediately apparent to our interaction partners. For example, biological responses like skin conductance or respiration rate or even heart rate are ways that our bodies prepare ourselves to think and act quickly.� People experiencing physiological arousal may also report feeling stressed or anxious� as discussed in this chapter’s Measure feature or may even report a feeling of heightened awareness or excitement.� These biological and emotional responses to proxemics violations likely influence the ways that we interact with the individuals around us at the time of violation; at the same time, these feelings and reactions may not be immediately noticeable to anyone but the person who is feeling physiologically aroused.

iStock.com/andydidyk

Perceptions and Expectancy Violations Theory

One thing that is certain is that these proxemic violations may influence our perceptions or subsequent evaluations of our interaction partners. When an individual behaves in a manner other than what we expect—for example, a person standing only a couple feet away when we barely know them—we immediately become physiologically aroused and then try to make sense of that fight-or-flight feeling. When Alberto noticed that someone was in his personal space, he immediately got on the defensive from the very moment he became startled. It was only when Alberto realized that his new girlfriend was showing up to surprise him at work that he relaxed and leaned into a welcoming hug.

Box �.� Measure Self-Assessments and Anxiety

Each person has a different response to various stressors in their lives. For some people, the thought of public speaking is one of the most terrifying things in the world, while others may fear walking into a cocktail party where they don’t know many people. Social anxieties aren’t just relegated to a public performance where the opportunity for failure exists. When someone enters our personal space and we

don’t think they should be there, we are also likely to feel some measure of anxiety. The anxiousness that we feel depends on our personal experiences and also what our culture has taught us about the use of personal space and proxemic distances.

Scholars have figured out a way to measure our anxiety both during and after social situations.� The following is a modified list of statements based upon the original researchers’ items that measured a person’s perceptions of their own emotional state.

Instructions: Think carefully about a recent time that someone was unexpectedly close, whether that person was a stranger or a classmate or a romantic partner or a family member—any situation will do. Write the number (e.g., � through �) that best corresponds with your attitudes toward each statement.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Strongly

Disagree

Disagree Somewhat

Disagree

Undecided Somewhat

Agree

Agree Strongly

Agree

__________ 1. I felt relaxed when this person was near me.

__________ 2. When this person got close, I felt worried.

__________ 3. I was content to have this person relatively close.

__________ 4. It made me upset to have this person so near.

__________ 5. I remained calm when this person moved close.

__________ 6. When I noticed this person was near me, I felt tense.

Separately add up your score on the odd numbers and your score on the even numbers. Subtract your combined score on the odd numbers from your score on the even numbers, and add ��. The lowest combined score you can receive is �, while the highest score is ��. The higher your score, the higher your anxiety in that unexpectedly close situation.

MEASURE: Are you surprised by your score on the measure, or does it fit with your understanding of how you react when people get in your space? For some people, your score was probably quite low because you are used to people in your space. For others, your background may have led you to feel anxious because you place a high value on independence or privacy. What individual and cultural influences likely

made you have the score that you got? How would that score look different if you were thinking about a different person or a different distance when you took the self-assessment?

In her early work on these proxemics violations, scholar Judee Burgoon looked at the ways that these violations can impact our perceptions of our interaction partners.��, ��, �� She first proposed that we all have expectations about normal social distances based upon our cultural norms (as discussed earlier in the chapter) and also based upon our known “idiosyncrasies” or individual patterns of behavior of our interaction partner. For example, Rupie understood that about � feet of interpersonal distance felt normal for members of her friend group, but she also knew that her friend Katya was a bit of a “close talker,” which meant that Rupie expected Katya to stand a little closer than expected. Rupie knows from experience that the general group norm is about � feet, and that her one friend Katya probably will stand a little closer than everyone else, just because that’s how she is. Her expectation, therefore, is that most friends stand around � feet away except for Katya. Over time, this ends up feeling rather normal for Rupie and her friends.