Introduction
Most researchers accept Ray Birdwhistell’s approximation that nonverbal communication accounts for at least 60 to 70 percent of what humans communicate to one another, although psychologist Albert Mehrabian estimates that as much as 93 percent of the emotional meaning of messages is transmitted nonverbally. Studies have shown that nonverbal messages are generally more believable than verbal ones; when verbal and nonverbal messages contradict one another, most people believe the nonverbal. Nonverbal communication is at least as important as verbal communication; however, the formal study of nonverbal communication is still in its infancy when compared to verbal communication.
Charles Darwin’s
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) was one of the first studies to associate nonverbal behaviors of humankind with other species and to emphasize its function of indicating mood, attitude, and feeling. His research initiated the modern study of nonverbal communications, an interdisciplinary field that calls on scholars from linguistics, anthropology, sociology, physical education, physiology, communication, and psychology. The early works on nonverbal communication tended to be speculative, anecdotal, and tentative, but by 1960, major works began emerging that organized and synthesized the existing data from these diverse fields. Theoretical issues became clarified, and many methodological problems were solved.
Implicit Communication Codes
One of the most influential researchers in the nonverbal communication area has been Mehrabian, who calls this “implicit communication” because it is usually done subtly; people are generally not aware of sending or receiving nonverbal messages. Mehrabian found that nonverbal communication is used to communicate attitudes, emotions, and preferences, especially the following four: pleasure/displeasure; arousal/nonarousal; dominance/submissiveness; and liking/nonliking.
Each of these emotions is associated with a cluster of nonverbal actions that is communicated in one of seven different codes. Codes are organized message systems consisting of a set of symbols and the rules for their use. The eight nonverbal codes are physical appearance (especially height and body type); kinesics (the study of body movements, gestures, posture, and facial expressions); proxemics (the use of space as a special elaboration of culture); haptics (the study of touch and touching); chronemics (the study of how people use and structure time); olfactics; paralanguage (tone, pitch, accents, emphases, yawns, voice qualities, rate of speaking, and pauses) and silence; and artifacts (objects, such as clothing, jewelry, furniture, and cars, that are associated with people).
Functions
Joseph DeVito and Michael Hecht state that nonverbal messages perform seven important functions. First, they provide information; this can occur deliberately or through leakage, as when a person reveals that he or she is lying by talking overly fast and in short sentences. Second, they regulate interaction, by telling people when to begin a conversation, whose turn it is to speak, and when the conversation is over. Kinesics, especially eye contact, is the main code used for this function. Third, nonverbal communication is the primary means of expressing emotions. Researchers have identified the nonverbal cues used in expressing the basic emotions of happiness, surprise, fear, anger, sadness, disgust, contempt, and interest. Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen found that the expression and interpretation of emotions is universal; therefore, the nonverbal expression of emotion is probably biologically determined.
The fourth function of nonverbal communication is in exercising social control. Nonverbal messages of power and dominance can be used to control people and events. Fifth, nonverbal communication helps to accomplish specific tasks or goals (such as hitchhiking using the familiar hand gesture). Sixth, nonverbal messages are very important in telling the listener how to interpret a message; for example, sarcasm is signaled through paralanguage, and kinesics help to communicate empathy, as when the speaker leans forward and touches the listener while giving bad news. Finally, nonverbal messages present a person’s self-image. Physical appearance is usually the major code used in forming first impressions; artifacts such as clothing, office furniture, hairstyle, and glasses can be used to create a variety of self-images. Paralanguage, such as a squeaky voice or a certain accent, may also help to create a particular image of a person.
Characteristics
Just as verbal messages are often misunderstood, so are nonverbal messages. Three characteristics of nonverbal communication are important in understanding the potential for confusion that may exist in both sending and interpreting nonverbal messages. First, nonverbal communication is different from nonverbal behavior. Nonverbal communication consists of messages that are symbolic, that stand for something other than themselves. Nonverbal behavior does not stand for anything else. For example, if a listener avoids eye contact with a speaker because of an emotional response to the message or to the person, or if the speaker interprets the action that way, the action is nonverbal communication. If the listener avoids eye contact because the sun is in her eyes, and the speaker does not interpret it as meaningful, then the action is nonverbal behavior.
Second, nonverbal communication activity is rule-guided. These rules are arbitrary and unwritten; they are learned by observing others. Breaking these rules can provoke unpleasant emotional reactions; for example, staring at someone in an elevator can result in hostility. Because the nonverbal rules are arbitrary and may change from situation to situation (such as at home versus on the job), it is important to be a careful observer and learn the rules before acting.
The third characteristic is that nonverbal communication is strongly influenced by culture. Although all cultures interpret some nonverbal behaviors (such as smiling) in the same way, they also differ from one another in interpreting other nonverbal messages, such as proxemics. Many cultures, for example, allow a closer standing distance than does the culture of the United States, and this difference can often result in misunderstandings. Hand gestures that are innocent in one culture may be highly offensive in another.
Interpersonal Relationships
Nonverbal communication has been used to examine almost every aspect of human behavior. Two of the most widely researched areas are interpersonal relationships and nonverbal communication in the workplace.
Nonverbal communication plays an important role in initiating, maintaining, and terminating relationships. One study identified fifteen cues that express a woman’s interest in dating; almost all of these were nonverbal cues, including high amounts of eye contact, smiling, forward lean, shoulder orientation, close (about 45 centimeters, or 18 inches) proximity, and frequent touching. The men and women participants all agreed that a woman who displays these cues to a man is probably interested in dating him. More than two-thirds of the males surveyed said they prefer women to use these nonverbal messages to convey their interest in dating; less than one-third said they preferred a verbal approach. A similar study observed flirting behavior in a singles bar and catalogued fifty-two different nonverbal acts; the most frequently occurring were eye gaze, forward lean, smiles, and touch.
Nonverbal cues are also used to develop and maintain relationships. On dates, sexual intimacy is regulated by nonverbal cues, and increasing intimacy
is marked through intimate physical contact. Desmond Morris, in his book Intimate Behaviour (1971), suggested twelve stages of contact in animal courtship that he believes apply generally to human beings: eye to body, eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, arm to shoulder, arm to waist, mouth to mouth, hand to head, hand to body, mouth to breast, hand to genitals, and genitals to genitals. Finally, nonverbal cues are involved in relationship termination. There are many nonverbal signs that a relationship is ending, including chronemics (less time spent together), less touching and mutual eye contact, and fewer smiles.
Understanding Power in the Workplace
Nonverbal communication on the job can determine who is hired, promoted, and fired. Power plays an important role in business organizations, and, as Mehrabian demonstrated, nonverbal communication is the implicit communication system through which power is manifested. The nonverbal codes that are most often used in communicating power are physical appearance, artifacts, kinesics, proxemics, haptics, and chronemics.
A person’s height and physical size are important components of power and status. Research shows that taller men get better jobs, are paid larger salaries, and are perceived as having more status; overweight people have more problems getting hired and being accepted by colleges. Attractive people are more persuasive than unattractive people and are more likely to receive assistance and encouragement. Body shape is associated with a wide range of personality characteristics: For example, mesomorphs (bony, muscular, athletic) are identified as being dominant, confident, and adventurous; ectomorphs (tall, thin, fragile) with being shy, tense, and awkward; and endomorphs (soft, round, fat) with being dependent, sluggish, and sympathetic. People make these judgments unconsciously, and the impressions are usually difficult to overcome.
Artifacts function as symbols of power in four ways: First, they are symbols of the power structure within the organization; second, individuals who have access to them may rise to more powerful positions in the formal power structure; third, certain artifacts may be the actual rewards that maintain the organization through material reinforcement; and finally, artifacts of power may produce self-expectancies that actually cause the individual to act in a more powerful manner. Some examples of artifacts that symbolize power are large corner offices, reserved parking places, and expensive company cars and office furnishings. Clothing is an artifact that helps others determine a person’s status, credibility, and persuasiveness; for example, in one study, job interviewers rated applicants who dressed in darker colors as more competent than applicants with the same qualifications who dressed in light colors. Kinesic postures and positions correspond to organizational positions in that superiors tend to be more kinesically expansive than subordinates. One kinesic sign of power is upright posture; another is a comfortable, relaxed seated position with the legs crossed, arms asymmetrically placed, and body leaning sideways and reclining slightly.
Numerous dominance and submission messages are sent via facial expressions because they convey emotional states and evaluations better than any other part of the body; the human face is capable of more than 250,000 different expressions. Among both primates and humans, smiling is a submissive gesture often displayed to appease a dominant aggressor. Eye gaze is another indicator of power; many researchers have found that higher-status persons look more when speaking and look less when listening than do lower-status persons. Apparently the high-status individual has both the ability and the prerogative to maintain visual attentiveness while speaking but is not obligated to reciprocate eye contact when listening. These gaze patterns during interactions may severely undercut or augment an individual’s power.
In proxemics, as Nancy Henley points out in Body Politics: Power, Sex, and Nonverbal Communication (1979), dominant animals and dominant humans follow the same pattern: They control greater territory; they are free to move in territory belonging to others; subordinates yield space to them when approached, or in passing; they are accorded greater personal space; and they take up more space with their bodies and possessions. Haptic behavior is the most intimate form of nonverbal communication. Power and control are communicated through the initiation of touch. Empirically, touchers have been found to be significantly more dominant than recipients of touch, higher-status persons more frequently will touch lower-status persons, and direct poking with an index finger is a dominant act.
Role in Human Development
Nonverbal communication was of interest primarily to elocutionists until 1872, when Darwin published his findings. Darwin aroused interest in nonverbal communication among researchers in many different fields, especially psychology. Nonverbal communication is of particular interest to the field of psychology for two reasons: its role in the development of human personality and its usefulness in treating patients with psychological disturbances.
Nonverbal communication, especiallytouch, plays an essential role in human development. Of the available forms of communication, haptics is the first form developed in infants. Babies explore their own bodies and their environment through touch. Psychologically, the infant, through self-exploration, begins the process of achieving self-identity, environmental identity, security, and well-being. The development of healthy individuals seems related to the amount of touch they receive as infants; for example, tactile deprivation has been associated with learning problems and lack of trust and confidence.
Relationship with Disorders
Clinical psychologists have become increasingly interested in the relationship between psychological disorders and nonverbal behavior, and they have relied on a knowledge of the behavioral symptoms of maladjustment in diagnosing and treating psychological problems. Sigmund Freud believed that a patient’s physical actions were at least as important as verbal actions in communicating the sources of psychological trauma.
Wilhelm Reich
used relaxation exercises with his obsessive-compulsive patients; his belief was that actions and feelings are connected, and if feelings cannot be changed through discussions and insight, maybe they can be modified by simply changing a person’s postures, gestures, and facial and vocal expressions. More recently, Reich’s premise has been elaborated extensively by action-oriented therapies such as dance or body-awareness therapy. In some cases, the therapist tells the client to express different emotions through movement. By observing these movements, the therapist is able to find out which emotions the client typically and easily conveys and which he or she has trouble expressing. The latter are symptomatic of a more general difficulty, and the client is encouraged to express these particular feelings in movements. The improved ability to express such feelings in action can then provide the stimulus for a more explicit discussion of feelings.
Olfactory Research
In the 1990s, psychologists and other nonverbal researchers became interested in the role of olfaction (the study of how people use and perceive odors) and olfactory memory in affecting mood and behavior and in improving the learning process. They found that strong fragrances such as musk can cause mood changes. Synthetic aroma chemicals that are often used seem to be the culprit, but researchers have not yet discovered why smelling these chemicals would cause a person’s mood to change. Researchers also discovered that olfaction affects behavior; for example, workers exposed to stimulating scents such as peppermint set higher goals and were more alert and productive than workers who were not exposed to the scents.
Finally, olfactory memory seems to play a role in learning. In one study, fragrance was sprayed in the classroom while the professor was lecturing. When students were tested, the same fragrance was sprayed. Students in the experimental group scored much higher and seemed to retain more of the knowledge than did students in the control group, who had not smelled the fragrance. The area of olfaction appears to be a promising one for nonverbal communication researchers.
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