Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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of underlying emotions. Expressive and continuous messages on the other hand can carry
less information, with facial expression being an exception.
Another model of Mehrabian propses 3 dimensions on which we perceive others.
1. Positivity (liking)
2. Potency (status or social control)
3. Responsiveness (activity cues)
Along with those the NVB is divided in 1. Dimensions, 2. Associated cues, and 3. Specific
nonverbal indicators of the cues.
Patterson has defined 7 basic functions of NVB:
1. Providing information
2. Regulating interactions
3. Expressing intimacy
4. Expressing social control
5. Presentation function
6. Affect management
7. Facilitating service tasks/goals.
Further 4 classes of processes have been defined which are interacting:
1. Determinants (biology, culture, perosnailty)
2. Social environment (partner, setting)
3. Cognitive- affective mediators (affect, goals)
4. Person perception and behavioral processe (impression fomarmation)
An example of an interaction was given. Police officers who are in stressful situation tend to
focus on situational factors a lot more than on personal ones. In a calm setting however the
officers were paying a lot of attention to participants NVB, indicating that most encounters in
real life, which are in rather relaxed situations facilitate a focus on NVB of the person rather
that environmental factors.
With regard to personal distances there are the intimate, the personal, the social and the
public distance, which are relatively stable across cultures. With regard to display rules,
some differences were found, such as Japanese people being less likely to be close to a
conversation partner of to touch them. African Americans display the largest distance to
others while Anglo Americans still have a larger distance than Mexican Americans. African
American were also found to have a different gaze pattern while listening, as they watched
their partner while speaking but looked away while listening.
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Turn-taking in conversations
Wiemann, Knapp (1975)
The article considers the nature of conversational turn taking, a phenomenon by which one
interactant stops talking and another starts in a smooth synchronized manner. People tend to
make judgments about others not just because of what they say but also how they say it.
There are rules to govern interactions which are rarely explicitly stated and only perceived as
present when they are broken (e.g. one person speaks at a time, speaker changes should
reoocur). A result may be embarrassment of all present parties, which is socially undesirable
itself. The way of interaction provides information about the relationship between the
interactants. There are so called symbols, which are understood by a group of people, when
violated, the person distances himself from the group. During acculturation the symbols/rules
are learned.
Duncan describes 3 rules that are operating during a successful conversation:
1. Turn yielding cues, speaker signals that others can take turn
2. Suppression of speaking turn claims, speaker s turn is maintained
3. Back channel cues, showing that one does not want to take turn
A fourth one is turn requesting: letting speaker know you want turn without being impolite.
More precisely, there were several (non-)verbal behaviors that played a role in turn yielding:
completions, interrogative requests, buffers (e.g. or something like that) and other directed
gaze (looking at speaker more towards end of his/her turn).
During verbal turn requesting, behaviors such as simultaneous talking, buffers, reinforcers,
interrogative requests and stutter occurred. In nonverbal turn requesting however other
directed gazes and head nods played a role.
Silences are also presumed to play a role, when somebody pauses too long, a speaker
change is likely to occur.
Gazes play a role in that sense that auditors watch speakers less and less during the turn
while speakers increase gazes towards the auditor towards the end of their turn.
Gestures were found not to play a vital role, which might be due to the experimental setting.
It is also unclear how posture shifts influence turn taking. (Maybe: leaning forward if you want
to talk, leaning back when you are finished).
Reinforcers were used to request the floor nearly as often as they were used to signal that
the speaker should go on.
Some utterances might serve as buffers and reinforcers at the same time (such as yeah,
but). Those might lead the speaker to claim the floor more vigorously than before.
Utterances like this are very clear but not necessarily subtle soft or effective. They seem to
bind the speaker and auditor together and, as they are not a direct interruptions, are
acceptable behavior.
Nodding might be important as it softens the exchange by its supportive nature.
All these findings are rather suggestive of a certain grammar that plays a role in turn taking.
The exact rules are not yet clearly defined. It might also be interesting to examine the
interaction of several cues in order to define their meaning more conclusively.
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quality maxim asks to tell true things with appropriate evidence. The relevancy maxim asks
to only tell important things and the manner maxim asks to be polite while doing so.
In high context communication a lot of qualifier words such as maybe, perhaps and
probably are used to avoid sounding assertive. In low context communication more words
like certainly, absolutely and positively are used. In high contexts, it is perceived to be more
trustworthy to only use few words which say a lot, while in low contexts the messages are
more direct and clear. Silence is perceived to be rude in low contexts while it is meaningful in
high contexts. Low context communication is more often used in C cultures while I cultures
use more low context communication. In close relationships however, high context
communication can occur in I cultures, as the interactants know each other on a deep level.
In I cultures, talking is more affect oriented which might make people more inclined to talk to
regulate emotions. Also there is a smaller difference between in- and out- groups in I cultures
and a lot of self-disclosure takes place in any setting. In C cultures self- disclosure takes
place mostly in in-groups.
Interestingly, the independent self- construal in negatively related to embarrassment and
social anxiety. Effective communication has been defined as a function of the amount of
anxiety and uncertainty of the speaker. In I cultures there is less uncertainty reported with
out-groups, whereas in C cultures less Uncertainty has been reported with in-groups. The
politeness rules in C cultures differ between contexts, while they are quite constant in I
cultures. In I cultures a lot of emphasis is based on maintaining ones own face. I tis more
important to save others face in C cultures. When it comes to romantic relationships, the
dependency is seen as negative in I and as positive in C cultures.
When it comes to uncertainty avoidance, high levels are related to low levels of tolerance of
ambiguity and more acceptance of aggression, when it serves the purpose to get rid of an
opponent. Differences in people are taken to signify danger. Low levels of UA are related to
the perception that differences are something curious and enriching. In relation to
communication high UA lead to strict rules when speaking to strangers, while low UA leads
to control of aggression and anger towards out-group. On the personal level people can be
either uncertainty (low UA) or certainty (high UA) oriented. Uncertainty oriented people strive
for reducing their uncertainty by facing it, while certainty focused people tend to ignore it.
Power distance describes the extent to which low power individuals accept unequal power.
When PD is high, people dont question orders and restrict their communication to in-groups
which have more power than out-groups. Low levels of PD leads people to ask for the why of
order and to be less restricted in their communication.
Lastly, masculinity- femininity describes the amount of certain masculine or feminine
attributed present in a culture. Masculinity is defined by power, assertiveness, achievement
and more same sex relationships. Femininity is defined by emphasizing the quality of life,
service and interdependence. Yes, this is sexist.
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First, the huge success of services like MSN shows that CMC is not only widely used but it
can also be an opportunity for those who find emotional expression hard normally to do so in
a less direct way.
Second, computer mediated therapy has shown to be as successful or even better than face
to face sessions in some cases. This might be also due to the fact that emotional expression
is facilitated in CMC. There is no evidence against the theory that emotions are less likely to
be expressed in CMC compared to F2F.
CMC seems to provide a safer environment so that negative emotions can be more easily
expressed in CMC because the consequences dont have to be feared as much.
The second area that was examined is the expression of emotion in F2F and CMC.
Research in F2F has shown that social presence influences the extent to which one displays
emotions. It has been shown that it is easier for women to express negative emotions in a
more anonymous context. This is in line with the idea that men and women appraise the
effects of their own emotions on others differently. These social appraisals are more likely to
be important when someone is actually present. In CMC it plays a minor role and makes
more direct emotional display possible.
CMC has also been studied with regard to flaming. Flaming has been described as the
expression of strong opinions accompanied by the display of negative, antagonistic emotions
in the form of insulting, swearing, offending of hostile comments. It occurred more often in
settings where the context was completely anonymous than in those where some contact
took place. It is however unrelated to (a-) synchronicity. It can be reduced if the opportunity is
offered to reflect on messages that are written and is overall relatively rare.
Thirdly, the lack of non-verbal cues (NVC) was investigated. NVC usually resolve ambiguity
in social situations and intensify of tone down messages. It was shown that emotions are still
easily and strongly evoked in CMC but that the potential of misinterpretation is higher.
Emoticons are a good way to make emotional expression less ambiguous. When available,
subjects always used emoticons in their messages. Women use them more to communicate
humor and solidarity while men use them more to convey sarcasm. When in mixed-sex
groups both men and women use more emoticons than when in same sex groups. The only
aspect that is absent in CMC is mimicry that usually occurs between friends when in a
conversation.
In working together in groups CMC groups outperformed F2F groups interpersonally (more
positive ratings of groups members). This supports the Social information processing theory
(SIP) which states that despite initial differences in relational and social communication
between CMC and F2F these differences tend to disappear over time.
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A first theoretical perspective on feedback comes control theory (CT) one of the cybernetic
theories. In CT feedback (input) provides and individual with information about the effects (on
the environment, ones own body) of ones psychological or behavioral state (output). The
feedback is interpreted against the background (comparator) of the goals an individual
strives for (standards). The objective input (e.g. You lost 5kg.) is open for interpretations by
the individual. Therefore some objective information might be added (e.g. You lost 5kg.
Thats a lot.), which allows the interpretation of the information on the basis of the persons
own standards or goals. In interpretative and evaluative feedback the individual is compared
to his or her own goal (e.g. You lost 5kg, you planned to lose 10kg. You are halfway there.).
Lastly adjustment feedback makes suggestions about how goals can be achieved (e.g. You
lost 2kg, that is not much. You should to XY.).
Feedback intervention theory aims at understand the effects of providing people with
feedback about their performances. It explains the effect of positive and negative feedback
(input). Positive feedback means that an individuals psychological state or behavior (output)
has effects that are in line with a goal or standard. Negative feedback means that an
individuals psychological state or behavior is not entirely in line with a goal or standard. For
example, positive feedback might lead people to slack off, as then think they reached their
goal. When the individual thinks putting more effort into reaching a goal pays off, negative
feedback can be motivating.
The influence of gazing and gestures of a storytelling robot on its persuasive power
Ham, Bokhorst, Cabibihan (2013)
Gazing and gestures are two of the core behavior in human communication. It has been
shown that people who were gazed at more remembered more of the content of a story than
those who were gazed at less. Men are more likely to like robots when they gaze at them
more, while women prefer less gazing. The current study hypothesizes that combining
several social cues in a robot will lead to more persuasive power than each of the cues
would alone. Gazing and gestures were independently manipulated. The persuasiveness of
a storytelling robot was measured. The hypotheses are:
1. Gazing will affect persuasiveness and attitudes towards the robot positively.
2. Gestures will affect persuasiveness and attitudes towards the robot positively.
3. Both together will lead to a significant interaction.
In fact a main effect for gazing was found in this study. No such effect was found for
gestures, disconfirming Hypothesis 2. This might be due to the lack of fluidity of the robots
movements. Gestures and gazing together lead to an interaction, which is in line with social
agency theory which suggests that the combination of gestures and gazing should have the
strongest effect on persuasiveness. It might be that it is so uncommon in daily life to
experience gestures without gazing that the social conversation schema was not sufficiently
primed in this experimental condition.
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A second study found that when there was a face from someone who belonged to the same
ethnical group as the participant, the output was perceived as way more positive.
When put in the same or in another opposing team as the computer, participants were
more likely to cooperate with the computer when it was on their team, even though the
categories were arbitrary color codes.
Overlearning refers to the phenomenon that some behaviors are so deeply ingrained that
they are more or less automatically activated in response to some script. One such behavior
is politeness, which participants actually displayed towards a computer as soon as it asks
questions referring to itself (i.e. using I statement). Another overlearned behavior is that of
reciprocity, which basically states that one should help anyone who has helped you in the
past. Participants displayed reciprocity as well as retaliation when working with helpful or
unhelpful computers once they were given the chance to do so. More striking than that this
phenomenon expands to reciprocal self-disclosure. When a PC disclosed personal
information, even when it didnt do so in the I-form, participants provided longer and more
detailed answers to personal questions.
However mindlessness is different from mere overlearning as it can be triggered by a single
event. An example is that people tend to believe information more easily when it is given by
an authority figure. A study addressed this issue by showing participants identical videos on
two TV sets that only differed in a label that was attached to a corner of them stating either
News TV set or Entertainment TV set. The content was rated as better in quality when it
matched the label.
Another aspect is that of personality. In accordance with the principle of similarity- attraction
dominant participants rated PCs which were more directive and leading as better, while
submissive participants gave higher ratings to more submissive computers. When
personality similarity is cued this can even overcome the self-serving bias and thus make
people give more credit to the computer while at the same time blame the computer less
often for failures.
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