Non-Verbal Communication (AQA GCSE Psychology): Flashcards

Students often incorrectly say the difference is the use of 'speech' rather than 'words' — speech is actually a combination of verbal and non-verbal communication.

Eye contact occurs when two people are looking at each other's eyes at the same time.

Direction of gaze, duration of gaze, and the lowering/raising of the eyelids and eyebrows.

According to Kendon, people tend to look away when they wish to take their turn speaking, and look at the listener when about to finish.

False.

Vertegaal et al. (using an eye tracker in a four-person conversation) found that gaze is a good predictor of conversational attention in groups.

By maintaining eye contact with them — finding someone attractive means you're likely to want to look at them for long periods of time.

They believe it is an inbuilt mechanism to aid survival, as it builds familiarity and strengthens bonding between a couple.

Faces showing direct eye contact were rated as more attractive than an averted gaze — even when the face featured a negative emotion, such as disgust.

People may prefer a direct gaze because it appeals to their vanity — i.e. how important or special they are made to feel.

Participants rated images of people smiling while making eye contact as more emotional than images with no eye contact, showing eye contact reinforces the positive emotional message of a smile.

False.

Adams & Kleck found that sadness and fear were most intense with an averted gaze, while joy and anger were more intense with direct eye contact.

It helps explain a feature of autism — some autistic people use less eye contact, and since eye contact is shown to be important for reading emotion, this shows we should be sensitive to this rather than misjudging people.

Rating scales are subjective — they rely on personal opinion of what counts as attractive or intense, which is open to bias and interpretation, threatening the validity of the findings.

This is an artificial task that may not reflect how people usually meet in real life, which could have affected how much eye contact participants showed, making the results unrealistic.

Open posture (e.g. arms out, palms up, legs at hip distance) signals honesty and openness — ‘I have nothing to hide’.

Closed postures increased unpleasant emotions in the 12 male and 12 female university students studied.

False.

McGinley et al. (1975) found participants agreed more when opinions were expressed using open postures.

Postural echo refers to the tendency for people to mirror the pose of someone they like, agree with, or find attractive.

Leakage is the unconscious and involuntary use of non-verbal signals — communication that ‘leaks’ out without the person realising.

Non-verbal behaviours play a hugely important role in ‘courtship’ rituals, such as flirting and starting a romantic relationship.

True.

The postural echo group expressed more liking for the drink and its potential success than the non-postural echo group.

In Crusco & Wetzel’s (1984) study, waitresses who briefly touched customers on the hand or shoulder received larger tips than those who did not touch customers.

Touch ranges from friendly (e.g. a handshake or soft touch on the arm) to threatening/aggressive (e.g. a prod to the chest).

Students who had been touched rated the librarian more highly than students who had not been touched.

False.

The study used only 24 university students (12 male, 12 female), so findings cannot be generalised widely.

Factors include who is touching, where it happens, the relationship between the people, the type of touch, and whether it is anticipated or a surprise.

It has good real-world applications — for example doctors and therapists can use open posture, postural echo and touch to build rapport with patients, showing this research helps people build good relations more widely.

It is a very useful skill for life — it can help someone detect when another person is lying to them, is in love with them, or is trying to manipulate them.

Participants weren't aware they were taking part in an experiment, raising the issue of deception — this doesn't undermine the results themselves, but does raise questions about whether this research should be conducted this way.

They often fail to control extraneous variables — e.g. in the touch studies, there was no attempt to control other non-verbal cues such as how much the confederate smiled or maintained eye contact, which may have influenced participants' attitudes just as much as touch did, threatening the validity of the results.

Personal space is the area around yourself that you consider ‘out of bounds’ to most people — only close, intimate friends, partners, or family may enter it.

People from Saudi Arabia gave a mean distance of around 125cm for strangers, compared with around 100cm in England.

False.

Results were inconsistent — warm countries such as Pakistan and Turkey required large personal space, suggesting religion may override the climate-based explanation.

In Japan, more distance tends to be maintained between people, particularly if one person is of higher rank than the other.

Status is the level which confers value or respect on an individual, either formally (e.g. a school Principal) or informally (e.g. a gang leader).

People of equal status tend to use a closer distance than people of unequal status — e.g. two factory workers stand closer together than a factory worker and the factory owner.

False.

They found that low perceived privacy was linked to lower job satisfaction and enjoyment — a lack of personal space boundaries may cause a negative mood.

Fisher & Byrne (1975) found that female students responded more negatively to face-to-face invasions of personal space, such as a stranger sitting opposite them in the library — males responded more negatively to side-by-side invasions instead.

In warmer countries, people preferred to maintain closer distances towards strangers, but greater distances towards friends, compared to colder countries.

The gender of avatars did not cause either male or female participants anxiety about their space being invaded — contrasting with how females may feel about personal space invasion in the real world.

Females are generally encouraged to form close bonds with friends, to be caring and nurturing, and to focus on feelings and relationships more than males are.

Research often uses the self-report method (questionnaires), which can be replicated in high numbers to check reliability.

Self-report data may be affected by social desirability bias, as participants may not answer with complete honesty.

True.

Males are more likely to prefer more distance than females when it comes to same-sex interactions.

There are good real-world applications — for example when travelling to other cultures, communicating with the opposite sex or a boss at work, or deciding where to sit on a bus.

It may be overly simplistic, as most studies only look at one factor (culture, gender, or status) at a time — in reality several factors act together, and things like personality and age can affect personal space too.

It often uses unrepresentative samples, as no study can represent all people within a culture, or all men or all women — so we should be cautious about generalising findings to everyone.