Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank for Essentials of Human Communication, Eighth Edition
Unit Planner
CHAPTER 5: N
ONVERBAL
M
ESSAGES
CONCEPTS OF THIS CHAPTER
· principles of nonverbal communication
· the channels of nonverbal communication
· some nonverbal communication skills
KNOWLEDGE OBJECTIVES
After completing this chapter, students should be able to:
· understand what nonverbal communication is
· identify the many forms of nonverbal communication
· understand gender and cultural differences in nonverbal communication
SKILLS OBJECTIVES
After completing this chapter, students should:
· use nonverbal messages to communicate a variety of meanings
·
use appropriate types of nonverbal communication to express their meanings
· communicate appropriately on the basis of gender and cultural factors
INSTRUCTIONAL OUTLINE
I. Introductory Material
•
Nonverbal communication is communication without words including gestures, touch, raising
your voice, the clothes you wear, the space you keep between others, etc.
•
The ability to use nonverbal communication effectively yields two benefits:
–
The greater your ability to send and receive nonverbal signals, the higher your attraction,
popularity, and psychological well-being are likely to be.
–
The greater your nonverbal skills, the more successful you’re likely to be at influencing
others.
– There are many myths surrounding nonverbal communication:
— Nonverbal communication conveys more meaning than verbal communication.
— Liars avoid eye contact.
— Studying nonverbal communication will enable you to detect lying.
— Unlike verbal communication, nonverbal communication is universal throughout the
world.
— When verbal and nonverbal messages contradict each other, it’s wise to believe the
nonverbal.
II. Principles of Nonverbal Communication
•
Nonverbal Messages Interact with Verbal Messages
Nonverbal messages may be used with verbal messages in the following ways:
–
A
ccent
or emphasize the verbal message (e.g., raising your voice to underscore a point)
–
C
omplement
or add nuances of meaning to a verbal message (e.g., smiling while telling
a story to indicate you think it is humorous)
–
C
ontradict
the verbal message (e.g., yelling and shaking one’s fist while proclaiming,
“No! I’m not angry!”) May be done on purpose.
–
Control
or to try to control verbal messages (e.g., refusing to make eye contact when you
don’t want to be called on in class)
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Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank for Essentials of Human Communication, Eighth Edition
–
Repeat
the verbal message (e.g., telling the barista you want two lattes while holding up
two fingers)
– S
ubstitute
for verbal messages (e.g., giving a “thumbs up” to let someone know all is
well)
–
When communicating electronically, we transmit messages through typed letters without
facial expressions or gestures. Emoticons (smileys) are typed nonverbal facial
expressions.
• Nonverbal Messages Help Manage Impressions
•
To be liked (smiling, pats on the back)
•
To be believed (focused eye contact, firm stance, open-gestures)
•
To excuse failure (look sad, cover face with hands)
•
To secure help by indicating helplessness (opened hand gestures, puzzled look)
•
To hide faults (flattering makeup or clothing)
•
To be followed (dress the part of the leader, display diploma)
•
To confirm self-image and to communicate it to others (dress, space decoration)
• Nonverbal Message Help Form Relationships
We communicate affection, support, and love, at least in part, nonverbally. You also
communicate the nature of your relationship nonverbally.
– tie signs are used to indicate the level of the relationship
• Nonverbal Messages Can Influence and Deceive
–
You influence others not only through what you say, but also through your nonverbal
signals.
–
You also use nonverbal signals to mislead others. Detecting deception is not as easy as
one might think.
• Nonverbal Messages Are Crucial for Expressing Emotions
–
Nonverbal signals often communicate a great part of the emotional experience.
–
We often use nonverbal messages to help communicate unpleasant messages that are
difficult to put into words.
– We also use nonverbal messages to hide emotions.
III. The Channels of Nonverbal Communication
•
Body Communication
Body
Gestures
– researchers identify five major types of body movements
—
emblems: body gestures that directly translate into words or phrases, such as the
thumbs up for “good job”
—
illustrators: nonverbal behaviors that accompany and enhance (literally
“illustrate”) verbal messages, such as holding up two fingers while saying you will
be
back in two hours
— affect displays: nonverbal movements that communicate emotional
meaning, such as smiling, crying, wringing one’s hands
—
regulators: behaviors that monitor, control, coordinate, or maintain the
speaking of others, such as glancing at your watch to indicate you need to leave or
the
speaker has talked too long
—
adaptors: nonverbal behaviors that are emitted without conscious awareness and
that usually serve some kind of need
> self-adaptors – self-touching movements (i.e. rubbing your nose)
> alter- adaptors – movements directed at the person with whom you are
speaking (i.e., brushing lint off her jacket or straightening his tie)
> object-adaptors – gestures focused on objects (i.e. doodling or shredding a
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Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank for Essentials of Human Communication, Eighth Edition
Styrofoam coffee cup)
Body Appearance
·
general body appearance influences how you communicate and how others communicate
with you; it also reveals your race and gives clues as to your nationality; your
attractiveness is largely determined by body appearance
·
general attractiveness (both visual and that of personality) is also part of your body
communication. Attractive people have advantages in just about every activity.
•
Facial Communication
–
Indicates the degree of pleasantness, agreement, and sympathy felt; facial movements
communicate at least these eight emotions: happiness, surprise, fear, anger, sadness,
disgust, contempt, and interest
Facial Management
: we all learn certain facial management techniques that enable us to
communicate feelings to achieve the effect we want and act in socially acceptable
ways, such as:
> to intensify (exaggerating surprise when friends throw you a party)
> to deintensify (covering up your joy over some good news when a friend as bad
news to relate)
> to neutralize (covering up sadness as not to depress others)
> masking (expressing happiness when you are actually disappointed)
> to
simulate (expressing emotions you don’t really feel)
Facial Feedback:
your facial expression influences your level of physiological arousal;
people who exaggerate their facial expressions show higher physiological arousal
than those who suppress these expressions. Research indicates that this only works
with
negative emotions, and cannot replace emotions.
Culture and Facial Expression:
The wide variations in facial communication that we
observe in different cultures seems to reflect which reactions are publicly allowed in
those cultures.
•
Eye
Communication
– Also known as oculesics; shows that the duration, direction, and
quality of eye movements communicate different messages.
—
Eye Avoidance:
used to help others maintain privacy (civil inattention) or to signal
lack of interest
—
Culture, Gender, and Eye Messages:
Like other forms of communication, eye
contact is culturally specific. Americans consider direct eye contact an expression of
honesty. Regarding gender, women tend to make eye contact more, maintain it
longer, and use their eyes to express more emotions.
•
Spatial Communication
–
Proxemic Distances
– Edward Hall distinguishes four distances that define the type of
relationships between people. The specific distances you maintain between yourself and
others depends on a variety of factors including cultural and gender socialization, age,
and personality
— intimate: touching to 18 inches; used for wrestling and lovemaking, for comforting
and protecting
—
personal: 18 inches to 4 feet; the protective bubble most people keep around them;
keeps you protected and untouched by others
— social: 4 feet to 12 feet; the space in which we conduct business or participate in
social interaction
— public: 12 feet to 25 feet; the space we usually keep between ourselves and strangers
or others we view as potentially harmful
–
Territoriality
– the possessive reaction to an area or to particular objects. We interact in
three types of territories:
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Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank for Essentials of Human Communication, Eighth Edition
—
primary territories: areas you call your own; your desk, your room, your office;
places where we take a leadership role or where we have an interpersonal advantage
(the
home field advantage)
—
secondary territories: areas that don’t belong to you but which you have occupied
and with which you may be associated; your regular seat in a classroom, your regular table
in the cafeteria
—
public territories: areas open to all people; movie houses, restaurants, shopping malls
—
We designate our primary and secondary territories with three types of markers.
Markers give us feelings of belonging and may also serve as status cues to others:
> central markers: items placed to reserve a territory, e.g., leaving your books on
your desk, placing your coat on the back of a chair in the library
>
boundary markers: set boundaries between your territory and that of
others, such as the bar you place between your purchases and those of the person
in back of you at the grocery store or the fence around a gated community
>
earmarkers: identifying marks that indicate your possession of a territory or
object, such as name plates, bookplates, trademarks
•
Artifactual Communication
–
messages conveyed through objects or arrangements made by
human hands
–
Color
Communication
– evidence suggests that colors may influence our psychology
and surely influences our perceptions and behaviors
·
Red: In China, it signifies prosperity and rebirth; in France and the UK it signifies
masculinity. In other countries, red ink signifies death.
·
Green: In the U.S., capitalism, “go ahead,” and envy; patriotism in Ireland; and
femininity in Egypt.
· Black: In Thailand, old age; in much of Europe, death.
· White: In many cultures, purity; in some Asian cultures, death.
·
Blue: In Iran, something negative; Cherokees use it to signify defeat; and Greeks use
it to show patriotism.
·
Yellow: In China, wealth and prosperity; in the U.S., cowardice; and in Egypt,
happiness.
·
Purple: In Latin American, death; in Europe, royalty, virtue, and faith; in Japan,
grace and nobility; and in the U.S., nobility and bravery.
–
Clothing and Body Adornment
–
people make inferences about who you are by the way
you dress, the kind of jewelry you wear, the way you style your hair, your body piercings, and
your tattoos
–
Space Decoration
– people make inferences about you based on how you decorate your
private spaces (e.g., your home, your office); how you decorate your private spaces
–
The Meanings of Touch
– touch conveys:
— positive emotions (support, appreciation, inclusion, affection)
— playfulness (affectionately or aggressively)
— control (directing others to pay attention to something or someone)
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Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank for Essentials of Human Communication, Eighth Edition
— ritual (shaking hands, hugging)
— task-relatedness (helping someone out of a car)
–
Touch Avoidance
– our desire to avoid touching and being touched by certain people or
in certain circumstances; touch avoidance is positively related to communication
apprehension and is also affected by age and gender
–
Touch and Culture
– Touch is culturally specific. Some cultures (Southern Europe and
the Middle East) are contact cultures whereas northern Europe and Japan are noncontact
cultures.
•
Paralanguage and Silence
–
Paralanguage
– the vocal, nonverbal dimension of speech: volume, rate, pitch, accent,
vocalizations such as moaning, belching, yawning
—
judgments about people:
we make judgments about others’ personalities on the
basis of paralinguistic cues; we can judge with reasonable accuracy the status and
emotional states of people based on voice samples
—
judgments about communication effectiveness:
we generally perceive people as
more effective and persuasive communicators if they speak at a rapid speech rate
—
paralanguage and culture:
Speech rate and silence are viewed differently in
different cultures. In some cultures, silence is regarded as someone who has nothing
to add, but other cultures view it more positively. In Apache culture, silence is
expected for several days upon initially meeting.
–
Silence
– silence communicates just as intensely as anything you verbalize
—
functions of silence
> to allow for time to think before responding
> can be used as a weapon to hurt others
> as a respond to threats, a way to deal with personal anxiety or shyness >
as a way to preclude rejection
> to prevent communication of certain messages
> as a means to convey an emotional response, such as defiance or annoyance >
to convey you have nothing to say or do not want to say anything
–
The Spiral of Silence
– You are more likely to voice agreement than disagreement.
•
Time Communication
(temporal communication) – also known as chronemics, the use of
time; how you organize, react to, and communicate through it.
–
Psychological Time:
An especially important aspect of time is the importance placed on
past, present, or future
–
People with a past orientation have a particular reverence for tradition, old methods,
old wisdom
– People with a present orientation live in the here and now without planning for
tomorrow
– People with a future orientation look forward, make plans, set goals
–
Psychological time orientation depends on a variety of factors including culture and
socioeconomic status
–
Time Orientation:
Individualistic cultures seem to emphasize future orientations,
collectivistic cultures seem to emphasize past orientations.
•
Monochronism and Polychronism:
Monochronism (U.S., Germany,
Scandinavia, and Switzerland): schedule one thing at a time, compartmentalize
time, and set time for different activities. Polychronism (Latin American,
Mediterranean and Arab cultures): schedule many things at once. No culture is
entirely monochronemic or polychronemic.
•
Social Clocks:
Cultures maintain “social clocks” which are the right time to do
various important tasks, such as begin dating, finishing college, buying your own
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Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank for Essentials of Human Communication, Eighth Edition
home, etc. Social clocks tell you if you are keeping pace with your peers.
IV. Some Nonverbal Communication Skills
•
Decoding Skills:
Making judgments or drawing conclusions based on another’s nonverbal
messages
· Be tentative.
· When making judgments, mindfully seek alternative judgments.
· Notice that messages come from many different channels.
· Consider the possibility that you are incorrect.
· Interpret your judgments and conclusions against a cultural context.
·
Consider the multitude of factors that can influence the ways a person behaves
nonverbally.
•
Encoding Skills:
Using nonverbal to express your meanings
·
Think about your choices for your nonverbal communication just as you do for your
verbal messages.
· Keep your nonverbal messages consistent with your verbal messages.
·
Monitor your own nonverbal messages with the same care that you monitor your verbal
messages.
· Avoid extremes and monotony.
· Take the situation into consideration.
· Maintain eye contact with the speaker.
· Avoid using certain adaptors in public (grooming).
· Avoid strong perfume or cologne.
· Be careful with touching.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1.
Describe the following body movements: emblems, illustrators, affect displays, regulators, and
2. Discuss the type of information that is communicated by the face.
3.
What are the four types of facial management techniques? Give an example to illustrate each
technique.
4.
Define the facial feedback hypothesis and give some general research that backs it.
The facial feedback hypothesis states that your facial expressions influence levels of physiological
5. What are two eye-avoidance functions?
6.
What are the four spatial distances? Give an example of the type of communication that would
take place at each distance.
7.
What are three types of markers used to identify our territory? Explain how you use these markers
to mark your territorial space. Give examples from your personal experience.
8.
What is artifactual communication? Explain what you think your clothing and body adornments
communicate about you.
9.
Discuss what you think the decor of your room or home communicates about you.
10.
What is tactile communication? Explain the five meanings communicated by touch.
11.
What is paralanguage? How do we use paralanguage to make judgments about people?
12. What is chronemics? What is your own orientation toward time?
13.
List and discuss several encoding skills that you feel are important in expressing appropriate
nonverbal communication.
14.
Give examples of various social clocks that exist in our society. Are you “on–pace” with your
peers?
15.
Latin Americans tend to have a polychronistic view of time. North Americans tend to have a
monochronistic view of time. With the number of Latino people immigrating to North America,
what
challenges may arise from these two perspectives of time?
Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank for Essentials of Human Communication, Eighth Edition
ACTIVITIES FOR SKILL DEVELOPMENT
5.1 Integrating Verbal and Nonverbal Messages
Guidelines
: Provide students with the opportunity to consider how they would nonverbally communicate the
literal and opposite meaning of each statement listed below. Ask for volunteers to illustrate the literal
and
opposite meaning of each statement. Lead the class in discussion of differences in paralanguage,
body
communication, facial and eye communication, etc.
· I couldn’t agree with you more.
· I’m so depressed I can’t stand it.
· Life is great, isn’t it? I got the job I really wanted.
· I feel so relaxed and satisfied.
· You look fantastic; what did you do to yourself?
· Yes, I have the relationship of a lifetime.
· I can’t wait to receive my test results.
· Did you hear her last speech?
· Did you see the way he designed the store?
5.2 Selecting Seats at the Company Meeting
Guidelines:
[from Skill Development Experience, text p. 104] This exercise focuses on decisions related
to the use of space in interpersonal communication. It deals with issues of distance and liking, distance
and status, distance and responsiveness. After students have made their decisions concerning where they
would sit to communicate each message, have students compare their choices in pairs or groups. Lead the
class in discussion of why they picked the seat they did to convey each message and what other messages
might be conveyed given their choices. Other messages that may be used are indicated below.
Additional Messages for Selecting Seats at the Company Meeting:
· You want to be accepted as a new (but important) member of the company
·
You do not want others to think your loyalties lie with the person in Seat No. 4
·
You had a disagreement with person in seat No. 9, but want to convey that no hard feelings exist
·
You want to challenge the person in seat No. 2 concerning that person’s stand on a policy that
will be discussed
5.3 Expressing Praise and Criticism
Guidelines
: Provide students with the opportunity to consider how they would use nonverbal cues to
communicate praise or criticism of each statement listed below. Ask for volunteers to illustrate each
statement using praising and criticizing nonverbal cues. Lead the class in discussion of differences in
paralanguage, body communication, facial and eye communication, etc.
Additional Statements for Expressing Praise and Criticism:
· Now that looks great on you.
· You look younger than that.
· You’re gonna make it.
· That was some meal.
· You really know yourself.
· You’re so sensitive. I’m amazed.
· Are you ready? Already?
5.4 Coloring Meanings
Description
: This exercise is designed to raise questions about the meanings that colors communicate and
focuses on the way advertisers and marketers use colors to influence our perceptions of a particular
product. Students should assume they are working for an advertising agency and that their task is to select
colors for the various objects listed below. For each object, the students should record the major and
secondary colors they would use in its packaging.
Objects
Major Color
Secondary Color
Especially rich ice cream
Low-calorie ice cream
Packaging for an upscale jewelry
store
Packaging for a discount store
An exercise machine for people
under 25
An exercise machine for people
over 60
A textbook in American history
A textbook in human
communication
Guidelines:
After each student has recorded
his or her decisions, have them discuss them in groups or
with
the class as a whole. The following questions might be used to guide discussion:
· What meanings did you wish to communicate for each object?
·
How much agreement exists among group members that the meanings are appropriate for these
products?
· How much agreement exists among group members on the colors selected?
· How effectively do the colors communicate the desired meanings?
·
Pool the insights of all group members and recolor the product. Are the group designs superior to
those developed individually?
Variation
: Bring to class actual advertisements from a variety of magazines, e.g., Men’s Health,
Woman’s Day, Cosmopolitan, GQ, The New Yorker, Spin, etc. Have the class analyze in groups the
colors and other nonverbal elements of the ads. Lead the class in a discussion of the meanings of the
nonverbal elements of the ads as well as the intended target audience. The instructor could also withhold
identifying the magazine each ad appeared in to see if students can discern the ad’s origin.
5.5 Let’s Apply the Concepts
Description:
Either alone or in groups: students should consider their responses to one or more of the
following scenarios. Relate their responses to concepts indicated in the brackets.
·
Sally smiles almost all the time. Even when she criticizes or reprimands a subordinate, she ends
up with a smile and this dilutes the strength of her message. As Sally’s supervisor, you need her
to
realize what she’s doing and to change her nonverbals. What do you say? Through what
channel? [Inappropriate Nonverbal Cues: Smiling]
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Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank for Essentials of Human Communication, Eighth Edition
·
Like the close-talker in an episode of “Seinfeld,” one of your team members at work maintains an
extremely close distance when talking. Coupled with the fact that this person is a heavy smoker
and reeks of smoke, you need to say something. What do you say? Through what channel?
[Proxemics]
·
One of your friends had been passed over for a promotion several times and you think you know
the reason: your friend dresses inappropriately. You want to help your friend. What do you say?
Through what channel? [Clothing Communication]
·
One problem with a group of interns you’re mentoring is that they’ve decorated their office
spaces with items that communicate the wrong messages. You need to address this seemingly
minor but actually quite influential issue. What do you say? Through what channel? [Artifactual
Communication]
·
A colleague at work continually touches you in passing – your arm, your shoulder, your waist.
These touches are becoming more frequent and more intimate. You want this touching to stop.
What
do you say? To whom? Through what channel? [Touch Boundaries]
5.6
Culture Creation
From Chapter 1, we learned that one aspect of culture is artifacts. In groups, have students create a
unique culture. It can be a blend of cultures that they have experienced, but it also should have some
unique characteristics that they have created themselves. Now, they must come up with different artifacts
that represent different aspects of their “new” culture. Be sure to urge them to be creative, and their
artifacts should not be too similar to artifacts that we already use in our culture. In groups, have them
devise artifacts that represent these different facets of the culture. Also, have them devise colors they
would associate with these artifacts.
Dimension
Objects
Colors
Education
Money/Finance
Religion
Food
Family
Now, have students discuss:
1) How did you come up with this artifact? Does it represent something to you? Does it communicate
some
significance to this culture?
2) Why did you associate these colors with this artifact? Does these colors hold any special meaning?
3) If, in 1000 years, archeologists uncovered these artifacts, what do you think they would infer about
your
culture?
AVAILABLE ASSETS ON MYCOMMUNICATIONLAB
“Judy Burgoon Discusses Nonverbal Communication”
“Recognizing Verbal and Nonverbal Message Functions”
“Louder Than Words”
“Communicating Emotions Nonverbally”
“Nonverbal Communication”
“Facial Expressions”
“Eye Contact”
“Interpersonal Interactions and Space”
“Personal Space”
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Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank for Essentials of Human Communication, Eighth Edition
“Color Meaning”
“Do You Avoid Touch?”
“Go for It”
“Inviting or Discouraging Conversation”
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