Ksawery M Szymura
Introduction to Personality & Social Psychology
Why is non-verbal communication important in social interactions?
A human being is a social animal. One of its needs as Maslov (1954) suggests in his pyramid of needs, is belongings and love needs, relationships and contact within its own species. Humans have developed a very complex method of communication, known as speech. However psychologists have shown that non-verbal communication is even more important, and is more complex that had been previously realized (Argyle, M. 1988) that is why many publications about this matter came, and are still coming out, in the context relation to the professional and private life. It’s realized that non-verbal communication is important, and that is why people, who want to be good communicators, should have an understanding of this topic. The interesting part, and the topic of this essay, is why is it so important.
In order to answer this question, firstly we need to define the key term for this essay – non-verbal communication. All the definitions I have found while doing research for this essay incorporate that a synonym for NVC is body language and it can be delivered in many codes, by different signals. However, that’s not always the whole truth. I will only elaborate, on these which important significance for social communication is undeniable.
One of the most important non-verbal signals in social interactions is eye contact. The power of the eye as a communication tool is known in the animal world – moths, fish and birds have fake eye patterns in order to transmit a signal to the predator. When removed, the animal is more likely to be eaten.
Eye gaze is defined by Argyle (1988) as “the meeting of two peoples gaze or their looking into each others eyes” . Furthermore, during contact between human beings its main functions are expressing personal information, monitoring feedback and regulating the contact (Kendon A.,1989). Personal information such as liking or affection is communicated by the duration of the gaze. Argyle (1988) suggests that ‘People look more at those they like’ , on the other hand a extensive eye contact is initiated with people we are in conflict or to whom we have aggressive intentions. On the contrary reduction of gaze is often a sign of disapproval, a lack of control, ignorance, or a lowered level of intimacy, depending on the interactions context. Simultaneously the eye contact is an interaction regulator. Participants take turns speaking; the willingness to do so is signalled by prolonged eye contact, glances and other eye patterns. In his research Kleinke (1986) explains that humans look at others while listening more often and longer, than while speaking. In contrast good speakers will gaze form time to time to obtain feedback and judge how receivers understand and evaluate their message. At the same time the message might be corrected, in order to make the interaction more successful. (Hargie, O. and Dickson D., 2004)
The look of your face can transmit a as lot of information as your gaze. The face according to Charles Darwin (1872) is an affect display ; it shows the emotional state an individual is in. Because it is biologically based, a universality of emotional expressions occurs. People can communicate via their facial expressions cross-culturally, in contrast to, for example, gestures. The emotional contagion is also important for interactions – emotions spread between people thanks to their facial expressions. It is significant that an inappropriate facial expression my well block effective communication, because the person we interact with can receive a wrong projection of our mind-set.
I have mentioned earlier gestures, which are an effective way of interacting non-verbally or rather along with the verbal message. The utility of them depends on factors such as culture and the social situations context. Hand gestures cam illustrate the verbal content of the message, help to describe an event or either point towards an object while referring to it – then they are described as illustrators. Another kind of gestures are emblems, hand movements which have a verbal translation, usually short ones. Often they have a agreed meaning known within a culture or subculture (Ekman and Friesen, 1969). Freedman and Hoffman (1967) distinguish also self-touching, which is not so important for social interactions. It is only supposed to regulate the amount of tension. Gestures, such as body movements convey interpersonal attitudes. When people do interact with each other the adaptation of each others postures is a marker of how the participants of the conversation feel about each other and the interaction. Postural congruence occurs when interactors adjust their interaction continues. It is a good sign if the adjustments are in both directions. The art of Neuro-lingustic Programming (NLP) encourages people to match and mirror the postures and movements of their interaction partners, in order to establish rapport on a subconscious level (O'Connor, J. and Seymour, J., 1993 ) However negative body language, such as crossing arms or turning their head away should not be replicated by the other person.
Next, the posture can be one way of showing supremacy or submission. Animals show dominance by their size, strength by signs of relaxation, and lack of fear. Mature human beings project power and high status by drawing up to their full height, expanding their chest, taking a lot of space around them as well as using expansive gestures to support their communication. These are all attempts to increase their real body size. In contrast, low status is shown by lowering the head or slumping shoulders. In his experiments Mehrabin (1969) showed that dominance is communicated through asymmetrical arm and legs positions, sideways or backwards lean and hand relaxation – all signs of relaxation. Bodily communication is for sure the most common and effective way of showing dominance by human beings both in interpersonal and social situations.
How we are perceived, and what type of message do we communicate depends also on how we make use of the social and personal space. The study of it is commonly referred to as proxemics. Within its definition, it incorporates three main aspects such as the use of territory, interpersonal distance and bodily orientation (Hargie, O. and Dickson D., 2004).
Territoriality is the way a person uses and claims certain rights to a physical area. Primary territory is the one which is exclusive to an occupier, such as a house or a hotel room. An individual has full control over it. Secondary territory is associated to an area formally not owned, but might be perceived as that and others tend to respect it. An example of it can be a favourite table in a coffee shop or a bar. Thirdly, public territory is the space available to the whole society, and all use it for periods of time, for example park benches or parking spaces. In social relations humans tend to claim more rights to them then they are entitled to. When somebody threatens their space within the public one by invading it, the often feel offended, or at least uncomfortable. Due to this fact people leave markers to defend their part of the social space, what is communicated by placing various items on surfaces, such as a suitcase on a chair. The last and least obvious one is the interaction territory, which is created when people have a conversation. It exists only as long as the interaction, but other members of society tend to respect it, by avoiding its invasion when moving. A well know example from every day life is a group of people having an informal conversation in a corridor of a public use building. The areas and the use of them have a connection with the individuals’ amount of self-perceived status. High status people tend to claim more rights in all of the territories and others avoid questioning it. It is known that architectural layout can impact, on how humans make use of it. Social space designers do their best to compromise people’s experience of amount privacy, and the number of people that can use a facility.
The problem I have mentioned above has a connection to ones personal space. It is a ‘bubble’ surrounding body; within we are during the state of motion. It could be compared to a mobile personal territory. Depending on the cultural and personality differences and also social background the amount of space is variable (Argyle, 1988). When personal spaces overlap, we refer to it as interpersonal distance, which is significant to interactions. Shared relationships are clearly marked by distances, which can be broken down to four zones (Hall, 1966). The intimate zone (from touch to 18 inches)is reserved for friends and family and the casual-personal (from 18 inches to 4 feet) one for social functions and informal conversations. Further on, the social zone (from 4 to 12 feet) is used when a formal or professional interaction occurs. The last one – the public zone – is limited by visual contact and sound is for addressing larger groups of people, for example making speeches or giving lectures. One should have in mind when interacting, that an inappropriate proximity may make the interaction difficult, and adjust in accordance to the social context, it to maximise the effectives of his message.
Efficiency in communication can be also achieved by using such a primitive form such as touch. Children tend to explore the world using touch, until it is penalized by our society. The importance of the appropriate touch is unquestionable. It is shown that people, who are bale to communicate well via touch are assessed more positively (Burgon et al. 1992) and are more persuasive (Willis and Hamm, 1980). But touch is not always received with enthusiasm, in extreme situations it can be misinterpreted as a sexual offence. Haptic communication, serves many social functions depending on the interactions context. Some of the functions according to Heslin and Alper (1983) are: professional, social, friendship, intimacy and sexual. Professional touch is used to carry out a task (instrumental) or to convey emotion or attitude. In different societies and cultures touch plays various social roles, such as for example greeting. Depending on the intimacy level and situation it can be a handshake, nose rubbing, kiss or a gentle hug. A greeting can also be identified as a friendship or warmth marker. Within the friendship function it also expresses very often a positive emotional attitude, care, and understanding. Touching has a deeper meaning in the context in close relationships. Depending on the type of relationship it is an expression of different kinds of love, such as parental or passionate. The last form of touching is sexual. Masters and Johnson consider sex as the most effective way of communication. That is why non-sexual touching in extreme cases may end up in court. Status may be shown also by touch. People with higher status tend to touch more often in situations when this form of communication is not reciprocated. Finally haptic communication changes across the geographic areas of the world, lifespan, gender and many other variables.
To summarize, non-verbal communication is a very important carrier of information. The variety and complexity of different codes allows encoding a mixture of messages. Flexibility of it can be compared to the one that characterises human language. It should be emphasised that the semantics are different and cross cultural. Its role is as shown in this essay is highly significant and essential in and social interactions.
References
Argyle, M. (1988) Bodily Communication (2 nd ed.), New York: Methuen
Maslow, A. (1954) Motivation and Personality , New York: McGraw-Hill.
Hargie, O. and Dickson D. (2004) Skilled Interpersonal Communication. Research, Theory and Practice, New York: Routledge.
Furnham, A. (1999) Body language at work, London: Institute of Personal Development
Kendon, A. (1989) International Encyclopaedia of Communication , Vol. 2, New York: Oxford University Press.
Kleinke, C. (1986) Meeting and understanding people , New York: W.H. Freeman.
Darwin, C. (1872) The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
Ekman, P. and Friesen, W.V. (1969) The repertoire of nonverbal behavior: Categories, Origins, Usage and Coding , Semiotica 1:49-67
O'Connor, J. and Seymour, J., (1993) Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People , Thorsons Publishers
Hall, E. (1966) The hidden dimension , Garden City: Doubleday.
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