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Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “Perception of emergent leaders’ faces and evolution of social cheating: cross-cultural experiments” by Rostovsteva, V. V.; Mezentseva, A. A. and Butovskaya, M. L. (2022), in which authors carry out a study to know whether the appearance of the face is a source of real information about people’s leadership skills. 

From an evolutionary point of view, it is assumed that leaders will be the ones who must act in the interest of the group and facilitate coordination among group members to achieve the common good. 

Some empirical studies suggest that deception can also occur in the context of human leadership, which, in turn, is closely related to the specific personality traits of each leader. 

For example, people who score high in Machiavellianism in personality tests are usually perceived by others as charismatic and good leaders, and tend to occupy top management positions, especially in companies with a short track record. On the contrary, in the long term, these leaders have a detrimental effect on the careers and well-being of their followers. 

In an earlier study by the same authors, where a game (based on the Public Goods Game, or iPGG) was used in which three types of leadership were revealed: first, those non-leaders; then, those with prosocial leadership; finally, those identified as leader-cheaters

The analysis of this study revealed that each of these behaviors had a set of distinctive personality, communication and cooperation characteristics. Both prosocial and cheater-leaders were equally followed by other group members, in 88% of the cases, indicating the existence of successful communicative strategies for both types of leaders, even the cheaters, which probably allowed them to generate a sense of trust in others, despite actual deceptive intentions. This study prior to the one at hand was conducted with young Buryats from southern Siberia, a group of traditional herders of Mongolian origin. 

The present study was designed to extend previous findings. The authors posed several questions, such as: do the neutral faces of the individuals have common characteristics that define them in one group or another, if so what physical and behavioral traits are attributed to each group, among others. 

It was hypothesized that observers could differentiate leadership potential and leadership styles by certain physical and behavioral characteristics based on static facial information alone, and, on the other hand, the authors expected that leaders’ faces would be perceived as more masculine, stronger, dominant, and healthy compared to others. 

In this study, prototype photographs were constructed from the faces of the participants in the first study. Specifically, a portrait of the non-leader, a portrait of the prosocial leader and a portrait of the leader-cheater were obtained by mixing the faces of all the participants in each group. We recall that these young people belonged to a particular ethnic group.

Then, a total of 104 young people were gathered, some of them were Russians and others were also part of the Buryat community in southern Siberia.

They divided the participants into groups. Each of the individuals in the groups had 20 tokens and among all the members they would have a common pool, which they would lose or gain depending on their opinions regarding the photographs obtained from the first study: they had to negotiate what it conveyed to them and why, and reach a consensus. 

The results showed that living in a mixed-race social environment did not affect portrait judgments, as Russians did not differ from Buryats in portrait ratings or in the consistency of their judgments. 

It appears that the characteristics that distinguish leader-cheaters and prosocial leaders are the shape of the eyes, lips, jaw, and eyebrows. Cheater-leaders have larger and rounder eyes, fuller lips, rounder jaw and more prominent eyebrows. 

The study opens new perspectives for future research, calling for investigation of particular facial structures that may distinguish individuals with different leadership qualities. Authors recommend further study on the subject for even more conclusive insights.

If you want to know more about nonverbal behavior and how it affects personal relationships, visit our Master of Science in Nonverbal and Deceptive Behavior, which you can take in English or Spanish, with special grants for readers of the Nonverbal Communication Blog.

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “Measuring the importance of communication skills in tourism”, by Tankovic, A. C.,; Kapes, J. and Benazic, D. (2022), in which authors carry out a study with college students to know the importance that different communication areas have for the future of tourism sector’s professionals. 

We know from numerous studies to date, that communication skills have been identified as one of the most important, even crucial, factors for modern businesses.

While it is important to have specialized professional knowledge to be effective in our work, research shows that having only technical skills has become insufficient to meet the challenges of today’s business environment.

Now, those who hire are not interested in people who only have specific skills for the position, but are also looking for other significant skills, the so-called “soft skills”. The term refers to interpersonal skills, dealing with people, attitudes that improve business efficiency and relationships.

Effective business communication is a prerequisite for the successful performance of any company. However, when it comes to tourism, the importance of communication is even greater, because in tourism it has a deeper meaning, vital for the success of the business, especially in the interaction between tourists and employees.

Recent research shows that hotel managers spend up to 80% of their workday communicating interpersonally with others. Their communication ability affects the job satisfaction of all their subordinates. Auditory communication skills involve the process of receiving, interpreting and responding to messages, being considered by most experts as the most important part of the business communication process.

Plus, something very interesting is that the skills required in tourism change over time. Due to technological advances, tourism is, today, a sector indissoluble from technology, which is why it requires digital skills from employees.

The need to understand, know and master non-verbal communication is also mentioned. For example, it is important to pay attention to the communicator’s physical characteristics, body movements, the expressed courtesy, facial expression…

Employees in tourism and hospitality must be carefully recruited, and must receive continuous training, because their communication skills are an important indicator when it comes to generating positive interaction with customers.

It is important to make the following distinction. While communication in tourism may primarily require external communication, internal communication helps reinforce employee satisfaction, which, in turn, affects guest satisfaction. Combining external and internal communication, you can achieve an interpersonal communication that involves everyone, through two-way channels, with direct personal contact, making all parties feel heard and, therefore, ensuring that everybody’s needs are met more frequently.

Authors realized that there was no previous body of research and literature on the different aspects of communication applied to tourism and considering all at once.

Thus, they distributed a questionnaire that assessed written, oral, listening, digital communication, and non-verbal communication skills. The questionnaire was sent to tourism students and completed between 2019 and 2020.

The findings revealed that written and oral communication skills are the prerequisite of business communication. As expected, auditory communication skills seem to have become an essential component of interpersonal communication, linked to the daily activity of companies and, furthermore, closely related to greater hierarchical responsibility.

On the other hand, digital communication skills refer to contemporary challenges beyond technical and computer skills, such as the processing of digital information that is received and its treatment.

Nonverbal communication skills have a very high reliability value for those surveyed, who mention the need to pay attention to signs such as: smiling when speaking, using gestures and certain body postures, wearing appropriate professional clothing, appearing confident, honest…

For future research, authors recommend focusing on the effect of the aforementioned communication skills on employability, entrepreneurial intent, or career development.

If you want to know more about nonverbal behavior and how it influences our personal relationships, visit our Nonverbal Communication Certificate, a 100% online program certificated by the Heritage University (Washington) with special discounts for readers of the Nonverbal Communication Blog.

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper  “Shall I Show My Emotions? The Effects of Facial Expressions in the Ultimatum Game” by Ferracci, S.; Giuliani, F.; Brancucci, A. and Pietroni, D. (2021), in which authors carry out two experiments to know how the expression of some emotions affect the most tense moments in a negotiation. 

In recent years it has been shown that emotions play an essential and central role in the communication of intentions and desires.

Emotions and the information associated with them can be transmitted through facial expressions during specific social interactions, where their inference can influence decision-making processes, such as negotiations.

The ultimatum game has a lot to do with negotiations. It was developed forty years ago as a representation of the reality of negotiations. In this game, a player proposes how to allocate a certain amount of money between himself and another player. This second player can accept the proposal, in which case one will receive the decided amount, or he can reject it, causing neither player to receive any money.

According to classical economics, the respondent has to accept any offer greater than 0, since anything is better than nothing. However, it has been observed that participants tend to reject offers that are approximately below 30% of the total, preferring not to win anything rather than accept an unequal distribution of money. Therefore, in front of classical economic theory, human behavior and its intolerance to inequality appear.

From this idea, the question arises as to how the expression of human emotions influenced the negotiations, a topic that has been studied previously.

In some of these earlier articles, it appears that offers made with a smiling face were accepted more often than those made with a neutral facial expression. Also, there used to be lower acceptance rates if the offers were made by a person with an angry facial expression.

The responder’s behavior, on the other hand, might be more driven by the sense of perceived fairness and fairness that we discussed earlier.

For studies that had the participant assume the role of the proposer, Van Dijk studied the effects of responder joy and anger on the proposer’s offers. He found that the respondent’s anger led the proposer to make better offers.

These studies indicate that proponents must be very careful in capturing the emotional state of the respondent, as they can then use the information obtained to modulate their subsequent responses.

The role of anger is also interesting, with controversial results. For one thing, studies show that when the responder reacts in anger, the proponent makes more concessions. But on the other hand, there are studies that claim the opposite.

Authors decide to explore this and other questions in two experiments. 113 people participated in the first of them. The authors selected images of faces that were manipulated to offer four expressions: happy, neutral, angry and disgusted. The participants, in this case, were the ones who might answer whether or not they accepted the offer.

In the second experiment, all participants were assigned the opposite role, that of proposer. 134 subjects participated and the methodology and procedure were the same.

The results showed that, in experiment one, for the respondent the decision is strongly driven by fairness in supply, as the authors expected.

Emotions also had an effect: neutral emotion and happiness led to higher rates of acceptance compared to anger and disgust.

Some theories have attempted to explain irrational behaviors in equity-related decision-making, such as “inequality aversion”, which confirms individuals’ preferences for fair outcomes.

On the other hand, in experiment two, the participants, in the role of the proponents, modulated their offers based on the expressions they saw on the faces of the responders.

Specifically, anger and disgust had no differential effects and were perceived as equally negative. More generous offers were made to those with neutral expressions, and even more generous ones to those with happy facial expressions.

So what about the anger and previous studies with conflicting ideas? A study carried out by Steinel and colleagues proposes the idea that anger would have one effect or another depending on where it is projected.

When the emotion is directed to the offer, it can be understood as a strategy to know the limits of the opponent and, therefore, can lead to greater concessions.

Conversely, if the emotion is directed at the person, it can lead to negative outcomes, indicating poor cooperation.

Authors point out the need for further research, especially to understand the effects of anger and disgust in depth, and to improve these experiments, for example, with real and higher incentives.

If you want to know more about nonverbal behavior and how it influences our personal relationships, visit our Nonverbal Communication Certificate, a 100% online program certificated by the Heritage University (Washington) with special discounts for readers of the Nonverbal Communication Blog.

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “Too close for confort? The impact of salesperson-customer proximity on consumers’ purchase behavior”, by Otterbring, T.; Wu, F. and Kristensson, P. (2020), in which authors investigate how different distances between the salesperson and the customer affect the customers’ behavior. 

One of the areas in which the domain of non-verbal communication interests the most is in sales and commerce. We know well that, if we master it, it can be a great help to increase the profits of a business.

One aspect that has been discussed and about which there are different theories is proxemics with respect to direct store service.

Conventional wisdom suggests that salespeople must maintain close physical proximity to customers to demonstrate their care, offer personalized service, and close sales.

However, does this strategy always bring positive results? This is the question from which authors start to carry out the different experiments.

The existing literature suggests that marketers intuit that greater proximity to consumers is desirable, even in the absence of verbal interactions.

In line with this idea, other research shows that greater physical proximity between sellers and customers can improve feelings of acceptance with respect to the store and, therefore, purchase intentions.

Authors hypothesize that this would only occur in contexts of non-expressive consumption.

But what is expressive and non-expressive consumption?

Non-expressive products would be those utilitarian ones, such as personal hygiene products, food, etcetera. However, people buy and consume products for other non-functional purposes, for symbolic reasons, such as the creation and expression of their identity. The latter would be the expressive products.

Authors therefore argue that when products reflect one’s identity, which occurs in contexts of expressive consumption, people will be more prone to self-presentation concerns.

In fact, there is previous research mentioned in the article, which suggests that when clients are motivated to express their own identities, they generally distance themselves from others to assert their distinction.

Other authors point out that consumers tend to distrust when they perceive a hidden persuasion intention in sellers, and see them as social entities separate from them, with different objectives.

In addition, the simple sensation of being watched can reduce the perception of privacy, with subsequent negative consequences for consumption and customer satisfaction.

Regarding research on proxemics, it is known that the invasion of personal space can generate feelings of discomfort and psychological discomfort, especially if the physical distance between two people is less than one meter.

To examine these questions in expressive consumer settings, the authors conducted four studies with a total sample of more than 1,200 participants.

They showed that the close presence of a seller significantly decreases loyalty, purchase intentions, and actual spending in the aforementioned contexts.

Even intermediate levels of proximity could produce negative consumer responses compared to greater interpersonal distances.

The results reveal that there is an underlying psychological distress, an effect moderated by the relevance of identity.

In other words, and to summarize, consumers experience greater discomfort and respond in a way to the seller who is nearby.

The results contribute to the growing body of literature that highlights discrepancies between general intuition-based beliefs and actual consumer reactions.

Authors suggest that sellers should receive adequate training on how much personal space to provide buyers, as offering too little space can lead to the opposite effect.

As a limitation, the authors note that they conducted the studies in individualistic cultures with less interpersonal contact, such as North America and Northern Europe. Therefore, they suggest that in cultures such as Latin America or southern Europe, different results could be obtained.

Regarding future research, they suggest studying when and why consumers experience discomfort as a result of the proximity of the seller, and what psychological processes could potentially explain this state of aversion.

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “Clothes make the leader! How leaders can use attire to impact followers’ perceptions of charisma and approval”, by Maran, T.; Liegl, S.; Moder, S.; Kraus, S. and Furtnet, M. (2021), in which authors investigate how attire impacts in the perception that people have of their leaders.

Numerous examples of leaders that, on purpose, chose their attire to modify how they are perceived by others exist.

For instance, former US president George W. Bush often appeared in a cowboy hat. Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, appeared in public, most of the times, wearing sneakers, sweater and simple trousers. That is to say, they managed to disrupt our expectations. In a way, they manipulated the spectator’s perception.

And we see this not only in presidents or important leaders of millionaire companies, but also in simple and daily life. For example, individuals willingly pay a higher price for luxury clothing and brands to signal their wealth and their social status. Namely, we would use these elements to stand out.

Then, if we give importance to clothing as a manipulative tool for our public image, how would this affect in work environment?

More precisely, what makes a person to be perceived as a charismatic and approved leader?

Research suggests, till now, that individuals who desire to be perceived as prototypical leaders and to earn attributions of trustworthiness, intelligence and competence, would be well-advised to dress formally, for instance, in a suit.

Here appears the first question authors make: does dressing formally make a person to be perceived as a prototypical leader?

Other questions arise. For example, authors argue that a leader dressing in a manner unconventional to a certain organizational culture, creates a contrast in the eyes of employees, resulting in greater attention being given to the leader. This means he/she will stand out.

This will make the leader to be perceived as more charismatic, and we already know that charisma is an important virtue in life in general, and business in particular.

That is why authors ask: if a leader chooses a clothing style that deviates from the organization’s cultural norms, will be perceived as more charismatic? And will he/she receive more approval?

Authors carried out some studies in order to obtain answers to these questions. The ones that we will be talking about will be just the first two experiments, because they are focused on the questions we’re interested in.

In them, individuals were presented with pictures of a designated leader from the Fortune 100 list. Then, their clothing style was systematically manipulated, and participants answered questions about the personality traits they perceived of these leaders.

Mainly, evidence in support of the idea that a leader’s clothing influences the way they are perceived by employees was found.

The first question authors asked themselves was answered. Employees perceive their leader as a prototypical leader when he/she uses formal clothing, though this doesn’t necessarily mean that they are perceived as more charismatic or more approved.

Moreover, it seems a leader should appear more charismatic to their employees and gain a higher approval rate when clothed less formally in a control-oriented culture, and more formally in a flexibility-oriented culture.

That is to say, in a control-oriented organization with formal dress code, dressing informally could be seen as being ignorant; in a flexible-oriented one, dressing formally could be interpreted as being narrow-minded.

Despite these prejudices, these people would communicate that they do not fear losing their position in the organization; they would say to us, with their deviate attires, that they can afford the social costs of not following the norm, like individuals purchasing luxury items to display their wealth to others. In that way, we stand out from others, we would do something others don’t dare to do.

This would work as a charismatic signal, because it would indicate the presence of ability outstanding enough to permit the wearer to deviate from the dress code.

There are some limitations in this study. For instance, authors point out the need of exploring other nonverbal areas, such as vocal projection or facial expressions, in the organizational leadership context. Another limitation would be the lack of leader women in the Fortune 100 list, used for the experiments.

Authors mention the utility of these studies to improve the leadership ability of people that are the head of an organization, and the way they are perceived by their employees.

 

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