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A good leader can be perceived due to his/her facial features? Nonverbal Communication Blog

By 4 Mins Read

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.

Did you know that most human communication is nonverbal? The Master in Nonverbal Behavior will help you understand this invisible part of communication and use it to your advantage in both your personal and professional life. Study at your own pace with this 100% online program and earn a degree from Evidentia University, a university licensed in the United States, guaranteeing high-quality education. All of this from just $208 USD per month.

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Is it possible to catch a liar studying the facial expressions of fear? Nonverbal Communication Blog

By 5 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “Catching a Liar Through Facial Expression of Fear”, by Shen, X.; Fan, G.; Niu, C. and Zhencai, C. (2021), in which authors investigate whether it is possible to distinguish between truth and lie paying attention to the facial expressions of fear.

One of the main unknowns of non-verbal language is whether it can be differentiated between the lie and the truth based on observable nonverbal behaviors.

Almost all the expert investigators in the field of deception detection agree that there is no “Pinocchio nose” that can serve as a key and simple identifier of the lie.

However, there is also the so-called “leak theory” which holds that if the lies occur in high-risk situations (in these cases, both rewards and punishments are important) this context can lead to a leak of the lie, which would result in physiological or behavioral changes.

Specifically, it would be the observable emotional facial expressions (micro and macro expressions) that could, to some extent, determine who is lying and who is telling the truth.

However, there is a debate among the scientific community about this matter. Some researchers argue that facial microexpressions are useful for this purpose, but others believe that it is not the best way to catch liars.

Although it can be difficult to detect liars based on micro-expressions, there are some behavioral cues that, to some extent, can be helpful in differentiating between a lie and the truth.

For example, pupil dilation and tone, have been shown to be closely related to lying.

The leak theory also says that, when lying, and especially in high-risk situations, people would be afraid that their lies would be detected and therefore this emotion of fear could leak out and appear.

Some experts argue that emotions of fear can also appear when telling the truth, however, whoever tells the truth does not need to try as hard to suppress fear as liars do.

Therefore, in theory, the degree of repression by the liars would presumably be greater, so that the duration of their facial expressions of fear would be shorter.

In addition to duration, other characteristics could vary between genuine and fake facial expressions, such as symmetry. In fact, Ekman has already shown that genuine smiles have more symmetry compared to deliberate and faked ones.

Similarly, leaked emotional facial expressions when you feel scared when lying, and other expressions too, could show different degrees of symmetry.

This is a subject that for a few years has been studied by experts through experiments in which, in the most cases, the human eye is used to judge.

However, compared to humans, some previous work with automatic and technological learning achieved more than 70% accuracy in detecting deception. Therefore, the authors choose this method to carry out the research.

Why? Because asking people to discover signs of deception is a difficult task, as we may not be able to perceive the subtle differences between the expressions. And automated methods have proven to be just as or even more successful.

Authors used 32 video clips from 16 different people, telling the truth in half of them and lying in the other half. The videos were part of a high-stakes television show, in which half a million dollars is at stake. Participants can win if they tell the truth. To find out whether they lie, a polygraph is used.

The obtained results with automatic detection techniques, indicated that emotional facial expressions of fear could differentiate the lie from the truth in high-risk situations.

Comparisons showed significant differences between lying and telling the truth in AU20 ​​(unit of action consisting of stretching the lips horizontally back) values.

The results also confirmed the hypothesis that the duration of fear action units when lying, is shorter than when telling the truth.

And, on the other hand, differences were also found in terms of symmetry between lying and telling the truth. That is, the genuine expressions would be more symmetrical than the false ones.

We have already commented that those who tell the truth also experience fear. However, the dynamics of fear experienced is very different from that of liars. Therefore, this emotion could be considered “a hot spot” to differentiate between truth and falsehood.

A limitation of the study may be the number of participants, which reaches 16 people and can be considered small. For this reason, the authors prefer to call this work “preliminary exploration”.

That is, they consider that the possibility of using fear as a key aspect to differentiate between truth and lies should continue to be explored, since the results of their study are promising.

Nonverbal communication is crucial in all of our interactions. If you want to delve deeper into how body signals influence communication, the Master in Nonverbal Behavior is perfect for you. This online program offers flexibility and provides you with an accredited degree from Evidentia University, a university licensed in the United States, where the education system is recognized for meeting the highest standards of quality. All of this from just $208 USD per month.

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Emotions

The Influence of Face Gaze by Physicians on Patient Trust. Nonverbal Communication Club

By 5 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Club, this week we present the paper “The Influence of Face Gaze by Physicians on Patient Trust: an Observational Study” by Jongerius, C.; Twisk, J. W. R.; Romijn, J. A.; Callemein, T.; Goedemé, T.; Smets, E. M. A. and Hillen, M. A. (2021), in which authors wonder whether the fact that the doctor looks at his/her patient affects positively or negatively to their relationship and trust.

Gaze is a very important element in nonverbal communication. Between other things, it is useful to transmit information about how we feel, if we are paying attention to what people are saying, and even we use it to direct a conversation.

If we consider it is so significant in relationship with others, it would also be relevant at the doctor’s, because that is a social meeting too.

For instance, it is known that during medical consultations, patients follow the physician’s gaze towards the computer screen. Plus, the physician’s gaze has also been related to better patients’ medication adherence and compromise.

The opposite has been related to a reduction of trust of patients in their physicians.

Why is important to study this topic?

Mainly, because we are using technology to an increasing extent to change our presential medical citations to remote meetings, just as we do with our friends or family. And if technological methods reduce eye contact between physician and patient, it may eventually harm patient’s trust in their physician.

One more question appears. In the past few years an increase of mental diseases has been observed, such as depression or anxiety. That is why authors want to give a brief insight of how face gaze between physician and patient could affect to people who suffer from social anxiety, which is the third most common mental disorder.

In order to study face gaze by physician on patient effects, authors made an experiment in which 16 doctors meet a hundred patients. These physicians wore glasses with eye-tracking technology.

After the consultation, patients made a series of questionnaires so authors could measure their trust in the physicians and the level of empathy perceived. They also answered a test to know if they suffered from social anxiety or not. Besides, before and after the consultation they were asked about their distress, to check if it had gone better or worse after the meeting with the doctor.

Results were surprisingly the opposite to the expected.

According to the experiment, more face gaze is associated with lower trust from patient to the physician.

Furthermore, no relation was found between physician face gaze and patient’s perception of physician empathy or patient’s distress.

It seems that social anxiety it is not a sufficiently relevant factor to shed significative information to the experiment, but authors point out that patients did not obtain high results in the anxiety test, so that may be an explanation. Further investigations should be made to study this aspect.

These results are shocking for the authors, and so they are for most of us. In popular beliefs it’s common the idea that when a doctor looks at his/her patient’s face, the bond between them is stronger and their relationship, better.

This was confirmed by previous research. However, these studies assessed face gaze using less objective methodologies, such as observer-based coding of video recordings.

One of the hypotheses that authors throw to explain these results is the so-called “eye contact effect”.

This means that perceived gaze affects neurobehavioral responses and cognitive processing. These responses to gaze would include higher bodily self-awareness and a decreased capability to perform cognitive tasks. Namely, the feeling of being observed could lead to decreased trust in the physician because the patient feels overly observed by him/her.

A couple of limitations are observed in the study, as the previously mentioned which was related to the anxiety. Another would be the possibility of a Hawthorne effect, meaning that the results may have been biased because physicians were aware of being observed. It must be mentioned that authors did not measure the face gaze of the patient towards the physician, because they did not want to burden patients. However, this should be studied in further investigations because the level of face gaze in a conversation depends on all people involved in the interaction.

These experiment’s results are against the society’s general belief, and scientific community’s in particular. It was believed that face gaze from physician to patient was, without doubts, beneficial for the latter and for improving their relationship and the trust between both.

Nevertheless, authors point out the need to delve into this question, making research that correct these mentioned limitations, so conclusions could be used to make better relations between physicians and patients.

People don’t always say what they think, but their body reveals everything. Learn to interpret these hidden messages with the Master in Nonverbal Behavior. This program is 100% online, allowing you to study from anywhere. Earn your degree from Evidentia University, a university licensed in the United States, guaranteeing high-quality education under the highest international standards. All of this from just $208 USD per month.

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Healthcare

Is the doctors’ communication training inadequate? Nonverbal Communication Blog

By 4 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “Communication training is inadequate: the role of deception, non-verbal communication and cultural proficiency” by Baugh, A. D.; Vanderbilt, A. A. and Baugh, R. F. (2020), in which authors explain why they consider is necessary to improve the communicative training in the context of medicine. 

This week’s paper starts from the next question: are we training our doctors well, so that communication is effective with all types of patients?

Health systems in all societies have an interest in improving the ability of their physicians to provide competent care to all users of the system, regardless of their culture.

The United Nations has recognized that the inequalities faced by marginalized populations must be addressed, and also has placed the issue on its agenda.

More than 20% of displaced or marginalized people say they have given up seeking medical care at all, due to difficulties they found along the way and previous bad experiences too, demonstrating the importance of culturally sensitive care. In addition, they identified racism as one of the main causes of dissatisfaction.

What the authors argue, considering all these ideas, is that communication failures underlie these problems, and are rooted in the changing and heterogeneous demographics of today’s culture, but also attitudes of clinicians. Moreover, they consider that effective intercultural communication stems from an awareness of cultural differences and a genuine desire to communicate actively and correctly.

For this, it is important to bear in mind that socialization during childhood imparts values ​​and social tendencies that take root in us and guide our behavior in life, despite education, subsequent experiences, etc.

Medical students often lack intercultural exposure, due to the tendency toward residential, economic, and cultural self-segregation. In the absence of this, the tendency to privilege one’s own predominates and a negative effect on intercultural attitudes is presaged when exposed to diversity. And rising inequality will only make matters worse.

Communication, a fundamental pillar of human social interaction, and therefore also for the practice of medicine, requires the alignment and synchronization of the speaker and the listener.

Effective communication between two people requires the overlapping of verbal and non-verbal cues, which can sometimes be culturally specific.

Healthcare must aspire to something bigger: the creation of a shared reality between doctor and patient.

Cultural influences arise as a result of many factors: ethnic origin, religion, age, socioeconomic status, or educational level among others.

Both the aspiration of achieving a shared reality, as well as the complexities inherent in the practice of medicine and cultural influences, make relying solely on verbal or non-verbal signals an unsuccessful strategy, because both are necessary.

For example, due to most nonverbal communication being unconscious, signals that may not be appropriate can be used by default, consequently frustrating attempts to improve communication.

There is also the point that damage to doctor-patient relationships is also related to the patient’s ability to perceive dishonest communication.

Incongruous non-verbal behavior or communication is what underlies most lie detection. For example, there are detectable differences based on the activation or not of certain muscles of the face to know if a smile is fake or genuine (the so-called “Duchenne smile”).

Patients notice physicians’ nonverbal inconsistencies and may understand them as signs of dishonesty.

In addition, medical encounters represent tense or risky situations, which make the detection of insincerity more likely.

Students have been found to acquire cultural fluency more slowly when done in small doses, for example, in medical encounters; while the opposite happens if they spend time immersed in a different culture. Furthermore, the greater and more extensive the previous exposure and interaction with another culture, the less unconscious biases there will be.

There are some schools that offer medical language courses, recognizing the relationship between language and culture, however, they have limited accessibility and it would be very positive to facilitate it more.

Medical schools should be trained to redesign communication training so that students are more aware of these weaknesses and how to change them.

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. 

Mastering nonverbal behavior analysis is a fundamental skill in the professional world. With the Master in Nonverbal Behavior, you will not only learn to identify behavior patterns but also understand how they impact communication. This master’s program is 100% online, and upon completion, you will earn a degree from Evidentia University, a university licensed in the United States that guarantees international-quality education. Study from just $208 USD per month.

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Perception

Intrasexual competition: how do women behave when they want to win the same man’s heart? Nonverbal Communication Blog

By 5 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “I saw him first: Competitive nonverbal flirting among women, the tactics used and their perceived effectiveness”, by Wade, T. J.; Fisher, M. L. and Clark, E. (2021), in which authors carry out two studies to know what are the nonverbal cues most used by women when they want to win the same man’s heart.

Universally, people have a desire to form intimate relationships, whether long-term, or just one-night stands. One of the challenges faced by people interested in establishing sex-affective relationships is partner recruitment, and one way to overcome this obstacle is flirting. 

Flirting is an essential aspect of human interpersonal interaction, and it can be used in many ways. For example, single people may use it to attract a partner, but those who are in relationships may flirt to provoke jealousy in their current partner. 

It can also be used as an attempt to intensify the relationship one already has and promote its development, as well as the growth of bonds between people in that couple. 

While flirting can be used for many purposes, the most well-known and evolutionarily important is that of mating. In fact, most of the literature on the subject is concerned with how to signal to a person that you are interested in dating them. 

Interestingly, flirting differs between men and women, reflecting their different priorities when choosing a mate. For example, evolutionary psychologists argue that heterosexual men tend to choose their partners based on signals of fertility and reproductive potential, as well as sexual access. 

On the other hand, heterosexual women tend to engage in intrasexual competitive behavior with each other to gain access to desirable mates. 

While these differences have been documented in previous literature, how they relate to flirtation and subsequent relationship formation is complex. 

For example, men’s preference for sexually accessible partners may lead one to believe that women’s flirting should emphasize these qualities to generate interest, but appearing sexually receptive is counterproductive for women when it comes to establishing a long-term relationship, according to previous literature. 

How women flirt to attract a potential partner presumably depends on many factors, such as, for example, whether the partner is of sufficient quality or has been selected as a potential long-term partner.

While flirting can be done verbally, the nonverbal component is more abundant and, moreover, more important in this context. For example, females may attempt to manifest their sexual availability, which is easier to do through nonverbal means. In addition, nonverbal signals tend to be associated with greater credibility than verbal signals. 

Authors propose the idea that women tend to compete intrasexually, that is, with each other, for potential male partners. However, this is a topic that has not yet been investigated through the prism of nonverbal language, nor has it been explored how this competition is executed. This is the aim of the article.

Authors focus primarily on the use of “tie signals” or “bond signals”, which are nonverbal public displays, signs, or objects (such as wedding rings or shaking hands) that indicate that a relationship exists between two people. They are considered an effective way that people use to say that a relationship exists between them. 

In the first study, 91 women were gathered and participated in an online questionnaire. They answered questions such as “how would you get your flirt’s attention to shift from another woman to you, in the context of a pub?” among others. The 11 most popular actions were used for the following study. These were: eye contact, dancing in his field of vision, smiling at him, touching him, laughing at his jokes, dancing between the other woman and the man, showing disgust or dislike towards her, brushing up against the man, hugging him, flirting with other men or waving at him. 

The second study gathered 139 participants, including men and women, and also through an online questionnaire they were asked which tactics they considered most effective for this purpose, using a scale.

It seems that touching a man on the arm, shoulder, chest or leg is the most effective flirting act, because it signifies to other women that a bond is being formed with the man. From the point of view of intrasexual competition, once a partner is “taken,” it is more useful to approach an alternative partner rather than try to compete with a rival. 

This is a simplistic explanation, as the authors acknowledge, since intrasexual competition involves many more factors, some from an evolutionary point of view, others from a social prism, and so on. 

Other useful techniques proved to be eye contact, hugging (which can be seen as a sign of bonding and also releases oxytocin, which brings people together), or laughing at their jokes.

Authors propose the interesting idea of exploring in future research how the self-perceived value of the partner influences flirting techniques and, in particular, competitive flirting.

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.

Would you like to become an expert in nonverbal behavior analysis? With the Master in Nonverbal Behavior, you will master the art of interpreting gestures, expressions, and body language that reveal more than words. This program is 100% online, allowing you to study at your own pace, and earn an accredited degree from Evidentia University, a university licensed in the United States, ensuring a high-quality education that meets the highest international standards. All of this from just $208 USD per month.

If you prefer, you can obtain your Certificate in Nonverbal Communication by clicking here.

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Macrogestures

Intrapersonal Behavioral Coordination and Expressive Accuracy During First Impressions. Nonverbal Communication Club

By 4 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Club, this week we present the paper “Intrapersonal Behavioral Coordination and Expressive Accuracy During First Impressions” by Latif, N.; Human, L. J.; Capozzi, F. and Ristic, J. (2021). In this article the authors examine whether expressive accuracy is related to the variability in the coordination between a person’s head and body movements.

If there’s something that worry us in social interaction is, without doubts, the first impression. How do others perceive us? Are we transmitting how we really are or, on the contrary, a wrong image altered by being nervous?

During the history of the nonverbal behavior, numerous aspects have been studied in order to understand other people’s personalities attending to how they express theirselves. For instance, and as we already know, much attention has been paid to facial expressions, gestures, or body movements.

What’s new about this study is the authors choose a very specific aspect (variability in the coordination between a person’s head and body movements) and try to find a nexus between it and how accurately people perceive our personality in first impressions.

But why this topic?

Simply because head and body movements play a very special role in social communication. As an example: we use them to transmit interest in a conversation, to show we are listening or paying attention, maybe that we want to go…

Due to the importance of these movements, and to the interest in writing an article about a very specific aspect of human behavior, authors decided to investigate whether expressive accuracy, and how others perceive our personality, is related to the variability in the coordination between a person’s head and body movements.

In order to that, they made an experiment which consisted in recruit, on one hand, 105 volunteers, at least 18 years of age (the observed group) and, on the other hand, 94 (the observer group).

The observed group completed an initial personality questionnaire, plus, family or friends of each individual were asked about their personalities to contrast the information and consolidate a personality profile. In addition to that, each one of the members of the observed group completed a video-recorded interview, so the other group could examinate their nonverbal behavior.

The observer group watched the interview and answered the personality questionnaire for each volunteer of the other group.

The results were clear: people that, during the interview showed a great variability in coordination between head and body movements, were perceived (according to the personality profile obtained at the beginning of the experiment) more accurately than the ones with a low variability.

Plus, a correlation between expressing a higher variability and being perceived as socially skilled was observed.

Other important data obtained in the study, is that these movements’ variability seems to have a relation with personality traits that are easily to observe, such as if we are extroverted, energetic or nice to others. It happens the other way round if we are talking about personality traits hard to observe, for instance being depressed or blue: this seems to have less relation.

It’s important to mention that, when variability in head and body movements’ coordination is low, looks like others don’t detect our personality so easily.

But, why does variability in head and body movements’ coordination seem to promote expressive accuracy?

Chiefly, is possible that, when this variability is high, it’s easier for us to shed clues to others about our personality. If we move our head and hands when we’re talking about something, and then somebody changes the topic and we stop moving and freeze, the person we’re talking to is eager to think that the first subject was more important to us than the second. We’re giving clues to our listener.

Secondly, variability in coordination of these movements affects to our interlocutor’s attention. Namely, these changes keep the person listening to us, watching our faces, our body, our gestures. The opposite happens when the variability is low. Thus, when variability is high, the person we’re talking to would catch more easily our personality traits, just because pays more attention to us.

Despite the results of the study and its conclusions are solid, authors mention the necessity of keeping delving into the subject, of obtaining corrections, to get more accurate answers to such complex issues.

Nonverbal communication is crucial in all of our interactions. If you want to delve deeper into how body signals influence communication, the Master in Nonverbal Behavior is perfect for you. This online program offers flexibility and provides you with an accredited degree from Evidentia University, a university licensed in the United States, where the education system is recognized for meeting the highest standards of quality. All of this from just $208 USD per month.

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Non-verbal communication

Body-oriented interventions in preschoolers: do they help improve their socio-emotional competencies? Nonverbal Communication Blog

By 4 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “Effects of Body-Oriented Interventions on Preschoolers’ Social-emotional Competence: A systematic review” by Dias Rodrigues, A.; Cruz-Ferreira, A.; Marmeleira, J. and Veiga, G. (2022), in which authors carry out a revision of previous literature about body-oriented interventions with kids in kindergarten, to know if these interventions improve their socio-emotional skills.

 Early childhood is a fundamental period of life. In it there is a very significant development of socio-emotional skills, which are a very important basis for the health, well-being and success of children. These competencies are also crucial for children to deal with current and future stressors and challenges.

When we talk about socioemotional competencies, we refer to social (ability to solve problems, adjust behavior according to the social situation, etc.) and emotional competencies (understanding, regulation, and expression of emotions) that work together towards adaptive development.

These socio-emotional competencies are developed from very early ages through the process of socialization of emotions, that is, through the modeling, observation, and communication of emotions.

In the past few decades, several intervention programs have been implemented in educational contexts with the aim of promoting the development of socio-emotional skills in children.

One of these types of interventions are those oriented to the body, which are of particular interest to us, because it is assumed that bodily and emotional experiences are associated with each other and related to psychomotricity, play, dance, physical activity or relaxation. That is: nonverbal elements.

All this would serve to be aware of the body, of the body in relation to others and the connection between it and emotions.

A strong body of evidence supports the effectiveness of these interventions in the educational context. That is why the research investigates this specific context.

The objective is to know if there is, indeed, an improvement in socio-emotional skills with these interventions focused on the body that use non-verbal elements of communication.

The process was as follows: a series of articles were chosen, compiled from various databases, published between 2000 and 2020. The study participants had to be children between 3 and 7 years old and they had to attend preschool education. In addition, the study had to use body-oriented interventions for at least one week and necessarily in the context of school.

To date, this is the first systematic review to learn about the effects of body-oriented exposures in educational contexts on the socioemotional competencies of preschool children.

Despite the difficulty in identifying the ideal intervention “dose,” the emerging consensus among researchers is that children who received more sessions demonstrated greater outcomes. However, according to the analysis carried out, there is not enough evidence to support this idea.

Some of the assessment instruments used in the included studies were self-reports by parents and teachers. The use of parent reports is based on the idea of the children that parents see, and their knowledge of the child in various contexts, therefore they can observe them in very different situations. However, they may be carried away by the urge to create a positive image of their children and thus their opinion may be biased.

There was limited evidence of the positive effects of this type of interventions on emotion recognition, emotional regulation strategies, and social cooperation and independence. However, authors do consider that the bodily and emotional experiences displayed by them possibly facilitate the recognition and regulation of emotions.

These skills are essential for social interactions and are predictors of cooperative social behaviors.

There was also evidence, although limited, that these interruptions improved game interaction and skill, behavior problems, and hyperactivity.

Future research should not omit important data, as occurred in some of those analyzed, on, for example, eligibility criteria.

Authors point out the need to know exactly what type of body-oriented intervention is most useful for the development of socio-emotional skills in children of these ages and mark it as one of the main objectives of future studies.

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.

Mastering nonverbal behavior analysis is a fundamental skill in the professional world. With the Master in Nonverbal Behavior, you will not only learn to identify behavior patterns but also understand how they impact communication. This master’s program is 100% online, and upon completion, you will earn a degree from Evidentia University, a university licensed in the United States that guarantees international-quality education. Study from just $208 USD per month.

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Non-verbal communication

Students’ perceptions about verbal and nonverbal behavior during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. Nonverbal Communication Blog

By 4 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “Students’ perceptions of verbal and non-verbal communication behaviors during and after the Covid-19 pandemic”, by Dragomir, G. M.; Fărcasiu, M. A. and Simon, S. (2021), in which authors carry out a study to know how the modification of interpersonal relationships during and after Covid-19 has affected university students.

We all know that the Covid-19 pandemic has shaken and disrupted the physical health and emotional state of the whole world.

It has wreaked havoc on people’s lives and changed their behaviors in record time like never seen before.

As a result of the confinement, the separation, isolation and fear of the unknown, not only the psychological well-being of health workers at the forefront of risk has been impaired, but also in the general population.

In addition to all this, it became clear that the disease has also affected relationships between people by influencing the way we communicate with each other both verbally and nonverbally.

On an interpersonal level, communication has suffered a lot due to masks, which undoubtedly help our health and fight against the virus, but strain our daily face-to-face communication.

It has also suffered due to the rules of social distancing, which forced people to adapt to these new living conditions by adopting contactless meetings, or by changing in-person communication for online platforms such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams.

Previous studies have shown that personality traits such as extraversion and introversion play a huge role in the burnout result from working from home and using these platforms.

For example, extroverts were more exhausted than introverts, since the latter felt more comfortable in this configuration.

In addition, the level of intimacy achieved in video calls, with close-ups and direct gazes, is usually reserved for intimate relationships but it has become the new way of interacting with co-workers and acquaintances, and it seems to disrupt our productivity.

On the other hand, despite being necessary to protect our health, masks have a great disadvantage for interpersonal communication: they hide people’s facial expressions.

Having been studied from different perspectives, these expressions are considered the most important part of our non-verbal arsenal, since they communicate emotions and, in addition, they are a part of the body that we pay a lot of attention to in our interactions.

Nonverbal behavior has the function of helping to decode the interlocutor’s verbal message, as well as her/his feelings. Unfortunately, the masks cover the middle and lower area of ​​the face, which partially and negatively affects this decoding.

This study sheds light on this moment in our lives when face masks and the virtual world have become our new normality.

It is focused on university students, very young and energetic people, and therefore very affected by the pandemic.

It analyzes the impact of this on young people and also how they think it will affect them in the future. That is, whether they will maintain some of the behaviors adopted during the pandemic in the future or not.

It was conducted using an online questionnaire between April 1 and May 30, 2021.

The results obtained regarding to verbal communication reveal that students seem to have adopted the rules very well and effortlessly when it comes about switching to the online world, thanks to being already accustomed to using technology.

By wearing masks, to make themselves being understood better, students seem to have got accustomed to repeat sentences sometimes, using the voice, its pitch, and volume as compensation. In addition, they mentioned focusing more on the upper part of the face, sometimes exaggerating the movements of these areas. They try to listen more accurately and use more or bigger gestures.

Some of the respondents reported having enjoyed social distancing rules at some point, which is consistent with the findings previously mentioned about extraversion and intraversion.

On the other hand, they admit that some new practices, such as greeting each other in a different way in the future or exaggerating the movements of the upper face area and make them livelier, will probably leave a mark on their future behavior.

Nonverbal behavior has a significant impact on both personal and professional relationships. If you want to better understand this impact, the Master in Nonverbal Behavior is for you. Study online at your own pace and earn a degree from Evidentia University, a university licensed in the United States, guaranteeing high-quality education that meets the highest international standards. Study from just $208 USD per month.

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Perception

How distrust and fake cues of deception contribute for us to make inexact judgements in lie detection. Nonverbal Communication Blog

By 6 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “The Limits of Conscious
Deception Detection: When Reliance on False Deception Cues Contributes to Inaccurate Judgements”,
by Stel, M.; Schwarz, A.; van Dijk, E. and van Knippenberg, A. (2020),in which authors explore the ideas
of unconscious thought, fake cues of deception and people’s ability to detect lies.

We have already seen in several articles how the ability to deception detection, in addition to being one of the most interesting fields in the study of non-verbal language, is an extremely important and practical skill in everyday life.

However, it is important to remember that most studies show that the level of this ability does not usually exceed the level of probability.

One of the arguments used to explain this is that people have a tendency to believe in the information that is presented to them. This is called the truth bias or the “default value of truth.” Since most communications are honest most of the time, the benefits of believing are higher than the costs of the occasional deception. Therefore, it is understood that people can detect truths with greater precision than lies.

So, if overconfidence gets in the way of a successful deception detection, wouldn’t mistrust be an antidote to it?

In this article, authors investigate whether people’s ability to detect deception varies depending on whether or not they feel mistrust.

Previous research shows that increasing suspicion would decrease truth bias. However, studies about the effects of suspicion on the accuracy of deception detection offer mixed results: some are positive and others negative.

But only a few studies on deception detection focused on the effects of mistrust instead of suspicion. They are similar concepts, but different. In a state of suspicion, the perceivers are not sure of the motivations of the others; while in a state of mistrust, negative expectations about these motivations are added. As a result, suspicious perceivers are more willing to seek information to determine whether or not someone else’s motivations are honest. On the other hand, mistrust affects the perceiver’s need to face a possibly threatening situation. By having different effects, they are likely to affect deception detection abilities differently as well.

According to some experts, distrust indicates that the environment is not the usual and, as a result, people avoid routine strategies, and examine deeply more people’s behavior. This encourages deliberate conscious processing, whereas when we have signals that a situation is safe, less effort cognitive processing is encouraged.

In other words, it is suggested that a state of mistrust would promote the conscious processing of information, while a state of trust would promote intuitive or unconscious processing. Decisions for both thought forms have differences: for unconscious thinking decisions, attention is directed elsewhere before making them; for conscious or automatic decisions, the decision is made immediately. All this makes these ideas attractive to authors and they decide to explore them.

Other findings suggest that conscious processes may hamper the ability to detect deception. Judging whether a person is truthful or deceiving us, can be a complex decision to make. First, we evaluate the signals, such as the level of detail, the plausibility of the story …, and this is cognitively demanding. Second, we must process verbal and nonverbal content, and pay attention to different types of observable cues. Because judging whether a person is telling the truth or not is a demanding process, the theory of unconscious thought suggests that the detection of deception can be better handled with it, since it is assumed that the unconscious thought would have more processing power.

Research focused directly on conscious and unconscious thinking showed that people’s ability to detect deception increased when they were prevented from consciously deliberating on the information presented.

For the experiment carried out, authors used covert manipulation, causing observers to adopt facial expressions of distrust (narrowed eyes) or confidence (wide eyes). The aim was to induce these states of mind, based on previous studies.

A total of 93 university students participated and watched eight video clips showing a person lying or telling the truth. The participants were then asked how much they trusted this person, requiring a score on a scale to measure this aspect.

A second study was conducted that investigated whether confidence in the use of false indicators of deception influenced mistrust in detection. 54 people participated in it. The experiment was similar to the first one, but the participants had to explain why they trusted or mistrusted the people in the videos.

Although increasing mistrust was expected to reduce the truth bias, the results did not show that distrustful people were less likely to mistake a lie for a truth. On the contrary, it happened that mistrust led the participants to confuse truths with lies.

That is, mistrust led participants to misjudge those who told the truth as liars. Furthermore, with study 2, it was shown that distrustful people relied more on false beliefs about lying when judging truth-tellers than when judging liars.

Although the existence or not of benefits in unconscious deception judgments was finally not directly proven, authors showed that contextually induced modes of thought affect the ability to detect deception, when confidence or mistrust was induced in the subjects.

One limitation is that the sample in Study 2 is quite small, and as such, the results should be interpreted with caution.

In conclusion, authors showed that contextual mistrust difficulties people’s ability to detect deception, especially for those who tell the truth, who are often judged as liars.

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Non-verbal communication

Can I have your number? Men’s perceived effectiveness of pick-up lines used by women. Nonverbal Communication Club

By 5 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Club, this week we present the paper “Can I have your numer? Men’s perceived effectiveness of pick-up lines used by women” by Fisher, L. M.; Coughlin, S. and Wade, T. J. (2020), in which authors wonder which are the most effective pick-up lines used by women to flirt with men, according to men’s perceptions.

One of the areas in which knowing nonverbal communication and nonverbal behavior is more interesting is flirting.

Both men and women worry about how they are perceived by the sex they are interested in, and not few work in order to improve this. In fact, we are sure that all of us have think of any strategy to be more attractive to our love interest’s eye.

One of the most interesting points of nonverbal behavior applied to flirting, is how conversations focused on dating are started. Which approximation will guarantee us success? Which one shall we avoid?

Most of the research on pick-up lines pertains to how men commonly use them to encourage conversation with women, to impress them. That is why authors decided to carry out this experiment focusing on the contrary, on the other side of the story: women perceived by men.

There is a variety of pick-up lines, which have been categorized in many ways. Authors use the categories of direct (“You are hot, can I have your number?), innocuous (“Can you recommend me a drink?”) and flippant (“Can I get a picture of you so I can show Santa what I want for Christmas?”).

Generally, women are most receptive to innocuous lines followed by direct lines. On the contrary, the ones that would be less appealing to them would be flippant lines. It could be because women may perceive flippant line users as unintelligent or untrustworthy.

Men, on the other hand, and according to previous research, would be more receptive to direct lines, followed by flippant ones; feeling less attracted to innocuous lines. It may be due to these lines not being explicit.

Nevertheless, studies until today have been historically focused on these pick-up lines rather than the appearance of the people using them. That is why authors decided to carry out the experiment bearing in mind that attractiveness could affect to the effectiveness of the pick-up lines.

Hypotheses are two: first, that women using direct pick-up lines would be rated as being the most effective when trying to pick-up men for the purpose of dating; second, that men would rate the pick-up lines used by highly attractive women dressed in a highly promiscuous way as more effective than the pick-up lines used by women who were less attractive and promiscuous.

To prove these hypotheses, authors carry out to pilot studies in order to gather information so they able to perform the main experiment.

The first of these pilot studies was conducted to ensure women use pick-up lines, and if so, which types of lines. Women were presented a hypothetical scenario, in which they had to think what they would say to flirt with a man in a bar. A series of pick-up lines were obtained, and later used in the main experiment.

The second pilot study was used to determine which photographs would be used in the experiment. Participants were shown a series of photographs of women and were asked to classify them according to how attractive and promiscuous they seemed. With the obtained results, authors selected twelve of these pictures, three in each one of the four following categories: high attractiveness/low promiscuousness, high attractiveness/high promiscuousness, low attractiveness/high promiscuousness and low attractiveness/low promiscuousness.

130 heterosexual men participated in the main experiment. They were asked to answer a questionnaire with the twelve chosen pictures, classified as the four categories previously mentioned. Each one of these photographs were assigned a pick-up line, it could be direct, innocuous or flippant.

One more time, a hypothetical scenario was presented, in which these men had to guess what would be the effectiveness of these twelve women in the photographs when it comes about flirting with an heterosexual man, bearing in mind how attractive and promiscuous these women seemed.

Obtained results suggested that men prefer direct lines over flippant and innocuous lines (these would be the least preferred).

Plus, perceived attractiveness plays a more significant role than perceived promiscuousness.

Women in the high attractiveness and high promiscuousness condition were rated to be the most effective.

Namely, the hypotheses authors thought about at the start of the paper, would be confirmed.

Flippant lines deserve particular attention, because their results offer conflicting information.

For instance, previous research suggest that women prefer funny men with a good sense of humor, as it shows off their intelligence and creativity. This makes us think that flippant lines should be the most successful. But that is not the case, flippant lines would be the least preferred by women.

Men do not particularly like funny women, instead they like women who enjoy their sense of humor. These findings suggest that men would be less receptive to flippant lines, but men preferred flippant lines more than innocuous lines in the current study.

There were some limitations in the experiment. For example, women used in the photographs were all models. Thus, these women are not representative of the general population. Besides, rating photographs and stated pick-up lines is far less realistic than being approached by women in real life, due to other elements, as prosodic, that would be very important.

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NonVerbal Communication Blog