Wood’s Chapter 5 Notes

Similarities

• Both are symbolic
• Both are rule-guided
• Can be intentional or unintentional
• Are cultural-bound

Differences

• NV communication is "more believable"
• Nonverbal can be multi-channeled
• Nonverbal is continuous

• supplements or replaces verbal communication
• regulates interaction
• establishes relationship-level meanings
• (responsiveness, liking, power)
• reflects & expresses cultural value

• Kinesics - body position & motion
• Haptics - touch
• Physical appearance
• Artifacts - personal objects
• Environmental factors
• Proxemics - use of space
• Chronemics - time
• Paralanguage - how we speak
• Silence

• Emblems
• Illustrators
• Affect Displays
• Regulators
• Adaptors

• Management Techniques
• Intensifying
• Deintensifying
• Neutralizing
• Masking

• Functions
  • Monitor Feedback
  • Maintain Interest and Attention
  • Regulate the Conversation
  • Signal the Nature of the Relationship
  • Compensate for Physical Distance

• Many meanings
• Touch more in intermediate stages than in initial or established relationships
• Facilitates self-disclosure
• Playfulness
• Power and Control
• Ritualistic (shake hands, etc.)
• Task-related
• interesting -- more touch, more tips

• Avoidance & Communication Apprehension
• Low self-disclosers tend to avoid touch

Gender Issues With Touch

• Men avoid touching other men; Women are less likely to avoid same-sex touch
• Women have higher avoidance of opposite-sex touch.
• As we age we avoid opposite sex touch
• Women initiate opposite sex touch more often than men. Especially in married relationships.
• Opposite sex friends touch more than same-sex friends.

• Muslim children are not to touch the opposite sex.
• Korean’s avoid touch in public (store owner)
• Japanese students touch 1/2 less than American students.

• Attraction Messages
• Taste Messages
• Memory Messages
• Identification Messages

Spatial Messages

• Personal Space

  Space that surrounds a person in which they are made comfortable or uncomfortable. It is a personal bubble of space that moves with you.

  • Hall’s Distances
    • Intimate distance: 0-18 inches
    • Personal Distance: 18-48 inches
    • Social Distance: 4-12 feet
    • Public Distance: beyond 12 feet

• Protection Theory
  • you establish a protective body buffer zone
• Equilibrium Theory
  • intimacy and distance vary together
• Expectancy Violations Theory
  • explains what happens when you < or > distance.

• Primary
  • areas you call your own (your room, desk, office)
• Secondary
  • do not belong to you, but you occupy and are associated with (a regular parking spot at work, a table you sit at)
• Public
  • open to all people (movie theater seat)

• Signals Ownership
• Home Field Advantage (get raise, win argument in your space!)
• Markers
• Central Markers -- items placed somewhere your drink at the table
• Boundary Markers -- show the division like bar placed in check-out lane
• Ear markers -- "branding" like a name tag, initials on shirt or briefcase

• Who has the right to invade territory?
• Who has more?
• Who has what?

• Women exhibit less discomfort with small space and tend to interact at closer range.
• Men have higher territorial needs, especially where it’s short in supply.
• Women and children seem to desire more relational closeness than do men

• As children grow older their perceptions of crowding will increase.
• Personal space requirements grow with age, and that once that personal space is invaded we consider the perception of crowding.

• As our personal space gets smaller, our perception of feeling comfortable becomes minimized.
• Tension builds up and conflict arises
• Sometimes personal items become a factor and an uneasiness of security of personal items sets in.

• Europeans: Don’t need as much personal space.
• French: Emphasis on outside and public space
• Arabians: Like to have high ceilings, out of normal line of vision, and an unobstructed view.
• Asians: Place higher focus on functional space.

• Theory:

generally, females use more nonverbal gestures than males in order to express themselves and give feedback

• Space Decoration
  • What you have and where
• Study of beautiful, average and ugly rooms
• Color Communication
• Clothing and Body Adornment
  • Formaly dressed professor = prepared, knowledgeable and organized
  • Informally dressed = friendly, fair, enthusiastic and flexible

• Cultural Time
• Technical Time = precise, scientific time
• Formal Time = manner in which a culture defines time.
• Informal time = forever, right away, soon, etc.

• Displaced time
  • views time exactly.
• Diffused time orientation
  • approximate rather than exact.
• Time is Cultural, for example:
  • Japan -- clocks were exact and fastest walkers
  • England, Italy, Taiwan and US in between
  • Indonesian -- slowest walkers and least exact.

• Monochronic
  • Does one thing at a time.
  • Time is very serious!
  • Job tends to be more important than family even.
  • Privacy is extremely important.
    • Seldom borrows or lends
    • Works independentl
• Polychronic
  • Does several things at a time.
  • Time is important but not sacred.
  • Family and interpersonal relationships are more important than work.
  • Actively involved with others.

• Monochronic
  • United States, Germany, Scandinavia and Switzerland.
• Polychronic
  • Latin Americans, Mediterranean people, Arabians.

• Importance placed on the past, present or future.
• Past Orientation -- reverence to the past…good ole’ days
• Present Orientation -- Live in the present for the present.
• less $$ -- tend to be happy with what they have.
• Future Orientation -- Focus on future
• more $$ -- tend to look down on other orientations as lazy, unmotivated.

• More Status you have, the more freedom you have!
  • Dinner…
• Less status eat sooner
• More status wait...

1. monitor your nonverbal communication
2. be tentative interpreting others’ nonverbal communication

• Self-awareness
  • being aware of the ways in which you communicate, and realizing different people have different ways of using nonverbal comm.
    • monitor behavior, take note of your posture, movements, and objects
    • ask friends for feedback
    • videotape yourself in a conversation or speech

• Expand your repertoire of nonverbal activities
  • by expanding your own vocabulary for sending messages, you will expand your ability to decode the messages of others

• Remember that good communication focuses on the receiver of the message
  
  
• You can send appropriate signals to amplify or intensify your verbal messages