摘要:

Motor mimicry is behavior by an observer that is appropriate to the situation of the other person, for example, wincing at the other's injury or ducking when the other does. Traditional theories of motor mimicry view this behavior as an indicator of a vicarious cognitive or empathic experience, that is, of taking the role of the other or of “feeling oneself into” the other person. However, Bavelas, Black, Lemery, and Mullett (1986) have shown that motor mimicry of pain is affected by communicative variables and acts as a nonverbal message indicating that the observer is aware of and concerned about the other's situation. This raises a more general question: Is communication its primary or secondary function? We propose (i) that motor mimicry functions as a nonverbal, analogic, relationship message about similarity between observer and other and (ii) that this message is encoded according to Gestalt principles of form, in that the observer physically mirrors the other. In other words, the observer maintains a relationship with the other. The special case of left/right leaning when observer and other are facing each other permits a test of our theory against two theories that treat motor mimicry as an indicator of vicarious experience. The results of three experiments showed that when motor mimicry by an observer facing someone who is leaning left or right occurs, it is both displayed and decoded in the form consistent with a communication theory; this form is called reflection symmetry. We conclude that, because of the topography of the response, the primary function of motor mimicry must be communicative and that any relationship to vicarious processes is secondary. A similar analysis of other nonverbal behaviors may well reveal that they are also expressions to another person rather than expressions of infrapsychic sta

ISSN:0360-3989    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-2958.1988.tb00158.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1988

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

A speech accommodation theory explanation for the interaction between a receiver's decoding ability and a speaker's voice tone on compliance with requests for help was tested. It was predicted that good decoders would speak faster than poor decoders. Speech accommodation theory predicts that given this speech style difference, good decoders would make more favorable interpretations of a fast request that converged toward their faster speech rate; whereas poor decoders would make more favorable interpretations of a slow request that converged toward their slower speech rate. Requests receiving more favorable evaluations should result in greater compliance, because compliance with requests for help was predicted to follow an identification process. An experiment involving 168 participants confirmed this explanation. Good decoders spoke faster than poor decoders. Moreover, good decoders rated the fast request as more intimate and immediate, while poor decoders rated the slow request as more intimate and immediate. Good decoders, in turn, complied more with the fast request, which they rated more intimate and immediate, whereas poor decoders complied more with the slow request, which they rated more intimate and immediate.

ISSN:0360-3989    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-2958.1988.tb00159.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1988

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Using 40 naturally occurring conversations (20 same sex and 20 mixed sex), the purpose of this study was to examine differences among speech behavior‐social evaluation relationships as a function of whether the evaluator's perspective was that of a participant or an observer and, if the latter, whether the presentational medium involved an audiovisual, audio‐only, or transcriptual recording. Speech behaviors examined included conversants’ speech rates, turn durations, interruptive speakovers, and vocal back‐channels and the degree to which they performed these speech behaviors similar to those of their partners. Social evaluative dimensions examined included communication satisfaction, communicative competence, sociointellectual status, aesthetic quality, and dynamism. Several findings were noteworthy. First, participants viewed their conversational partners most favorably and transcript readers viewed them least favorably. Second, there were few significant correlations between social evaluative judgments across different perceivers’ perspectives. Third, while the perceivers’ social judgments of conversants were often related to the conversants’ speech behaviors, there was little consistency across perceivers’ perspectives regarding which speech behaviors were predictive of these judgments. Specifically, the relationships between audiovisual observers’ and transcript readers’ evaluations of conversants and the conversants’ speech behaviors frequently differed from relationships between participants’ evaluations of partners and the par

ISSN:0360-3989    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-2958.1988.tb00160.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1988

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The acquisition of needed resources is a necessary part of human activity. Persuasion is a tool that can be used to acquire commodities. However, because of obligations inherent in intimate relationships, the necessity of elaborated persuasive messages is lessened Furthermore, when an intimate's request is rejected, negative responses and counterpersuasion are likely. This article presents the results of a study in which three measures of intimacy are related to the obligation to grant requests for resources, the obligation to offer resources in a time of need, characteristics of requests for resources, and characteristics of responses to rejection. Although not all three measures yielded identical results, increasing intimacy with a potential helper increased obligations to grant requests for resources, and obligation to offer resources in a time of need. Moreover, increasing intimacy was negatively associated with request elaboration, frequency of explanations, and inducements. When responding to rejection, increasing intimacy was negatively related to forgiving statements and positively related to counterpersuasion. Finally, after rejection, intimates composed messages, judged to be less polite than those that contained their initial request. The politeness of postrejection messages created by nonintimates was not perceived to differ from that of their initial requests.

ISSN:0360-3989    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-2958.1988.tb00161.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1988

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Much of the research dealing with the relationship between candidate images and candidate preferences has attempted to assess dimensions of the candidate's image that are relatively “personal” in nature. By and large, most of this research focuses on static traits—for example, aspects of the candidate's persona relating to such dimensions as warmth, attractiveness, or dynamism. In contrast, the current study attempts to assess the degree to which candidate preferences are significantly associated with observable behavior. This was done by asking respondents to evaluate Ronald Reagan and Walter Mandate with an instrument normally used to assess elements of interpersonal communication. It was found that communication behavior ratings of Reagan and Mandate significantly predicted differential preferences for these candidates, even after controlling for the respondents’ political orien

ISSN:0360-3989    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-2958.1988.tb00162.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1988

数据来源: WILEY