Nonverbal Messages

1. On a 10-point scale, with 1 indicating "not at all important" and 10 indicating "extremely important," how important is body appearance to your own romantic interest in another person? Do the men and women you know conform to the stereotypes that depict males as more concerned with physical appearance and females as more concerned with personality?

2. One signal of status is an the unwritten "law" granting the right of invasion. Higher-status individuals have more of a right to invade the territory of others than vice versa. The boss, for example, can invade the territory of junior executives by barging into their offices, but the reverse would be unthinkable. Do you notice this "right" of territorial invasion in your workplace?

3. A popular defense tactic in criminal trials for sex crimes against women, gay men, and lesbians is to blame the victim by implying that the way the victim was dressed provoked the attack. Currently, New York and Florida are the only states that prohibit defense attorneys from referring to the way a sex-crime victim was dressed at the time of the attack (New York Times, July 30, 1994, p. 22). What do you think of this? If you don't live in New York or Florida, have there been proposals in your state to similarly limit this popular defense tactic?

4. Here are a few findings from research on gender differences in nonverbal expression: (1) Women smile more than men; (2) women stand closer to one another than do men and are generally approached more closely than men; (3) both men and women, when speaking, look at men more than at women; (4) women both touch and are touched more than men; (5) men extend their bodies, taking up greater areas of space, more than women. What problems might these differences create when men and women communicate with each other?

5. Visit the website of a large multinational corporation. Most corporations have Web addresses like this: www.CompanyName.com. What can you learn about nonverbal communication from such elements as the general design, colors, movement, fonts, or spacing used? Can you point out any way that the website could be visually improved?

6. Another type of time is biological time – e different ways your body functions at different times. According to theories of biorhythms, your intellectual, physical, and emotional lives are lived in cycles that influence your effectiveness. You can find detailed explanations and instructions for calculating your own intellectual, physical, and emotional cycles in DeVito (1989); or, even better, you can visit a website that will compute your biorhythms (www. kfu.com/~nsayer/compat.html).

7. Test your ability to identify emotions on the basis of verbal descriptions. Try to "hear" the following voices and to identify the emotions being communicated. Do you hear affection, anger, boredom, or joy?

• This voice is soft, with a low pitch, a resonant quality, a slow rate,

steady and slightly upward inflection. The rhythm is regular, and

the enunciation is slurred.

• This voice is loud, with a high pitch, a moderately blaring quality,

a fast rate, an upward inflection, and a regular rhythm.

• This voice is loud, with a high pitch, a blaring quality, a fast rate,

and an irregular up-and-down inflection. The rhythm is irregular,

and the enunciation is clipped.

• This voice is moderate to low in volume, with a moderate-to-low

pitch, a moderately resonant quality, a moderately slow rate, and a

monotonous or gradually falling inflection. The enunciation is

somewhat slurred.

8. What nonverbal cues should you look for in judging whether

someone likes you? List cues in the order of their importance, beginning with 1 for the cue that is of most value in making your judgment. Do you really need two lists? One for judging a woman's liking and one for a man's?

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