This study was designed to evaluate the effects of both sex of subject and sex of partner with respect to a wide variety of nonverbal behaviors. The subjects were 44 men and 44 women graduate professional students at the University of Chicago. The behaviors were coded from videotapes of 88 dyadic conversations where each subject participated in…

"Verbal" and "nonverbal" are confused and confusing terms. Gestural phenomena in semiotic use--gSigns--are called nonverbal but work in three major ways, only the first of which is unrelated to the highly encoded (verbal) activity called language. A gSign may: (1) have a general meaning: "yes,""no,""who…

In order to discover whether the nonverbal responses to literature of primary grade children--in the form of drawings--provide significant information about their feelings toward literature, this study measured primary children's responses to "The Giving Tree." Ninety children in four grade levels (kindergarten through third grade)…

People take their folk gestures seriously, which is illustrated in the fact that several folk gestures, such as raising the right hand and kissing the Bible, are used in religious and legal ceremonies. These and other gestures, such as making the sign of the cross and knocking on wood, are folk gestures used today which have their roots in early…

Recent research in sociolinguistics has demonstrated the need for looking at language in a dynamic framework, that is, for not imposing the traditional synchronic-diachronic dichotomy on linguistic studies. Support for the dynamic framework has been given from various oral languages. This paper attempts to test variation theory with historically…

Designed to provide clues to research questions on sex differences nonverbal in communication, this paper contains the results of dyadic conversations processed on video tape. Twelve undergraduate and graduate student volunteers were solicited along with employed nonstudents between the ages of 19 and 30. Results indicated that males displayed…

This paper presents a critique on the use of video tape recordings in observing human behavior for instructional and therapeutic purposes. Two problems are discussed in relation to this issue: video tape may distort the way a subject acts during recording: and the techniques, film conventions, and camera angles may be such that they give the best…

The authors discuss several studies all of which demonstrate that duration of self-disclosure is a reliable component of the interpersonal process. They review other aspects of self-disclosure including that: (1) the act of revealing is not rewarding per se but can lead to rewards depending on the interpersonal nature of the situation; (2)…

The purpose of this paper is to examine the function served by self-adaptor type behaviors (defined here as "hand touch" on the face, body, the other hand, and the fingers) in order to discover why people perform self-adaptors and what happens when they do. Following an extensive review of the literature, it is proposed that…

The rapid growth in the field of interpersonal communication is reflected in both the introduction of courses dealing with the personalized involvement of people with each other and the prolific output of related educational resources. Specific representative samples of current resource selections include four texts dealing solely with…

The principles and practices of general semantics can be taught to college classes within the context of quality science fiction writings. The works of A. E. van Vogt and Robert Heinlein are particularly useful in exemplifying the details of general semantics. These works and some other science fiction are based upon the Korzybskian principles of…

This paper is based on the premise that one concept in social psychology which lacks conceptual clarification is "empathy" or "empathic understanding". The purpose of this paper is conceptually to clarify the term, and to discuss the implications of this clarification for research and theory in sociology and social psychology. This, hopefully,…

Seventy-four preservice teachers in home economics and social studies were videotaped during a 10-minute microteaching session prior to and after training. A training program in nonverbal behaviors related to encouraging classroom interaction was developed. Three training approaches to this program were constructed: programatic videotape,…

The vast majority of research on nonverbal behavior has used white college students as subjects. The present investigation examined both white and black subjects' non-verbal behavior and also independently varied the race of the person with whom the subject interacted. The experimental setting was an actual employment interview. Twenty black and…

This book explores the question of how we know what we know. The articles, essays, pictures, and practical exercises focus on language, meaning, and the ways in which we communicate. The book is divided into six major divisions: the representative function of words and language; cultural attitudes, values, and assumptions inherent in any given…