Examines specific nonverbal behaviors that express conversational involvement (the degree to which participants in a communicative exchange are cognitively and behaviorally engaged in the topic, relationship, and/or situation) along five dimensions: immediacy, expressiveness, interaction management, altercentrism, and social anxiety. Finds…

Examines the relationships among nonverbal behaviors, dimensions of source credibility, and speaker persuasiveness in a public speaking context. Finds numerous associations between nonverbal behaviors and attributions of credibility and persuasiveness. Discusses advantages of analyzing nonverbal cues according to proximal precepts. (SR)

States that interpersonal deception theory frames deception as a communication activity within interactive contexts. Describes an experiment testing several suspicion-related hypotheses pairing participants for interviews during which interviewees lied or told the truth, and interviewers were induced to be more or less suspicious. Finds that when…

Hypothesizes that participation in the form of dialogic communication confers a net advantage to senders over receivers such that it increases senders' deception success--it reduces receivers' detection of deceit. Concludes that the results support the interactivity principle and interpersonal deception theory, from which the principle emanated.…

Analyzes the nature of arousal, especially as it pertains to communication, and examines several nonverbal correlates of heightened arousal. Reviews several bodies of literature that implicitly or explicitly posit links between arousal and nonverbal behavior. (MM)

Examines the impact of nonverbal cues on participants' and observers' perceptions of relational messages in an experiment in which participants interacted with a confederate who systematically varied his or her communication style. Finds that nonverbal indicators of involvement and pleasantness were systematically related to relational message…

Considers how various theories of nonverbal adaptation feature behavioral valence and degree of behavioral change as critical elements affecting whether changes in nonverbal intimacy are met with reciprocity or compensation among 100 undergraduate student romantic dyads. Makes comparisons across five conditions: very low intimacy, low intimacy,…

Reviews factors affecting nonverbal expectancies and the consequences of violating them, comparing those consequences to other models (discrepancy-arousal, arousal-labeling, arousal-valence, sequential functional) employing similar assumptions and mediating variables. Examines an extension of nonverbal expectancy violations theory to multiple…

Two experiments examined nonverbal behavior patterns and relational communication perceptions associated with communication reticence. In the first experiment, pairs of friends and pairs of strangers engaged in nine-minute discussions. Subjects were rated by their interaction partners and by trained observers. Results showed that as their level of…

Presents two studies that replicated and extended J. K. Burgoon and R. C. Koper's research by examining nonverbal behavior patterns, relational message interpretations, and credibility evaluations associated with communication reticence. Challenges the traditional view that reticence produces pronounced performance decrements and discusses…

These two experiments focus on nonverbal behaviors that might have meaning in defining the relationship between partners and on the broader relational connotations produced by a reticent person's verbal and nonverbal communication style. (PD)

Results of an experiment manipulating violations of distancing expectations and physical attractiveness indicate that both may be sources of distraction. Offers modest support for the prediction that attractive individuals engaging in violations of expectations will serve as positive sources of distraction, leading to greater susceptibility to…

Based on the assumptions that relational messages are multidimensional and that they are largely communicated by nonverbal cues, this experiment manipulated five nonverbal cues--eye contact, proximity, body lean, smiling, and touch--to determine what meanings they convey along four relational message dimensions: emotionality/arousal/composure,…