The effects of crowding and sex on reactions to a side-to-side invasion of personal space were examined. Male or female experimenters violated the personal space of 40 male and 40 female subjects who were sitting at library tables that were either crowded (several persons present) or uncrowded (subjects sat alone). The subjects' body movements,…

Outlines a study which examines adult interpretations of infant nonverbal behavior. Contends that negative nonverbal emotions are more likely to be attributed to male infants, and positive nonverbal emotions are more often attributed to female infants. (MH)

Replicates an earlier study designed to determine specific meanings associated with various kinds of touch behavior in opposite-sex friends. (MH)

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…

Review of literature on gender-linked aspects of nonverbal behavior reveals that the differences in nonverbal behavior are in line with societal expectations calling for women to be reactive and for men to be proactive. Communication between the sexes is discussed in terms of smiling, personal space, touch, and talk. (JMF)

This study attempts to investigate the effects of increased maternal visual regard on neonatal social visual behavior and upon patterns of mother-neonate interaction within the context of a learning theory paradigm. Subjects were 3-day-old neonates and their mothers; with 10 of the 15 mother-neonate pairs as the experimental group, and 5 as the…

Reviews nonverbal behavior research which reveals a recurrent theme of greater politeness and accommodation by women rather than men in the encoding and decoding of nonverbal cues. These findings complement a large literature on sex differences which suggests that women are more emotionally expressive, sensitive, supportive, and accommodating than…

One goal of this study was to investigate sex differences in facial expressiveness. The study used all possible combinations of males and females in the positions of "sender" and "observer" of the facial communication to determine which factor was responsible for the superior accuracy among females, as reported in a previous study. Another goal of…

Two hundred forty-eight male and female subjects from United States, Mediterranean, Near East, and Far East cultures completed a touch avoidance measure in a study examining cultural differences in touching behavior. Factor analysis of the instrument yielded four factors: opposite sex, other-directed same sex, kissing, and self-directed same sex.…

Presents a study on the relationship between visual interaction and interpersonal distance as related to an equilibrium theory of social interaction. Differential boundaries were found to exist for the effect of distance on five highly related male and female visual behaviors, exemplifying different overall equilibrium levels for the sexes.…

Using a conformity research methodology, the authors investigated the questions of whether (a) the Asch-type conformity setting produces greater yielding than variant settings where subjects are screened from one another and (b) the nonverbal element of contradictory or inconsistent nonverbal communications significantly alters response to the…