Words May Be All You Need

www.itsnicethat.com

Psychologists have discovered that when two strangers meet and
interact for the first time, the extent to which they develop mutual
understanding depends on how much they talk and ask questions
rather than on non-verbal cues such as gestures or exchanging glances.
Over my career I've read several books on or attended seminars about the importance of non-verbal communication as well as how to read a person's body language.  By implication, this knowledge helps control or model a person's own body language to communicate a wanted affect.

We each use these skills - most likely without thinking about it - in our own day-to-day relationships and are an important tool for investigators and interviewers - who do think about it.

But simply talking, asking and answering questions and listening is also very important.  According to this research, more important than reading or projecting body-language.

So here's a report on the research with a link to the full study in the attribution.


Strangers reach mutual understanding 
through talking and asking questions
. . .not from non-verbal cues

Psychologists at The University of Texas at Arlington have discovered that when two strangers meet and interact for the first time, the extent to which they develop mutual understanding depends on how much they talk and ask questions rather than on non-verbal cues such as gestures or exchanging glances.

The UTA researchers used a specialized linguistic program to measure the extent that two strangers "get in synch" linguistically, providing new insight into the processes that underlie how people come to understand each other when they meet for the first time.

"Beginning in the 1970s, many researchers touted the power of non-verbal communication in creating first impressions and connecting with others," said William Ickes, co-author of the study and UTA Distinguished Professor of Psychology. "Our research indicates that the exchange of words in conversation is all that is really needed for the development of common-ground understanding in initial, unstructured interactions."

Ickes, along with the study's lead author, Vivian Ta, and co-author Meghan Babcock, both UTA psychology doctoral students, recently published their results in the Journal of Language and Social Psychology as "Developing Latent Semantic Similarity in Initial, Unstructured Interactions: The Words May Be All You Need."

The first of their two studies focused on 26 female-female pairs and 20 male-male pairs, all volunteers from UTA undergraduate psychology classes, who were seated in a "waiting room" situation while their initial, unstructured interaction was covertly video- and audiotaped for six minutes while the experimenter left to run an errand before the session. A second study used a much larger sample that contained male-female pairs in addition to male-male and female-female pairs.

A specialized linguistic program was used to analyze the transcripts of their conversations. This program measured each pair's latent semantic similarity, or the the degree to which they used words in the same way during their interactions. The researchers also recorded verbal and non-verbal behaviors seen in the video.

The results clearly showed that the pairs of strangers achieved higher levels of mutual understanding when they exchanged more words with each other and asked more questions.

On the other hand, pairs in which the partners looked at each other more did not achieve significantly greater "semantic similarity" scores than pairs where the partners looked at each other less, and the same was true when comparing pairs in which the partners acknowledged each other more versus less or where they gestured to each other more or less.

"We all know it's important to be able to establish common-ground understanding with the people you're interacting," lead author Vivian Ta said. "Our study shows that the key to this is verbal, not non-verbal."

Psychology Department Chair Perry Fuchs added, "This research on basic human interactions between strangers has implications for all aspects of our social lives and work contexts. It will be interesting to see how the researchers extend this work into the online space and telephone space where so many of our initial interactions are happening now."

The research reflects UTA's increasing focus on Health and the Human Condition within its Strategic Plan 2020: Bold Solutions|Global Impact and the psychology department's growing reputation in psychological sciences, including social psychology and personality.

Related stories:


Story Source:  Materials provided by University of Texas at Arlington. V. P. Ta, M. J. Babcock, W. Ickes. Developing Latent Semantic Similarity in Initial, Unstructured Interactions: The Words May Be All You Need. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 2016

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How the lives of Georgian gaolbirds and highwaymen shaped modern Britain

Image
Writing historical fiction requires solid research of available materials and databases.  The key word here is available.   So news of a new publicly accessible database that allows an author to research a very interesting past era is priceless almost beyond words.   I expect some exciting fiction to come out of this announcement. Here's the story, with a link to the source in the attribution. *  *  *  *  * London Lives, a landmark project led by Professor Bob Shoemaker from the University of Sheffield and Professor Tim Hitchcock from the University of Sussex, has uncovered a mass of extraordinary new evidence which reveals how the lives of thousands of 18th-century poor and criminal Londoners helped shape modern Britain. Based on evidence made available in a publicly available database, the study sheds new light on the everyday lives of thieves, prostitutes, vagrants, highwaymen, con-men, paupers and jailbirds, revealing how their daily fight for survival led to t
Read more

An unexpected way to recover from a breakup

Image
Breaking up is truly hard to do. And recovery from a breakup can be even harder. Your friends may counsel you to put the whole thing out of your mind. But new research suggests that repeatedly reflecting on a break-up -- even through participation in a research study -- actually speeds emotional recovery. "Breakups are ubiquitous -- most adults have experienced at least one in their life -- and are typically very distressing," says Grace Larson of Northwestern University. After studying divorce and breakups for years using longitudinal, multi-method designs, Larson and her then-adviser David Sbarra of the University of Arizona wanted to study whether these research techniques on their own were affecting participants. One concern they had was that the studies could be harming participants, Larson says. "At first glance, it might seem like repeatedly reminding participants that they had just broken up -- and asking them to describe the breakup over and over --
Read more

Greek Bronze Age ended 100 years earlier than thought

Image
Source: www.shef.ac.uk The charred remains of Assiros Toumba in Greece. Writing historical fiction set in the Greek Bronze Age?  Or simply enjoy reading this genre'?  Here's a study you may find interesting. C onventional estimates for the collapse of the Aegean civilization may be incorrect by up to a century, according to new radiocarbon analyses. While historical chronologies traditionally place the end of the Greek Bronze Age at around 1025 BCE, this latest research suggests a date 70 to 100 years earlier. www.weather-forecast.com Archaeologists from the University of Birmingham selected 60 samples of animal bones, plant remains and building timbers, excavated at Assiros in northern Greece, to be radiocarbon dated and correlated with 95.4% accuracy using Bayesian statistical methodology at the University of Oxford and the Akademie der Wissenschaften Heidelberg, Germany. Researcher Dr Ken Wardle says, 'These new results tell a story that is totall
Read more

Mood Instability and Your Characters

Image
You're putting together a character who's mood simply bounces all over the place, happy one moment, in a fit of rage the next.  Researchers at King's College London note that this sort of mood instability is part of a number of mental health disorders.  So how do you structure the personality and behavior of a character like this?  Below is the King's College report, along with a brief description from mentalhealth.com, of typical behavior, sometimes in the extreme, of a person who is very emotionally unstable.  This is offered strictly as a guide for crafting character in fiction - and NOT for the amateur diagnosis of the state of someone's mental health.  That is always best left to trained professionals. Another note about emotionally unstable behavior:  as any parent will tell you, this is how adolescents and teen-agers often behave.  It's a normal part of growing up - but it is a matter of degree .  In the extreme, however, this behavior can be diag
Read more

Remember faces but not names? You got it wrong.

Image
Source:   Daily Excelsior So, you think you're good at remembering faces, but terrible with names? New research has revealed we are actually better at remembering names than faces The cringe-worthy experience of not being able to remember an acquaintance's name leads many of us to believe we are terrible with names. However, new research has revealed this intuition is misleading; we are actually better at remembering names than faces. With the Christmas party season fast approaching, there will be plenty of opportunity to re-live the familiar, and excruciatingly-awkward, social situation of not being able to remember an acquaintance's name. This cringe-worthy experience leads many of us to believe we are terrible at remembering names. However, new research has revealed this intuition is misleading; we are actually better at remembering names than faces. The authors of the study, from the University of York, suggest that when we castigate ourselves f
Read more