Nonverbal Communication - Automatic Cognitive Processes (Cha

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N onverbal behavior is arguably one of the most powerful meth-ods of communication; it conveys important information about

a person’s likes and dislikes, emotions, personal characteristics, andrelationships (e.g., intimacy, dominance, trust, similarity). Whereas noone would be surprised that verbal communication of this type of infor-mation has a cognitive basis, messages conveyed and received nonver-bally also have their basis in cognitive processes, although not always inconscious, controlled ones. Thus, understanding nonverbal communi-cation relies, to some extent, on appreciating its cognitive foundation.This cognition refers to the mental activities and processes in whichhumans (and other animals) engage. Cognitive activities include, butare not limited to, learning, receiving, storing, processing, judging, andusing information (Neisser, 1967).

The cognitive processes associated with nonverbal communicationcan occur with awareness, but they are also likely to, and in fact oftendo, occur without conscious awareness (for a review, see Hassin,Uleman, & Bargh, 2005). The purpose of this chapter is to review the

4AUTOMATIC COGNITIVEPROCESSES AND NONVERBALCOMMUNICATION

� Jessica L. LakinDrew University

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The SAGE Handbook of Nonverbal Communication Edited by: Valerie Manusov University of Washington School of Nursing Miles L. Patterson University of Missouri, St. Louis

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automatic cognitive bases of nonverbalbehaviors. To accomplish this objective,I first discuss what it means for a cognitiveprocess to be (relatively) automatic or (rela-tively) controlled. This is followed by specificexamples of nonverbal communication thatappear to be relatively automatic. I then con-clude with a discussion of important issuesand future directions, including methodolog-ical considerations, the role of controlledprocesses, and the importance of cognitiveresources.

♦♦ Automatic andControlled Processes

In 1975, Posner and Snyder considered abasic question of human existence: Howmuch control do people have over theirthoughts, behaviors, and decisions? Sincethey posed their question, researchers havedemonstrated that much of what we do cog-nitively happens without intention, aware-ness, or conscious control (Hassin et al.,2005). Although the history of automaticityand automatic processes has been reviewedin extensive detail elsewhere (Bargh, 1994,1996, 1997; Bargh & Chartrand, 1999),a basic discussion of what it means for aprocess to be more controlled or more auto-matic seems necessary before turning atten-tion to specific examples of nonverbalcommunication and their relationship toautomatic cognitive processes.

Controlled processes are characterizedby awareness, intentionality, controllability,and cognitive effort (Bargh, 1994, 1996;Posner & Snyder, 1975; Shiffrin & Schneider,1977). Aspects of awareness include recog-nizing the cognitive process or stimulusconsciously, but they also involve anacknowledged recognition of the influencethat the process or stimulus is having.Intentionality refers to the necessity of an act

of will to start the process, whereas control-lability refers to the fact that an act ofwill can stop the process once it has beenstarted (i.e., it does not run to conclusionautonomously). Finally, and despite the lim-ited amount of cognitive resources thatpeople have and the already high demandson these resources, controlled processesrequire a share of these limited attentionalresources (i.e., they require cognitive effort).

Automatic processes are more difficultto define. Because the four characteristicsassociated with controlled processes do notoccur in an all-or-none fashion, it is notcorrect to assume that automatic processesare, by default, characterized by unaware-ness, unintentionality, and uncontrollabilityand require no cognitive effort. Although aprocess that has these four characteristicswould certainly be considered automatic,processes that are characterized by one,two, or even three of these features havealso been referred to historically as auto-matic (Bargh, 1994, 1996, 1997). It is alsopossible for various combinations of thesefour basic characteristics to occur. Forexample, experienced drivers intend to getin a car and go somewhere, even if whenthey arrive, they have no conscious aware-ness of anything that occurred during thetrip. This example demonstrates that thereare several types of automatic processes,resulting in a continuum of automaticity(ranging from completely automatic tocompletely controlled) rather than a simpledichotomy (Bargh, 1996, 1997; Bargh &Chartrand, 1999).

Specifically, preconscious automaticityrepresents the completely automatic end ofthe continuum, because it corresponds tothe initial unconscious processing of incom-ing environmental information. This analy-sis occurs without intention, control, orawareness, and it is largely effortless. Goal-directed automaticity, however, representsa point somewhere in the middle of the


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continuum, because it corresponds tointentional, controllable processes thatbecome automatic and effortless over time.Both preconscious and goal-dependentautomatic effects are autonomous: Oncethe processes are started, they operate bythemselves without awareness and con-scious guidance. Regardless of whether anautomatic effect is preconscious or goaldependent, it is possible for it to becomecontrolled if a person becomes aware ofthe process. Conscious processes that areeffortful, intentional, and controllablerepresent the completely controlled end ofthe continuum (Bargh, 1996, 1997; Bargh& Chartrand, 1999).

Recent research from the cognitive,social, comparative, and neuroscience liter-atures has demonstrated a strong associa-tive link between perceptions from theenvironment and the brain regions associ-ated with producing the observed behavior(i.e., a perception-behavior link; Bargh& Chartrand, 1999; Bargh, Chen, &Burrows, 1996; see Dijksterhuis & Bargh,2001, for a review). This memory-basedlink results in relevant, associated behaviorsbecoming activated automatically on percep-tion of a stimulus. Although the perception-behavior link posits an unmediatedrelationship between perception and behav-ior, the existence of this link is dependenton the fact that ideas are represented men-tally (i.e., cognitively). Therefore, in a sense,some type of minimal cognitive mediationis involved (Dijksterhuis & Bargh, 2001).

♦♦ Automatic Effects in SocialEvaluation and Behavior

There is an impressive abundance of auto-matic preconscious and goal-dependenteffects relevant to nonverbal communica-tion demonstrated in the social cognition

literature. Some of these effects have beenargued explicitly to be a result of theperception-behavior link. As with the his-torical conception of automaticity, there arequite a few reviews of these effects (Bargh& Chartrand, 1999; Wheeler & Petty,2001), but I begin with a brief review hereto place automatic nonverbal communica-tion effects in context.

IMPRESSIONS

Impressions of other people can beaffected automatically by activation of rele-vant knowledge structures. Srull and Wyer(1979) demonstrated this when they madetraits related to “hostility” or “kindness”accessible to participants and then askedthem, in an ostensibly unrelated task, toform an impression of a person whosebehaviors were ambiguously hostile orambiguously kind. Their results indicatedthat participants were likely to interpret theambiguous behaviors in a manner consis-tent with the traits that had been madeaccessible previously. Higgins, Rholes, andJones (1977) demonstrated a similar effectwith the activation of either positive(e.g., adventurous) or negative (e.g., reck-less) traits relevant to a person’s behaviors(e.g., crossing the Atlantic in a sailboat).Participants evaluated the target personmore positively when the activated traitshad positive connotations than when theyhad negative connotations. People’s impres-sions were affected by accessible constructswithout intention or awareness.

From these two classic demonstrations,an entire literature on spontaneous traitinferences grew (Uleman, 1999; Uleman,Newman, & Moskowitz, 1996; Winter &Uleman, 1984). It also became clear thatimpressions are based on traits that arechronically accessible (i.e., personallyimportant; Higgins, 1996) as well as traits



that are temporarily accessible (i.e., primed;as in the work by Higgins et al., 1977; Srull& Wyer, 1979) and that salient physicalcues (e.g., sex, race) can automatically acti-vate stereotypes associated with particulargroups of people (Brewer, 1988; Devine,1989; Fiske & Neuberg, 1990). Together,this work demonstrates that people makeinferences about the behaviors of others,without intention, control, effort, or aware-ness of having done so. Many of thesebehaviors are nonverbal cues.

BEHAVIOR

Behavior is also affected automatically byexternal stimuli. In the first demonstration ofthis idea, Bargh et al. (1996) showed thatactivating the trait “rude” caused people tointerrupt an experimenter who was ostensi-bly helping a confederate more quickly thandid participants who had the trait “polite”activated. This finding has been replicatedin a number of behavioral domains: Activating“politicians” causes long-windedness (Dijk-sterhuis & van Knippenberg, 2000), and acti-vating “supermodels” causes poor performanceon a trivia test, whereas activating “profes-sors” causes better performance (Dijksterhuis& van Knippenberg, 1998).

Likewise, activating traits associatedwith conformity causes people to agreemore with a group of confederates (Epley &Gilovich, 1999); activating helpfulness traitscauses people to be more helpful (Macrae &Johnston, 1998); activating aggression-related ideas causes people to give longer“shocks” to another participant (Carver,Ganellen, Froming, & Chambers, 1983);activating the elderly stereotype causespeople to walk more slowly (Bargh et al.,1996), increases slowness on a lexicaldecision task (Dijksterhuis, Spears, &Lepinasse, 2001), and promotes poormemory (Dijksterhuis, Aarts, Bargh, &van Knippenberg, 2000; Levy, 1996); and

activating stereotypes for African Americanscauses hostility (Bargh et al., 1996) anddecreased intellectual performance (Steele &Aronson, 1995; Wheeler, Jarvis, & Petty,2000). As evidenced by the social inappro-priateness of many of these behavioraleffects, participants are not aware that theyare occurring and are not being affectedintentionally, nor do they seem to be able tocontrol the effects that the activation of thevarious constructs is having.

ATTITUDES

Just as impressions are formed automati-cally when traits are accessible, either chroni-cally or temporarily, evaluations of stimuliare activated automatically when the stimuliare presented. This automatic evaluationwork can be traced back to Zajonc (1980),who argued that the evaluation of a stimulusis connected closely to the representation ofthe stimulus itself. That is, when the stimu-lus is presented, a positive or negative eval-uation of that stimulus becomes activatedwithout awareness, effort, or intention. Insupport of this idea, research has demon-strated that attitudes are activated automat-ically when a stimulus is presented (Bargh,Chaiken, Govender, & Pratto, 1992; Fazio,Sanbonmatsu, Powell, & Kardes, 1986).

Using a procedure similar to the activationof impressions and behaviors, Kawakami,Dovidio, and Dijksterhuis (2003) have evenfound that when a stereotype is made acces-sible, people report attitudes consistentwith the stereotypical attitudes of thatgroup. For example, when the category of“elderly” is accessible, people report moreconservative attitudes, and when the cate-gory “skinhead” is accessible, people reportmore prejudiced attitudes. These effectsoccur even when the categories were madeaccessible to participants with a subliminalpriming procedure, again suggesting that thiseffect occurs without conscious awareness.



GOALS

In addition to impressions, behaviors,and attitudes, it has been proposed that goalscan become active automatically. Becausegoal-related information and behaviors arerepresented mentally, if a goal is pursued fre-quently and consistently in a particular con-text or with a particular person, the contextor person alone will eventually be able toactivate the goal without intention or aware-ness. The goal is then pursued just asit would be if it had been instigated con-sciously (Bargh, 1990; Shah, 2005). In sup-port of this argument, Chartrand and Bargh(1996) replicated two well-known informa-tion-processing goal studies, but they insti-gated the goals in participants without theirawareness; the results were identical to thoseobtained when participants had been pursu-ing the goals consciously.

Other work has shown that partici-pants who had achievement goals activatedoutside of awareness performed better on atask, and persisted on the task even when amore attractive alternative was introduced,than participants who did not have anactive achievement goal (Bargh, Gollwitzer,Lee-Chai, Barndollar, & Trötschel, 2001).Cooperation goals (Bargh et al., 2001) andaffiliation goals (Lakin & Chartrand, 2003)can also be pursued without consciousawareness or guidance. Significant otherscan even be a source of automatic goalactivation. For example, Shah (2003) hasfound that performance on an experimentaltask increases when close significant otherswho would want participants to do well aremade accessible to them.

SUMMARY

The research reviewed in these sectionshas demonstrated that people’s impressions,behaviors, attitudes, and goal pursuitscan be affected by automatically activated

concepts. In other words, what peoplethink, do, and feel can be influenced with-out conscious awareness, intention, orcontrol. In the next section of this chapter,I turn to evidence for this contention specif-ically within the domain of nonverbalcommunication.

♦♦ Automatic NonverbalCommunication

There are several general pieces of evidenceto suggest that at least some nonverbal com-munication is automatic. First, and as noted,there are numerous demands on relativelylimited conscious cognitive resources; thesheer amount of these resources needed toprocess all nonverbal communication in acontrolled manner makes this possibilityexceedingly unlikely. Second, because thebasis of verbal communication is largelyconscious, humans have a tendency to directtheir focus to what is said and not to focusconsciously on the nonverbal cues that are,by definition, unsaid (DePaulo & Friedman,1998). Yet it is clear that this informationis still being processed cognitively becauseit regulates interactions effectively (seeCappella & Schreiber, this volume). Third,some nonverbal cues cannot be controlledeasily, and when efforts to control thosebehaviors are exerted, they are not usuallysuccessful (see later sections in this chapter).Finally, although some researchers haveargued that nonverbal communication isdeliberate and strategic, there is recent evi-dence that even strategic behaviors canoccur automatically (Lakin & Chartrand,2003; Lakin, Chartrand, & Arkin, 2005);consciousness is not required for behavior tobe either strategic or adaptive.

The empirical work reviewed in this chap-ter so far has focused on automaticity gener-ally. I turn attention now to the subcategoryof these effects that is relevant to nonverbal



communication directly (for another review,see Choi, Gray, & Ambady, 2005). Verylittle research on nonverbal communication,however, has been conducted in such a wayas to show definitive evidence that the effectsare occurring automatically (i.e., by reduc-ing the likelihood of consciousness beinginvolved, by using funneled-debriefing pro-cedures, by having awareness checks, etc.).Nevertheless, there are several programs ofresearch that demonstrate automatic non-verbal communication indirectly. A sensitivereader will no doubt note that the subcate-gories listed below correspond with some ofthe chapters in the Contexts and Functionssections of this Handbook. A brief, non-comprehensive review of these topics is cov-ered here to demonstrate that some of theseeffects occur automatically.

SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS

Information about social relationships isrelatively easy to infer from people’s nonver-bal behaviors. In terms of social status, dom-inant people tend to stand taller, use morepersonal space, interrupt more, and talklouder than less dominant people (Henley,1977; Burgoon & Dunbar, this volume; butsee Hall, 2005). Powerful people look atothers the same amount when speaking aswhen listening, but less powerful peoplelook more when listening than when they arespeaking (Fehr & Exline, 1987). Relationshipstatus can also be inferred from nonverbalbehaviors. Research using the InterpersonalPerception Task (IPT) (Costanzo & Archer,1989; see Riggio, this volume), which con-tains video clips of less than a minute, hasdemonstrated that one can accurately iden-tify when people are related and when theyare in significant relationships (Smith,Archer, & Costanzo, 1991). Rapportcan also be determined from watchingpeople interact, at least partially because rap-port is related to interactional synchrony,

interpersonal distance, and eye contact(Bernieri, 1988; Bernieri, Davis, Rosenthal,& Knee, 1994; Grahe & Bernieri, 1999; seeTickle-Degnen, this volume). Marital statuscan even be determined via nonverbalmeans, given the surprising finding thatthe longer people have been married, themore similar they look (Zajonc, Adelmann,Murphy, & Neidenthal, 1987).

Is the encoding and decoding of thissocial relationship information occurringautomatically? As the majority of thisresearch has not been conducted with aneye toward answering this specific question,the answer must be inferred from themethodologies that have been used, as wellas some of the research findings. This infor-mation suggests several reasons to acceptthe argument that these processes areoccurring automatically. First, decoding ofsocial relationship information, as evi-denced by research using the IPT, oftenoccurs quickly; clips from the task are lessthan one minute, suggesting that people’sdecoding of this information must alsooccur very quickly (reducing the likelihoodof conscious involvement). Second, certaintypes of conscious instructions interferewith the accuracy of decoding relationshipinformation (e.g., Patterson & Stockbridge,1998; Patterson, this volume). When thistype of interference happens, it suggeststhat people have developed automaticand efficient strategies for processing theinformation, and conscious attention inter-feres with the use of the strategies on whichpeople typically rely.

Third, participants in studies such as theones reviewed above can rarely identify thefactors that influenced their judgments(e.g., Bernieri et al., 1994). One study evenfound that confederates who wereinstructed to create liking with a partnercould not identify accurately the behaviorsthey used and how they used them, eventhough they were successful at their goal(Palmer & Simmons, 1995). Research on

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nonconscious behavioral mimicry (reviewedin the Rapport section below) has alsodemonstrated that people are not con-sciously aware that they mimic the behav-iors of others or that other people might bemimicking their behaviors or that this mim-icry creates liking (Chartrand & Bargh,1999; Chartrand, Maddux, & Lakin,2005). This lack of conscious awareness isthe hallmark of an automatic process.

Finally, an interesting line of research hasdemonstrated recently that postural comple-mentarity, with regard to dominant and sub-missive nonverbal behaviors, occurs withoutconscious intention or control (Tiedens &Fragale, 2003). In these studies, confederateswere instructed to engage in dominant (i.e.,postural expansion) or constricted (i.e., pos-tural constriction) nonverbal behaviors, andthe nonverbal behaviors of participants weremeasured. Results indicated that participantsexhibited complementary behaviors to thoseof the confederate and that interactionswhere complementarity occurred werereported to be more comfortable. Impor-tantly, extensive debriefing of all partici-pants, using a funneled debriefing procedure(see Bargh & Chartrand, 2000), revealedthat they were not aware that complemen-tarity had occurred or that it had affected thecomfort level of the interaction (Tiedens &Fragale, 2003).

EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION

In addition to relationship informa-tion, people may encode informationautomatically about their own emotionsand decode the emotions of others. InEmotional Contagion, Hatfield, Cacioppo,and Rapson (1994) synthesize a wealth ofdata from a variety of research subareassupporting the idea that emotions are com-municated automatically and spread toother people. More often than not, this con-tagion occurs through nonverbal cues, such

as facial expressions, tone of voice, andgestures. One particular piece of evidencethat supports the idea that emotions can beencoded automatically is the fact that someemotional expressions are instantaneousand cannot be controlled (Ekman &Davidson, 1994), two defining characteris-tics of automatic processes. Certain emo-tional facial expressions, like the Duchennesmile (Frank, Ekman, & Friesen, 1993) orblushing (Leary, Britt, Cutlip, & Temple-ton, 1992), are argued to be spontaneousdepictions of enjoyment or embarrassment,respectively. The spontaneity associatedwith these emotional expressions could be aresult of an evolutionarily developed auto-matic link between experiencing an emo-tion and nonverbal indicators of thatemotion (Buck, 1984; Ekman, 1992, seeFloyd, this volume), similar to the perception-behavior link idea reviewed earlier.

An alternative approach to understandingthe spontaneity associated with emotionalexpressions is the behavioral ecology view(Fridlund, 1994; Fridlund & Russell, thisvolume). This perspective suggests that facialdisplays do not reflect expressions of dis-crete, internal, emotional states but ratherare messages that signal people’s intentionswithin a particular context. Fridlund (1994)argues that displays of facial expressionshave evolved to meet specific selection pres-sures and that because they reveal informa-tion about people’s intentions, they aredisplayed to serve people’s social motives.Although this approach offers a differentexplanation for what “emotional” facialexpressions mean, this perspective also sug-gests that facial expressions have evolved toserve specific purposes, can occur quicklywithin a particular context, and often occurwithout conscious intention or awareness.

Some emotional facial expressions arealso difficult to create consciously, suggest-ing that when these expressions occur,they do so automatically. For example,expressions of fear are almost impossible to



re-create without truly being fearful (Ekman,1985). Finally, a recent meta-analysis sug-gests that observers can detect accurately thestate and trait anxiety of others, althoughthe magnitude of these effects depends onthe communication channel (Harrigan,Wilson, & Rosenthal, 2004). Because anxi-ety is a negative emotional state that mostpeople would not want to convey to others,this information is probably being encodedwithout intention or awareness.

Tone of voice may also convey informa-tion automatically about a speaker’s emo-tional state. Neumann and Strack (2000)had participants listen to a speech that wasdelivered in either a slightly happy or aslightly sad voice. After hearing the text,participants rated their own mood. People’smoods were affected by the tone in whichthe passage was read and, consistent withemotional contagion, participants automat-ically encoded this emotional information.When they repeated the text that theyheard, they imitated the tone of the originalreading spontaneously. This encodingoccurred despite the fact that participantswere not consciously aware of the originaltone of the message and were not giveninstructions to mimic the original tone.

The automaticity of encoding of emo-tional expressions is demonstrated mostclearly in research by Ulf Dimberg andcolleagues (Dimberg 1982, 1997; Dimberg,Thunberg, & Elmehed, 2000). In his work,Dimberg had participants look at picturesof people displaying happy or angry facialexpressions. He then measured their subtlefacial movements with electromyographic(EMG) technology. The results showed thatparticipants moved the muscles associatedwith smiling when looking at the happypictures and the muscles associated withfrowning when looking at the angry pic-tures. This effect occurred even when thefacial expressions were presented outsideof conscious awareness (i.e., subliminally),

suggesting that this decoding can occurautomatically.

PREJUDICE

Prejudice, or negative feelings aboutgroups of people, can also be communi-cated automatically through nonverbal cues(see Dovidio, Hebl, Richeson, & Shelton,this volume). Because categorical informa-tion (e.g., race, sex; Brewer, 1988; Fiske &Neuberg, 1990) is processed automaticallyin most cases, simply seeing a member ofa stereotyped group can activate, withoutawareness, thoughts and feelings about thatgroup (Blair, 2002; Devine, 1989; Fiske,1998). It has been argued that a dissocia-tion often exists between people’s consciousand unconscious attitudes toward minoritygroups; therefore, researchers have beenable to measure both and determine theeffects that each has on social interactions.

This work has shown that nonverbalbehaviors like gaze, blinking, body posture,and interpersonal distance can indicate preju-diced feelings toward interaction partners(Crosby, Bromley, & Saxe, 1980; McConnell& Liebold, 2001; Towles-Schwen & Fazio,2003). In one demonstration, people whoindicated negative feelings toward Blacks onan implicit measure of prejudice also blinkedmore (a sign of uncomfortableness) andmade less eye contact during an interactionwith an African American partner (Dovidio,Kawakami, Johnson, Johnson, & Howard,1997). Dovidio, Kawakami, and Gaertner(2002) replicated this effect and showed thatthe less positive nonverbal behaviors of par-ticipants who had implicit racial biases ledthe African American partners of these par-ticipants to feel that the interaction had beenless friendly.

Likewise, Vanman, Saltz, Nathan, andWarren (2004) have also shown that facialEMG activity can be related to another



person’s race; participants who had cheekEMG activity (i.e., activity that would beassociated with smiling) when viewingpictures of White targets were more likelyto nominate a White applicant for aprestigious award than a Black applicant.Participants in these studies were not awareof the negative nonverbal behaviors theyencoded or the fact that these nonverbalbehaviors were affecting their interactionsnegatively. This work therefore providesevidence that both encoding and decodingof prejudicial feelings can occur automati-cally. In fact, as Dovidio et al. (2002) havediscussed, researchers first turned to non-verbal behaviors as indicators of prejudicebecause of their hypothesized “leakiness”(i.e., uncontrollability) and spontaneity.

IMPRESSION MANAGEMENTAND PERSONALITY EXPRESSION

Although impression management andself-presentation can certainly be conscious(see Keating, this volume), these commu-nicative functions can also occur relativelyeffortlessly and without conscious guid-ance, particularly in cases where peopleare not particularly motivated to convey adesired identity. Moreover, it is also clearthat people may infer traits and make attri-butions from the nonverbal behaviors ofothers automatically and that these judg-ments can be quite accurate. Together, thisliterature suggests that people often expresstheir personality and decode personalityinformation about others automaticallythrough nonverbal behaviors.

People tend to use different self-presenta-tional strategies in different situations andwith different types of people. For example,when people are instructed to make aninteraction partner like them, they nod,smile, and make more eye contact thando people who did not receive these

instructions (Godfrey, Jones, & Lord,1986). People copy the postures of interac-tion partners more when they are told thosepartners might be helpful than when oppor-tunities to get help from the partners are notavailable (La France, 1985). Nonverbalbehaviors are also dependent on the peoplefor whom the display occurs (see DePaulo& Friedman, 1998, for a review). Finally,the ecological theory of perception suggeststhat people are able to gain, relatively auto-matically, information about other peoplefrom their appearances and movements,information that Gibson (1979) calls affor-dances. This information is able to be gath-ered easily because appearance and behaviorexpress some personality characteristicsaccurately (Zebrowitz & Collins, 1997).

Nonverbal communication is thereforesensitive to conscious goals and situationalconstraints. Although this strategic use ofnonverbal behaviors suggests that their cog-nitive basis is conscious, being strategic doesnot demand consciousness. There are severallines of research that suggest that peoplealter their nonverbal behaviors automati-cally. Tice, Butler, Muraven, and Stillwell(1995) hypothesized that people’s defaultself-presentational strategy with strangers isto present a positive image, whereas people’sdefault self-presentational strategy withfriends is to present a modest image.Consistent with this proposition, when par-ticipants behaved consistently with theirdefault tendencies, their self-presentationsused few cognitive resources, which led toincreased memory of the details of the inter-action. Participants who used nondefaultself-presentational strategies (e.g., modestywith strangers) were not able to pursue thesestrategies automatically and used consciouscognitive resources to accomplish their goals(see also Patterson, Churchill, Farag, &Borden, 1991/1992). Other research hasalso demonstrated that self-presenting in away that is inconsistent with personality is



cognitively taxing and requires attentionalresources (Pontari & Schlenker, 2000).

Attributional processes, whereby peopleinfer traits and make dispositional orsituational attributions, can also happenautomatically. An extensive literature onspontaneous trait inferences has demon-strated that simply presenting people withdescriptions of other people’s behaviorsresults in inferring traits from them(Uleman, 1999; Uleman et al., 1996).Participants in these studies were notinstructed to infer traits and typically evendenied that they had done so (Winter &Uleman, 1984). Related research has foundthat people might also make emotioninferences when reading descriptions ofother’s behavior automatically (Gernsbacher,Goldsmith, & Robertson, 1992). Finally,people make both dispositional and situa-tional attributions without the use of limitedcognitive resources or conscious intention(Gilbert, Pelham, & Krull, 1988; Krull,1993). Thus, when people perceive thebehaviors of others, they seem to decodethis information effortlessly and uninten-tionally, at least in most circumstances.

Automatic self-presentation, impressionmanagement, trait inferences, and attribu-tions are likely to be beneficial to mostpeople in most situations but only to theextent that these relatively effortless catego-rizations are correct. Ambady and her col-leagues have demonstrated that people’sautomatic decodings of the behaviors ofothers are remarkably accurate (Ambady,Bernieri, & Richeson, 2000; Gray &Ambady, this volume). In one empiricaldemonstration, participants watched videoclips of teachers’ nonverbal behaviors,some as short as six seconds, and thenjudged teacher effectiveness. Participants’ratings were strongly correlated withstudents’ end-of-semester ratings (Ambady& Rosenthal, 1993).

A meta-analysis has revealed a medium tolarge effect size for accuracy of predictions

from nonverbal presentations and thatlength of observation time did not signifi-cantly affect accuracy; accuracy was just asgood when people observed behavior for30 seconds as it was when people observedbehavior for five minutes (Ambady &Rosenthal, 1992). The fact that peoplecan be so accurate at decoding in suchshort time frames suggests that the processis likely not occurring with much consciousintention or guidance. Moreover, whenconscious attention is devoted to this typeof task, decoding accuracy decreases (Gilbert& Krull, 1988; Patterson & Stockbridge,1998).

EXPECTANCIES

Just as people convey personality throughtheir nonverbal behaviors, expectancies that aperson holds for others are also conveyedthrough nonverbal behaviors, seemingly with-out intention or awareness (see Remland,this volume). Communication of theseexpectancies—in certain contexts and undercertain conditions—results in a self-fulfillingprophecy, whereby perceivers elicit behav-iors that are consistent with their originalideas and then conclude that their expectan-cies were truthful, without realizing the rolethat they have played in confirming them(Rosenthal, 2003). For example, researchers’behaviors can affect the responses of theirparticipants (Rosenthal, 1976), and theexpectations of teachers have been foundto affect the behaviors of their students(Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968). That peopleare unaware that they have elicited thebehavior they expected suggests that theseexpectancies are being conveyed automati-cally. This is particularly the case when nega-tive expectancies are conveyed, which wouldlikely be controlled if people were aware ofthem (e.g., Word, Zanna, & Cooper, 1974).

There is also evidence that people areaffected automatically by the expectancies



that others have for them (i.e., automaticdecoding of expectancies). Word et al.(1974) showed that when White partici-pants in a second study were treated asBlack participants had been treated in a firststudy (e.g., abrupt questioning, lack of eyecontact), the quality of the interactiondecreased. The White participants stutteredmore and made less eye contact as a result ofthe expectancies for a less successful inter-view that the interviewer was conveying.Chen and Bargh (1997) found a similarresult: When stereotypes of African Americanswere activated outside of conscious aware-ness, participants treated an interactionpartner in a way that was consistentwith this stereotype, eliciting more hostility.Participants were unaware that the stereo-type had been activated and were unawarethat their own behavior was influencing thebehavior of their interaction partner. Theresults of this study are consistent withmany other research findings that stereotypeactivation results in stereotype-consistentbehaviors (see Wheeler & Petty, 2001, fora review). Again, these studies demonstrateconsistently that people are not aware thattheir behavior is affected or is being affectedby the expectancies of others.

RAPPORT

Not all behaviors that occur outside ofawareness are problematic. For example,many people have been interested in therelationship between posture sharing (eithermimicking or mirroring) and the develop-ment and maintenance of rapport (for areview, see Tickle-Degnen, this volume).The fact that people mimic the nonverbalbehaviors of others (both significant othersand strangers) has long been established(Chartrand et al., 2005). Further work hasdemonstrated that people tend to mimicothers and thereby demonstrate or developrapport without intention, control, or

conscious awareness (e.g., Bavelas, Black,Lemery, & Mullett, 1986; Bernieri, 1988;Bernieri, Reznick, & Rosenthal, 1988;La France, 1979, 1982; La France &Broadbent, 1976). Because this researchdoes not typically include awareness checksor attempts to rule out conscious involve-ment, the automaticity of these effects is,again, inferred from participants’ apparentlack of awareness.

There is more definitive evidence thatbehavioral mimicry can occur noncon-sciously, however, and that this automaticmimicry results in smoother interactionsand the development of liking. Chartrandand Bargh (1999) found that participantsmimicked the nonverbal behaviors of a con-federate without conscious awareness. In asecond study, they found that mimicryleads to increased liking for the mimickerand smoother interactions. Thus, mimick-ing others and being mimicked can commu-nicate rapport automatically. This findingis consistent with the work of Lakin andChartrand (2003), who found that partici-pants who pursue an unconscious affilia-tion goal are more likely to mimic thebehaviors of an interaction partner thanparticipants who do not have an activeaffiliation goal (see also Lakin, Jefferis,Cheng, & Chartrand, 2003).

A second study expanded on this findingby giving participants who had a noncon-sciously activated affiliation goal a successor failure experience (Lakin & Chartrand,2003). Participants either succeeded (i.e.,had a pleasant interaction with a confeder-ate) or failed at their goal (i.e., had a rela-tively less pleasant interaction with aconfederate). In a subsequent interactionwith a different confederate, participantswho still had affiliation goals (i.e., those whoinitially failed) mimicked the nonverbalbehaviors of their interaction partner morethan participants who had been successful.This effect occurred despite the fact that par-ticipants did not consciously know they were



pursuing an affiliation goal and did notconsciously acknowledge the confederate’sbehaviors or how the confederate’s behav-iors were affecting their own behaviors.

A recent social exclusion experience mayalso lead to increases in behavioral mimicry(Lakin et al., 2005; Lakin & Chartrand,2005). The need to belong is one of thestrongest core motivations, and it affectspeople’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviorsfrequently (Williams, Forgas, & von Hippel,2005). It is therefore not surprising thatwhen people have been excluded from asocial group, they will engage in behaviorsthat help them to create liking and allowthem to reenter the group. Recent researchhas shown that mimicking the nonverbalbehaviors of group members may be onesuch strategy (Lakin et al., 2005). Whenparticipants were excluded from a comput-erized ball-tossing game and then interactedwith a confederate in a different context,they mimicked the behaviors of the confed-erate more than when they had not beenexcluded during the ball-toss game. In otherwords, participants who were trying to cre-ate liking and affiliation were able to pur-sue this goal through mimicking anotherperson. Together with the findings fromLakin and Chartrand (2003), this worksuggests that people can pursue a goal todevelop rapport or liking by mimicking thebehaviors of others automatically.

Finally, paradigms that involve having aconfederate mimic the behaviors of partici-pants have demonstrated that being mimic-ked causes people to be more interdependent(van Baaren, Maddux, Chartrand, de Bouter,& van Knippenberg, 2003), be more helpful(van Baaren, Holland, Kawakami, & vanKnippenberg, 2004), and provide bigger tips(van Baaren, Holland, Steenaert, & vanKnippenberg, 2003; for an overview, seeTickle-Degnen, this volume). Mimicry alsoleads to greater persuasion (Bailenson &Yee, 2005). Because work on mimicry

typically compares participants who aremimicked with participants who are notmimicked, these effects occur arguably as adirect result of the positive feelings thatoccur automatically with mimicry. Themajority of this work includes awarenesschecks and other methodological strategiesthat reduce the role of consciousness inthese effects (Bargh & Chartrand, 2000).

♦♦ Discussion andFuture Directions

As the literatures reviewed above demon-strate, nonverbal behaviors can communi-cate information automatically about socialrelationships, emotions, prejudice, person-ality, and expectations, as well as indicaterelationship status and rapport. As a whole,this research compellingly argues that non-verbal communication has, at least in part,its basis in automatic processes. There are,however, several important topics thatdeserve research attention.

METHODOLOGICAL CONCERNS

Whereas not all the research reviewed herehas provided definitive evidence that theprocesses are occurring without awareness,intention, control, or cognitive effort, theseveral lines of research that do providethis evidence demonstrate that nonverbalcommunication can and does occur auto-matically. Moreover, the research that doesnot contain definitive evidence often hasmethodological characteristics suggestingthat people are not aware of what their non-verbal behaviors are communicating or theextent to which their own thoughts, feelings,and behaviors are being affected by the non-verbal communications of others.

Although this suggests that a significantcomponent of nonverbal communication



is occurring automatically, to determinedefinitively the role that automatic processesplay in nonverbal communication, researchersshould consider including methodologicalstrategies in future research that would reducethe role of controlled processes. For example,participants could be encouraged to makejudgments and decisions quickly to reducetheir reliance on conscious processes, or theycould be put under cognitive load so that theiravailable cognitive resources would be splitamong several tasks. Researchers could alsoinclude awareness checks or funneled debrief-ings to determine how aware people are oftheir cognitive processes (Bargh & Chartrand,2000). By using these sorts of methodologies,future research will be better able to deter-mine the relative contribution of automaticprocesses to nonverbal communication.

ROLE OF CONTROLLEDPROCESSES

Even though I have argued that much ofnonverbal communication appears to occurautomatically, it would be a mistake toassume that there is no controlled cognitivebasis to nonverbal communication as well.We may be unaware of the nonverbal cuesthat we encode typically, but we can directour “internal eye” easily onto these behaviorsand therefore become more aware of them.People may not process the nonverbal mes-sages they receive from others consciously,but if something causes a disruption in theirautomatic processing (e.g., an unusual event),or if people are motivated to learn aboutanother person, that process can easilybecome conscious. Finally, people may eventry to control (i.e., with intention andawareness, and with varying degrees of suc-cess) their nonverbal behaviors (althougheven control can become automatized withenough practice; see Kawakami, Dovidio,Moll, Hermsen, & Russin, 2000).

Future work in nonverbal communicationwould benefit from explicit acknowledgmentof the role that both automatic and con-trolled processes play in the encoding anddecoding of nonverbal behaviors. Forexample, Patterson (2001, this volume) hastaken this approach in his parallel processmodel. He integrated encoding and decod-ing of nonverbal communication into a sin-gle framework by suggesting that theseprocesses occur in parallel and that theyboth can be more or less controlled cogni-tive processes. In addition, he argued thatfactors like biology, culture, personality, sit-uational constraints, interpersonal expectan-cies, affect, and goals can affect people’ssocial cognition. The parallel process modeltherefore synthesizes much of the work thatsocial psychologists, communication schol-ars, and others were conducting on nonver-bal communication already (see Patterson,2001, for a review), which is an importantfirst step in creating a more completeunderstanding of nonverbal communica-tion processes.

This model also has several interestingimplications for the study of the cognitiveprocesses related to nonverbal communica-tion. First, the parallel process model impliesthat people are sophisticated users and con-sumers of nonverbal cues. The fact thatencoding and decoding occur in paralleldemonstrates that neither process requiresextensive cognitive resources (i.e., that nei-ther process is particularly effortful). Thisimplication is consistent with my argumentthat much of nonverbal communicationoccurs automatically, perhaps even thatwhich appears to be used relatively strategi-cally. Arguably, we have evolved automaticstrategies to deal with the incredibleamounts of social information that wemust process and to help us accomplishour important objectives and goals. Giventhe importance of nonverbal cues, it isnot surprising that automatic nonverbal



communication would also be evolutionarilyadaptive.

IMPORTANCE OFCOGNITIVE RESOURCES

Another interesting area for futureresearch to explore is the role of cognitiveresources in nonverbal communication.Because cognitive resources are limited, theamount of cognitive resources that a personhas will be a crucial factor determiningwhether a person is able to use controlledprocesses to decode nonverbal communi-cation. For example, the parallel processmodel would predict that when cognitiveresources are devoted to encoding or decod-ing for whatever reason (i.e., we are particu-larly motivated to convey an impression, weare interested in an interaction partner’sintentions), they will be less available to theother process (because they occur in paral-lel). In other words, if we have to thinkabout encoding, fewer resources can bedevoted to decoding. This could have impor-tant implications for situations where peopleneed to be focused specifically on oneprocess or the other. Alternatively, becauseboth the sending and the receiving of non-verbal cues can be relatively automatic, onecould argue that devoting resources to oneprocess would not necessarily cause the otherto deteriorate (because it would be relativelyautomatic). Future research on nonverbalcommunication will need to explore thesedifferent possibilities; determining how cog-nitive resources affect nonverbal communi-cation will provide important insight intohow automatic these processes really are.

♦♦ Conclusion

Nonverbal communication conveys infor-mation automatically about our social

relationships, emotions, prejudices, person-alities, and expectations, as well as indicatesexisting levels of rapport or the desire tocreate rapport. The cognitive processes thatunderlie this important source of informa-tion, however, are not always automatic.Parallel process models, or other models thatrecognize explicitly the role for both auto-matic and controlled processes in nonverbalcommunication, will likely represent thefuture of research in this area. Ironically,with more awareness of automatic processes,we should have a greater appreciation of theimportance of nonverbal communication.

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Nonverbal Communication - Automatic Cognitive Processes (Cha

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