The role of nonverbal communication in service encounters

• Service employees' nonverbal behavior remains virtually unexplored despite its importance with respect to the outcome of service encounters

• This scarcity of research attention is probably due to researchers' earlier focus on macro issues,

such as the antecedents of services quality (e.g. Bolton and Drew, 1991), the relationship between service quality and business profitability (e.g. Rust et al., 1995), and service recovery efforts (e.g. Webster and Sundaram, 1998)

• This article by Sundraram & Webster (2000) addresses this issue by examining the role of nonverbal communication on customers' evaluations of service providers

• A conceptual model is presented that links nonverbal communication (kinesics, paralanguage, proxemics, and physical appearance), customer affect, and consumers’ evaluations of service providers (with respect to credibility, friendliness, competence, empathy, courtesy, and trustworthiness)

• Further, the importance of nonverbal elements is discussed and managerial implications are given.

Gender and non verbal communication• France & Mayo ( 2009) reviewed the literature on

gender linked aspects of nonverbal behavior ‐• The differences in nonverbal behavior are in line

with societal expectations calling for women to be reactive and for men to be proactive

• Women demonstrate their reactivity by being more sensitive to others’ expressivity, and more nonverbally variable in order to complement their partner's behavior

• Men demonstrate their proactivity by talking more, interrupting more, and in general being nonverbally dominant, particularly with women.

Male/female language differences and effects in same sex and mixed sex ‐ ‐dyads: The gender linked language effect‐

• Mulac ,Wiemann, Widenmann & Gibson ( 2009) conducted a study on ninety six university students (48 males, 48 females) who were ‐randomly assigned a partner (whom they did not know well), forming two dyad conditions: (a) same sex, and (b) mixed sex‐ ‐

• MANOVA results showed that in same sex dyads, female ‐interactants were rated higher on Socio Intellectual Status and ‐Aesthetic Quality, but no gender difference was found on Dynamism

• However, in mixed sex dyads, men were rated higher on Aesthetic ‐Quality, whereas women were rated higher on Dynamism

• Taken together, the analyses of the objective language data and the subjective attributional data provide partial support for the Gender Linked Language Effect in same sex dyads and for the ‐ ‐attenuation of that effect in mixed sex dyads‐

Nonverbal communication and deception: Differences in deception cues due to gender and communicator dominance

• Cody & Hair ( 2009) investigated whether communicator characteristics (gender and communicator dominance) in nonverbal displays in truth telling circumstances ‐can be used to predict differences in deception cue leakage

• Based on the arguments advanced by Hocking and Leathers in their 1980 article, it was argued that individuals who are more likely to exhibit a controllable behavior that is judged as stereotypical of liars during truth telling would be more likely to ‐suppress the behavior when lying

• Male liars suppressed leg/foot movement and the use of illustrators when lying and increased facial adapting when lying (but only when prepared to lie)

• Contrary to expectations, there were no gender differences for laughter/smiling or for eye contact duration

• Low dominant liars employed shorter latencies prior to lying and during a prepared lie than low dominant truth tellers‐

• Low dominant liars also provided briefer answers and engaged in less postural shifting throughout the entire interaction than low dominant truth tellers‐

• Results provided general support for the Hocking and Leathers perspective

Interpersonal Distance, Body Orientation, and Touch: Effects of Culture, Gender, and Age

• Remland, Jones & Brinkman (2010) video recorded naturally occurring interactions in England, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Greece, Scotland, and Ireland

• They coded and analyzed to examine the effects of culture, gender, and age on interpersonal distance, body orientation, and touch

• Results partially supported expected differences between contact cultures of southern Europe and noncontact cultures of northern Europe with respect to touch

• More touch was observed among Italian and Greek dyads than among English, French, and Dutch dyads

• In addition, an interaction effect between age and gender for body orientation suggested opposite developmental trends for mixed-sex dyads and male dyads

• Whereas mixed dyads tended to maintain less direct orientations as they aged, male dyads maintained more direct orientations

The Impact of Nonverbal Communication in Organizations: A Survey of Perceptions

• Graham, Unruh & Jennings surveyed five hundred and five respondents, from a wide variety of business organizations, to gather information on their perceptions of nonverbal communication

• Dividing the sample on the basis of perceived decoding ability and gender revealed several differences between the groups

• Nonverbal communication was more important to self-rated good decoders than to other decoders

• Better decoders relied most on facial expressions for accurate information while less skilled decoders preferred voice level or tone

• Women, individually, rated themselves higher than men in decoding ability and, as a group, were perceived by both men and women to be better decoders and encoders of nonverbal cues

• Women working in the education field rated themselves higher in decoding ability than any other group

• Recommendations for improved communication in businesses included paying more attention to nonverbal cues, especially the facial expressions, engaging in more eye con tact, and probing for more information when verbal and nonverbal cues are discrepant

• Managers should be aware that most employees feel frustration and distrust when receiving conflicting signals from their supervisors, and should try to modify their behavior by being more honest when communicating their emotions.

• Walther & Lisa C. Tidwell (1995) Computer mediated ‐communication (CMC) has been described as lacking nonverbal cues, which affects the nature of interpersonal interaction via the medium.

• Yet much CMC conveys nonverbal cues in terms of chronemics, or time related messages‐

• Different uses of time signals in electronic mail were hypothesized to affect interpersonal perceptions of CMC senders and respondents

• An experiment altered the time stamps in replicated e mail ‐messages in order to assess two time variations: (a) the time of day a message was sent and (b) the time lag until a reply was received

• Results revealed significant interactions among these variables, and the task orientation or socio-emotional orientation of the verbal ‐messages, which affected perceptions of communicators’ intimacy/liking or dominance/submissiveness

• Findings extend recent theories regarding social attributions and the adaptation of social cues in CMC behavior.

EMOTICONS• Scott Fahlman created emoticons when he posted a message on

the Carnegie Mellon University bulletin board system, on September 19, 1982 (Krohn, 2004)

• Emoticons originally started as simple punctuation marks and when viewed sideways resemble facial expressions. Now they have evolved into many creative richly enhanced, graphic versions. They range from happy, sad, tired, angry, cool, laughing to devilish, and many more

• While previous nonverbal communication theorists view CMC as less social because of the lack of social cues (Derks ,2007), the limited new research is showing that the use of emoticons proves otherwise.

• Research in this area, it is beginning to show that the use of emoticons may not only improve communications but that they may also "serve as nonverbal surrogates, suggestive of facial expression, and they may add a paralinguistic component to a message" ( Derks, 2007,p.843)

• Derks(2007) found that the use of emoticons in CMC is similar to the expressions people make during face-to-face communication

• However, he believes that emoticon use is deliberate and voluntary, with the potential for them to be used more unconsciously over time

• Haung, Yen & Zhang (2008) found that the use of emoticons in instant messaging (IM) situations can actually speed up communication, make communicating more fun and make it easier to express emotion by using less words

• They also found that, "emoticons are not only fun to use but may be beneficial because an increase in information richness is equivalent to an improvement in communication efficiency and effectiveness“ ( Haung et al, 2008,p.470)

• From this research they concluded that the use of richly enhanced emoticons in Instant Messaging (IM) may help create a more caring and cooperative work environment ( Haung et al. 2008)