ABSTRACT

Communication is essential to survival. In humans it is a very important part of their social behaviour and they spend a great deal of time communicating with each other. An essential means of communication between people is verbal, that is, it involves speech and can also involve writing since this stands for language. But an additional and very important means of communicating is not by what we say but what we do. Even during speech, a great deal of information is conveyed by the way in which we speak. The tone of our voice, the gestures we use and our facial expressions all convey meaning. In this chapter we look at some of the non-verbal means by which we communicate, such as eye contact, facial expression and body language. We will then consider the extent to which these means of communication, so important for survival, are learnt by observation and imitation and therefore are more biological in origin. What's in this Unit?

The specification lists the following things that you will need to be able to do for the examination:

Outline examples of body language and facial expressions as a form of non-verbal communication (NVC)

Explain the role of observation and imitation, and the role of reinforcement and punishment in learning NVC

Describe cultural variations in NVC

Explain criticisms of social learning theory of NVC

Consider evolutionary theory as an alternative theory, with specific reference to survival and reproduction

Describe Yuki et al.’s (2007) experiment into cross-cultural differences in interpreting facial expressions, and outline its limitations

Explain how psychological research relates to social skills training, e.g. rehabilitation of criminals, customer-service training, managing conflict by managing body language