ABSTRACT
This chapter presents some experiments which explore some of the proxemic, postural, facial, movement, and vocal behaviors of a speaker that were expected to relate to his persuasive effort and the degree to which his message was perceived as persuasive by the addressee. The selection of the set of implicit behaviors and personality attributes for the study was based on their relevance to the implied communication of like-dislike, responsiveness, and potency or status. The implicit communication literature provided a series of derivative hypotheses for the relationship between the liking of a listener, the intended persuasiveness of the speaker, and the perceived persuasiveness of the message by the listener. The behaviors of the subjects in the approval-seeking and approval-avoiding conditions were rated on a series of nonverbal and implicit verbal, measures. In addition to the preceding posture and position cues, several nonverbal and implicit verbal cues have also been found to convey different attitudes toward another.
