ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on experimental manipulations of nonverbal cues involving confederates. It discusses the issue related to manipulating confederate behavior, choosing a setting and designing an experiment. The chapter provides the reader with knowledge of social scientific practices as well as ideas for implementing valid experimental manipulations. The manipulations can occur dynamically in real time: Participants perceive the behavior as it occurs as part and parcel of their communicative experience. In addition to developing valid manipulations that maximize systematic differences across treatment groups, researchers using experimental approaches to studying nonverbal behavior must decide whether to conduct their experiment in a laboratory or field setting. This chapter explains investigation of nonverbal behavior involves various research designs and approaches; it discusses the manipulation involving traditional or participant confederates. In line with, the goal in experimental nonverbal research is to manipulate an independent variable while controlling for other potential causes of variability in a given dependent variable.
