ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a general discussion of the importance and nature of nonverbal communication. It then discerns between non-communicative and communicative cues and reveals a range of behavioral types and cue categories that are all part of the nonverbal system. The chapter presents an approach that situates nonverbal cues within a larger communicative or cultural code that helps explain the patterns, rules, and meanings of nonverbal communicating. It then reviews the primary social functions that nonverbal cues serve, presents some of the skills and conditions involved in using nonverbal communication well, and overviews some of the forms of research that help provide the body of evidence that has amassed in the study of nonverbal communication.
