ABSTRACT
Actions speak louder than words, people believe what you do more than what you say, and you should walk the talk are three familiar admoni tions that express clearly the importance of nonverbal communication in organizations. Nonverbal communication is vitally important to commu nication effectiveness (Anderson, 1999). Depending on the expert, non verbal communication comprises from 93% (Mehrabian, 1981) to 68% (Birdwhistell, 1970) of a message's meaning. One summary concluded that nonverbal messages "can convey affiliation, positive regard, interest, dominance, credibility, or status; can reinforce or punish; (and can) affect what others learn, what attitudes develop, what approaches will be
modeled, and what is expected" (Tresch, Pearson, Munter, Wyld, & Waltman, 1986, p. 78). Persuasive efforts are strongly influenced by non verbal actions (Gass & Seiter, 1999).
