I am very excited about this week's discussion. These are the weeks I wish I could talk to you all face to face so we could really get into a deep discussion about nonverbal communication and share what we have learned through our reading, and of course through our life experiences. While I was in school I participated in a Nonverbal Research Study as a research assistant, which was quite interesting. Although the statistics in that particular research study did not prove to be significant, my conjecture was that the sample size was too small.
Now that you are probably asking, "What was the study about?"....I'll tell you briefly in case you are interested. Dr. Tim Hegstrom who is the Dean of Social Sciences at this point in his career, videotaped dyads to see if their body positioning matched each other during the course of their 10 minute conversation. Most of the participants did have matching body language at some point in the discussion (An example of this would be where one person crosses their arm, and the other follows shortly after. This could either be matching or mirroring with body positioning with legs, arms, etc...). I analyzed the videos one by one (I think there were 50 or so 10 minute videos) and recorded their body positioning to reflect matching, mirroring, or no correlation at all. I stopped the video every minute and recorded their body positions. Like I said, when we ran the statistics through SPSS (a statistical database), the results were not significant. But, had the research been done a bit differently, it absolutely would have produced statistically significant results. Had it proved significant, we probably would have been published in a Communication Journal, but alas, it was not written in the stars. :)
Needless to say, Nonverbal Communication interests me quite a bit. My husband's family is constantly trying to figure out if I'm analyzing them. Just this past weekend, one of his family members looked over to a few people and asked me what their body language was saying. Of course this sparked a very interesting conversation between a few people, myself included.
Have fun with this weeks discussion, and don't forget to download the midterm study sheet from Blackboard to prepare for your midterm next week.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
How interesting, Carol!
ReplyDeleteOther than using your Nonverbal Communication expertise in your classes and among family, do you provide any sort of communication consulting for private companies?
I am wondering if companies are taking any sort of initiative to make their employees more conscious of the powerful impacts of Nonverbal Communication in the workplace and in their personal lives as well.
Ibirapuera
Hi Ibirapuera! No, I sure do not provide consulting at this point. I had thought about doing consulting a few years back, but teaching is my passion. My philosophy about a career is to find something you love to do so you wake up everyday looking forward to it, not dreading it. I never thought teaching would be a passion of mine, but as soon as I taught my first class, I was hooked!
ReplyDeleteI have friends who are currently or have done consulting in the past. In fact, a professor I had at a college in the Midwest was a communication consultant for dentists and doctors. It seems to be an interesting field. From what I have heard, a lot of companies hire consulting firms to teach their employees about things like public speaking, or international communication, etc... I am not sure I have ever come across a company hiring a consultant for nonverbal communication, though I am sure it exists.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI see. Yes, I can feel how much you love teaching. :-)
Thanks for addressing my question.
Ibirapuera