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2009934667 Complementing Relationship Chapter 3 Nonverbal Communication 63 Body language can complement a verbal message. For example, shaking your head horizontally from side to side while saying no reinforces the negative verbalization. The simultaneous saying and doing creates a nonverbal complementing relationship, in which a nonverbal message accompanies a verbal message and adds dimension to communication. Conflicting Relationship A person’s physical movements sometimes can conflict with his or her verbal message. For example, suppose a professor is confronted by a student after a class session. The student asks, “May I speak with you?” The professor says, “Sure, I have lots of time.” While making this reply, however, the professor is packing books, glancing at the clock, and taking several steps away. A conflict exists between the verbal and nonverbal messages. When actions conflict with verbal messages, thus forming a conflicting relationship between the verbal and nonverbal, the receiver should rely more on the nonverbal aspect of communication. Nonverbal clues often are more difficult to fake than verbal ones. When you were young, you might have been surprised to find that your parents knew when you were not telling the truth. There you stood, looking at the floor, twisting your hands, with a flushed face, as you insisted, “I didn’t do it.” The father of the modern psychology movement said, “He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore.” 22 Lie detectors read the body’s nonverbal reactions by measuring changes in blood pressure, respiration, and skin response—in other words, by attempting to detect a conflicting relationship between the verbal and the nonverbal. This is Communicating: A Social and Career Focus, Tenth Edition, by Roy M. Berko, Andrew D. Wolvin, and Darlyn R. Wolvin. Published by Allyn & Bacon. Copyright © 2007 by <strong>Pearson</strong> Education, Inc. Body shifts can encourage or discourage conversation.
64 Part One Foundations of Communication NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION Here is a quiz, based on research, that will test your knowledge of nonverbal communication. Just answer “true” or “false.” 1. Women are more sensitive to nonverbal cues—especially facial cues—and they transmit more accurate nonverbal cues to others. 2. When contradictory messages are sent through both verbal and nonverbal channels, most adults see the nonverbal message as more accurate. 3. People with low self-esteem use more eye contact when receiving negative messages than when receiving positive ones while those with high self-esteem do just the opposite in each case. accomplished by hooking up a meter to the fingers, measuring perspiration, or checking heart rate on an electrocardiograph machine. Some researchers claim that the accuracy rate of polygraphs is “barely better than 50 percent.” 23 Others “have pegged the accuracy rate at nearly 90 percent.” 24 Another study indicates an 80 percent accuracy. Because of these differences in opinion, in light of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, questions arose as to whether federal agencies should rely on lie detectors to screen workers and job applicants. The conclusion reached by the National Research Council was that “the machines are simply too inaccurate.” 25 The report also contends that “almost a century of research in scientific psychology and physiology provides little basis for the expectation that a polygraph test could have extremely high accuracy.” 26 However, this belief is not universal. A criminal justice expert counters by responding, “If what they’re saying is that polygraph testing is not a useful tool in screening because it makes errors, I wouldn’t necessarily agree with them.” Since the research shows that the present process of detecting deception is so questionable, the question arises as to whether the nonverbal techniques should be relied upon? Part of the answer may be to go beyond the historical methods. A new technique, fMRI, functional magnetic resonance imaging, “scans the brain and could well morph into a forensic tool far more potent than the flawed polygraph test.” 27 “Forensics experts are hopeful because fMRIs measure complex mental processes, while polygraph tests pick up skin and blood pressure changes that can be misleading.” 28 Another method, MERMER, a system of brain fingerprinting that records messages emitted by the brain before the body physically reacts, has been developed. 29 Though some scientists argue that the technology isn’t ready for widespread use in the criminal court system, an Iowa judge ruled brain fingerprinting admissible in court after it was tested and peer reviewed. 30 Accenting Relationship 4. When people are conjuring up a lie, their pupils tend to become smaller. However, when they tell the lie, their pupils tend to dilate. 5. The three nonverbal cues an interviewer remembers most about a job applicant are gestures, posture, and handshake. Answers: 1. true, 2. true, 3. true, 4. true, 5. false—interviewers remember eye contact, appearance, and facial expressions. Source: NVC: Nonverbal Communication Studies and Applications, 4th Edition, by Mark L. Hickson III, Don W. Stacks, and Nina-Jo Moore, Roxbury Publishing, Los Angeles, CA, 2004. Nonverbal behavior may accent parts of a verbal message, much as underlining or italicizing emphasizes written language. In the accenting relationship, the nonverbal message stresses the verbal one. Jabbing someone’s shoulder with a finger as you turn the person to look at you while commanding, “When I speak to you, look at me!” emphatically accents the verbal message with nonverbal signs. Communicating: A Social and Career Focus, Tenth Edition, by Roy M. Berko, Andrew D. Wolvin, and Darlyn R. Wolvin. Published by Allyn & Bacon. Copyright © 2007 by <strong>Pearson</strong> Education, Inc. 2009934667
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