Real Communication An Introduction

96 Part 1  Basic Communication Processes

twenty minutes ago and she just doesn’t feel like talking

about it. For this reason, it’s best to regard nonverbal

behavior (and poker “tells”) as cues to be checked out

rather than as facts.

Nonverbal Communication

Is More Believable Than

Verbal Communication

Imagine you’re grabbing lunch with your brother,

talking a mile a minute about your exciting plans for

after graduation. He’s staring off into space. You won-

der if you’re boring him. But when you look closer,

you notice that his face is ashen, he isn’t making eye

contact with you, and he hasn’t shaved in a few days.

You pause and ask, “Hey, is everything OK with you?

You seem... not yourself.” Your brother looks up

somewhat startled, tries to smile, and says, “What? Oh!

Yes, everything’s great.”

You’ve just experienced channel discrepancy,

a situation in which one set of behaviors says one

thing and another set says something different. In

this case, your brother’s verbal communication says

he is fine, but his nonverbal communication says he

is not fine at all. So which message do you believe?

In most cases, you’ll believe the nonverbal message.

Like most of us, you assume your brother has less

control over his nonverbal behaviors, so they are more “reliable” indicators

of how he is feeling. Research supports your assumption. Studies show that

we tend to give more weight to nonverbal behavior than to verbal behavior

when we

c express spontaneous feelings (such as crying) (Burgoon & Hoobler, 2002)

c assess others’ motives (as in deception) (Burgoon, Blair, & Strom, 2008)

c express rapport with others (for example, show liking) (Hullman, Goodnight,

& Mougeotte, 2012)

c figure out others’ meanings when there are few other behaviors to observe

(Grahe & Bernieri, 1999; Knapp & Hall, 2010)

However, just because we tend to place more stock in nonverbal communica-

tion doesn’t mean that we always interpret that communication accurately. Your

brother might be fine, just as he says he is. Perhaps he is growing a “playoff

beard” along with the rest of his hockey team and is thinking about the next

day’s game rather than listening to you talk about your plans. Even when we

know others very well, we often fail to detect deception or read their nonverbal

behaviors accurately (Knapp & Hall, 2010; Van Swol, Malhotr, & Braun, 2012;

Vrij, 2006).

DOES THIS CARD
PLAYER have a good or bad
hand? Who knows? His poker
face reveals nothing. Pablo
Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images

Have you ever ignored what

someone said because the

person’s nonverbal behavior

seemed to contradict the

verbal message? Were you

able to determine if the

nonverbal communication

was accurate?

AND YOU?