114 Part 1 Basic Communication Processesof the same sex throughout much of southern Europe and Latin America. This is
not necessarily the case in the United States and Canada, where kissing tends to be
reserved for immediate family, romantic partners, or very close friends. In India,
public kissing of any sort has only recently become acceptable (Harris, 2013). You
might kiss your romantic partner differently in front of your family members than
you would when you’re alone. Indeed the very definition of how you kiss your
partner might range from rubbing noses to exchanging saliva (Berliet, 2013). And
if you’re sending an e-mail to your eight-year-old niece, you might end it with a
big wet kiss, signaled by the emoticon. Clearly, culture, technology, and the
situation all serve as powerful influences on our nonverbal behavior.Culture and Nonverbal Communication
When Mike and his friends visited a beach in Qingdao, China, they were surprised
to see a woman emerge from the sea wearing gloves, a wetsuit, and a neon-orange
ski mask. Another mask-wearing bather told them, “A woman should always have
fair skin; otherwise people will think she is a peasant” (Levin, 2012). The tanning
booths and self-tanning creams popular in the United States are clearly not impor-
tant to beach lovers in China because different cultures view physical appearance
differently. Relatedly, if you’ve ever traveled abroad, you may have been advised
that certain nonverbal gestures that are entirely acceptable and quite positive in
the United States (for example, “A-OK” or “thumbs up”) are deeply insulting and
crude in other parts of the world (Matsumoto & Hwang, 2013).
As these examples illustrate, nonverbal communication is highly influenced
by culture. Culture affects everything from touch to facial expressions
including time orientation and notions of physical attractiveness (see
Chapter 5). For example, in the United States, people tend to make
direct eye contact when speaking to someone, whether a colleague, a
supervisor, or a professor. Similarly, in the Middle East, engaging in
long and direct eye contact with your speaking partner shows interest
and helps you assess the sincerity and truth of the other person’s words
(Samovar, Porter, & Stefani, 1998). However, in Latin America, Japan,
and the Caribbean, such sustained eye behavior is a sign of disrespect.
Similarly, culture affects the use of touch. Some cultures are con-
tact cultures (for example, Italy) (Williams & Hughes, 2005) and
depend on touch as an important form of communication. Other
cultures are noncontact cultures and are touch-sensitive or even tend
to avoid touch. Latin American, Mediterranean, and Eastern European
cultures, for example, rely on touch much more than Scandinavian cul-
tures do. Public touch, linked to the type of interpersonal relationship
that exists and the culture in which it occurs, affects both the amount
of touch and the area of the body that is appropriate to touch (Avtgis
& Rancer, 2003; DiBiase & Gunnoe, 2004; McDaniel & Andersen,
1998). Social-polite touch, for example, involves a handshake between
American men but a kiss between Arabic men. And some religions pro-
hibit opposite-sex touch between unmarried or unrelated individuals.
Sex and gender also influence nonverbal communication.
Women usually pay more attention to both verbal and nonverbal cues
when evaluating their partners and deciding how much of themselvesWHILE THE “thumbs up”
is a friendly sign in America,
it’s considered rude and
offensive in certain parts of
the Middle East. Maridav/
Shutterstock