Chapter 4 Nonverbal Communication 115they should reveal to those partners, whereas men attend more to verbal informa-
tion (Gore, 2009). Women also engage in more eye contact, initiate touch more
often, and smile more than men (Hall, 1998; Stewart, Cooper, & Steward, 2003).
Such differences are not necessarily biologically based. For example, mothers
may use more varied facial expressions with their daughters because they believe
that women are supposed to be more expressive than men or because their child-
hood environment presented them with more opportunities to develop nonver-
bal skills (Hall, Carter, & Hogan, 2000). Adult gender roles may also play a part.
Since women are expected to look out for the welfare of others, smiling—as well
as other affirming nonverbal behaviors—may help women meet situational, gen-
dered expectations (Hall et al., 2000). This may also help explain why women
exhibit greater sensitivity to nonverbal messages. They tend to exhibit more signs
of interest (such as head tilts and paralinguistic encouragers like “uh-huh” and
“ah”) and also decode others’ nonverbal behaviors more accurately, particularly
those involving the face (Burgoon & Bacue, 2003).
Mediated Nonverbal Communication
At a conference, a colleague told an interesting story about nonverbal communication
in mediated contexts. She asked her students to submit their assignments via e-mail
by midnight on the date they were due. At 1:00 a.m., she received a frantic note from
her student, Aaron, explaining that a computer malfunction had prevented him from
sending his speech outline until then. As Aaron typically provided quality work and
never missed deadlines, our colleague was not concerned and did not intend to penalize
him. So she simply wrote back “Got it” to quickly reassure him that she had received
his outline. When she later saw Aaron in class, he said her short response made him
worried that she was annoyed about his lateness. “If you had used a smiley face, I would
have known what you meant,” Aaron said.
When you speak with someone face to face, you’ve got a number of nonverbal
codes at your disposal. Even on the phone, where you have no visual cues, you can
use paralinguistic cues (vocal tone, rate, pitch, volume, sighs) to offer information. But
when you send an e-mail, IM, or text message, many of the nonverbal channels you
rely on (eye contact, paralanguage, and so on) are unavailable. However, people have
developed a series of creative substitutions for nonverbal
cues: capital letters to indicate shouting; creative use of
font sizes, colors, and typefaces to provide emphasis;
random punctuation (#@*&!) to substitute for obsceni-
ties; and animations, figures, diagrams, and pictures to
add visuals to messages (Gayomali, 2013). Punctuation
(or the lack of it) can help readers “hear” the intonation
of what is being said (many people say that they “hear”
their friend’s texts or posts in that friend’s “voice”).
As Aaron noted in our example, some individu-
als expect others to use emoticons in mediated texts
to help clarify meaning—whether to express emotion
or to signal that something we say is a joke (Walther,
2006). Emoticons can also strengthen the intensity of
a message, add ambiguity (was that really a joke?), or
indicate sarcasm (Derks, Bos, & von Grumbkow, 2008).
TECHNOLOGY HAS
BECOME so advanced that
a father stationed in Iraq
is now able to witness his
child’s birth in the United
States—via webcam! AP Photo/
The Advocate Messenger, Clay Jackson