Persuasive Communication - How Audiences Decide. 2nd Edition

Person Perception in Audience Decision Making 269

An analysis of actual job interviews concludes that recruiters’ impressions of an applicant’s per-

sonality are based in large part on the applicant’s nonverbal facial behaviors, including direct eye

contact and smiling, which in turn are associated with the recruiters’ hiring decisions.^117 Behaviors

such as avoidance glances and neutral facial expressions are typical of unsuccessful applicants.^118

Interestingly, the nonverbal visual cues recruiters observe in job applicants are correlated with

supervisors’ subsequent ratings of the applicants’ performance on the job.^119 Supervisors’ ratings of

applicants’ on-the-job performance are signifi cantly correlated with the applicant’s physical attrac-

tiveness in the interview and with the amount of time the applicant gazes at the interviewer.^120

Moreover, interviewers’ and supervisors’ ratings are both signifi cantly correlated with a composite

score of the applicant’s physical attractiveness, amount of gaze, amount of smiling, amount of hand

movement, posture, body orientation, and dress characteristics.

In addition to visual cues, a number of vocal cues infl uence recruiters’ perceptions of job appli-

cants. An analysis of the relative importance of verbal and nonverbal behaviors to hiring decisions

reveals that an applicant’s speech fl uency and voice level are among the top seven predictors of a

job offer.^121 In a study of the effect of accents on applicants’ chances for success, judges were asked

to rate the suitability for employment of people whose speech varied on different phonological

variables such as postvocalic r. The judges rated speakers of the standard dialect as much more com-

petent and suitable for employment than speakers of nonstandard dialects.^122

Verbal cues are another strong predictor of perceived competence^123 and of a job offer.^124

Judges’ perceptions of applicants’ competence are inversely related to the percentage of self-referent

words (e.g., I, me, mine ) applicants use.^125 Applicants who use a high proportion of self-referent words

are generally perceived to be relatively shy and incompetent.^126 The use of we , on the other hand,

is viewed much more favorably. For example, the use of we in college applicants’ essays is a strong

predictor of college admissions decisions.^127

In addition to the use of self-referent words, other verbal behaviors, such as an applicant’s will-

ingness to make bold statements, affect the audience’s perceptions of an applicant’s competence.^128

Negations and negative emotion words, on the other hand, are negatively related to audience per-

ceptions of an applicant’s competence.^129

Speaker Schemata: How Audiences Evaluate Speakers

Audiences want to be informed by those whom they perceive to be both competent and trustwor-

thy, that is to say, credible. Unless the audience perceives the source of information to be credible,

any attempt by the source to frame an issue will fail.^130 Moreover, when audience members distrust

a speaker, they automatically make semantic associations that are incongruent with the speaker’s

message even as the speaker speaks.^131

Audiences use a number of nonverbal visual cues to identify credible speakers. For example,

audiences perceive speakers who smile as more credible than speakers who do not.^132 Audiences

view speakers who make more eye contact to be more credible as well.^133 Audiences also view

confi dent speakers as more credible. In a study of mock jurors evaluating the credibility of eyewit-

ness identifi cation of defendants, only the confi dence displayed by the eyewitnesses affected juror

judgments of their credibility.^134

Studies of people telling lies confi rm the commonly accepted belief that people behave differ-

ently when they are lying.^135 When people lie, they blink more, fi dget more, tap more, and scratch

themselves more than when they speak truthfully. When people lie, they tend to avoid the audi-

ence’s gaze unless they are being purposefully manipulative. Although deceptive people do behave

differently, audiences still have diffi culty identifying them. For example, consumers have great dif-

fi culty discriminating truthful from deceptive salespeople.^136