Persuasive Communication - How Audiences Decide. 2nd Edition

Person Perception in Audience Decision Making 273

distance also tend to be shy and socially anxious.^168 The ways in which people dress and move

have also been shown to be valid indicators of traits such as extraversion, openness, and even

intelligence.^169

Nonverbal vocal cues such as tone of voice are additional valid indicators of the speaker’s actual

traits.^170 Speakers who speak in a very loud voice do indeed tend to be extroverts.^171 Speakers with

shorter response latencies are more likely to be extroverts as well.^172

Thus, the audience’s spontaneous inferences about the personality traits of others are usually

quite accurate.^173 Based on their observation of another’s body movements alone, viewers can make

accurate inferences regarding the person’s extraversion, warmth, and trustworthiness.^174 Based on

their observation of nonverbal vocal cues alone, listeners can accurately determine a speaker’s per-

sonality traits.^175 Another reason that the audience’s judgments about others’ personality traits are

usually accurate is that people tend to be consistent in their behavior patterns across situations, both

in their verbal^176 and nonverbal style.

In a study demonstrating the consistency of a person’s nonverbal style across situations,^177

viewers watched videos of 164 college students in three meetings with another student of the

opposite sex and then rated the degree to which the students engaged in each of 62 different

nonverbal behaviors. In the fi rst two meetings, the students were strangers to each other and

were given no prescribed topic of conversation. In the third meeting, the two students from the

second meeting met again and were asked to debate the issue of capital punishment. The viewers

ascertained that a large number of the students’ nonverbal behaviors were consistent across all

three situations. The eight most consistent nonverbal behaviors follow in order of their degree

of consistency:

1. Speaks in a loud voice


2. Behaves in a fearful or timid manner


3. Expressive in face, voice, or gestures


4. Speaks quickly


5. Engages in constant eye contact


6. Has high enthusiasm and energy


7. Is reserved and unexpressive


8. Is unconventional in appearance

Given their ability to make accurate trait inferences, it’s not surprising that audience members

tend to agree with each other when asked to judge the personality traits of others.^178 For example,

judges of college applicants’ essays show substantial agreement in the personality traits they attribute

to the applicants who wrote them.^179 Audience members tend to agree on the personality traits of

others even when they base their judgments on their fi rst impressions alone.^180 Consensus among

audience members has even been observed cross-culturally, suggesting that audience perceptions of

personality traits may have a universal basis.^181

Audience members’ spontaneous inferences about others’ personality traits are not only remark-

ably accurate, they are also remarkably fast.^182 A mere 100 millisecond exposure to an unfamiliar

face is suffi cient for audience members to draw inferences about the person’s likeability, trustwor-

thiness, competence, and aggressiveness that are similar to those generated under longer viewing

times.^183 For threat judgments, a 39 millisecond exposure to an unfamiliar face is suffi cient.^184

In a now classic series of experiments, social psychologists Nalini Ambady and Robert Rosenthal

asked college students to watch three 10-second video clips, or “thin slices,” of unfamiliar professors

and then rate the professors’ teaching effectiveness. Even with the sound turned off, the students

had no trouble rating the professors on the basis of their nonverbal behaviors alone. Students also