Submitted by Mag. Harald März

Submitted at Department of International Management

Supervisor a.-Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Erna Szabo MBA Obstacles to nonverbal November, 2017 communication and nonverbal equilibrium across cultures

Master Thesis to obtain the academic degree of Master of Science Global Business in the Master’s Program Global Business

JOHANNES KEPLER UNIVERSITY LINZ Altenberger Str. 69 4040 Linz, Austria www.jku.at DVR 0093696 STATUTORY DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the thesis submitted is my own unaided work, that I have not used other than the sources indicated, and that all direct and indirect sources are acknowledged as references. This printed thesis is identical with the electronic version submitted.

Place, Date

Signature

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 Introduction ...... 1

I. LITERATURE PART ...... 3 2 and the ...... 3 2.1 Definition of nonverbal communication ...... 3 2.2 Human ability to decode nonverbal communication ...... 5 2.3 Finding a nonverbal equilibrium in the affiliative conflict theory ...... 7 3 Nonverbal communication and the cultural factor ...... 12 3.1 The origins of nonverbal communication ...... 12 3.2 Nonverbal universality versus specificity ...... 17 3.3 Importance of nonverbal communication in international business ...... 20 3.4 Communicating across culture ...... 23 4 ...... 26 4.1 The head and face ...... 26 4.1.1 Micro expressions ...... 33 4.1.2 The eyes ...... 40 4.1.3 The mouth, lips, and tongue ...... 43 4.2 The torso...... 46 4.3 The arms and the hands ...... 51 4.4 The legs and the feet ...... 59 4.5 The gait ...... 64 5 Proxemics – The space between people ...... 67 6 The paralinguistic cues of the voice ...... 75

II. EMPIRICAL PART ...... 82 7 Method ...... 82 7.1 Austria and Taiwan: Background and differences ...... 82 7.2 Sample ...... 86 7.3 Procedure ...... 88 8 Findings ...... 93 8.1 Paralanguage ...... 94 8.2 Silence...... 99 8.3 Head and face ...... 103 8.4 Smiling and laughing...... 106

I 8.5 Eye contact ...... 110 8.6 Hand gestures ...... 114 8.7 Posture ...... 117 8.8 Foot movements ...... 118 8.9 Proxemics ...... 120 8.10 Mirroring ...... 122 8.11 Stereotype influence ...... 124 8.12 Nonverbal equilibrium ...... 126 9 Discussion ...... 131 10 Implications, limitations, and call for further research ...... 136 10.1 Theoretical and practical implications ...... 137 10.2 Limitations and request for further research ...... 139 11 Conclusion ...... 141

Reference List ...... 143 Appendix A: Interview guide with topics of inquiry ...... 155 Appendix B: Mini questionnaire ...... 156 Appendix C: Discussion scenario set 1 & 2 ...... 157

II TABLE OF TABLES

Table 1: GLOBE cultural dimension values for Austria and Taiwan ...... 86 Table 2: Summary of the sample ...... 88 Table 3: Procedure summary ...... 93 Table 4: Summary of the findings...... 133

III TABLE OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Moutza ...... 12 Figure 2: Circle-sign ...... 25 Figure 3: Head-cant ...... 30 Figure 4: Plucked eyebrows ...... 32 Figure 5: Sadness micro expression ...... 35 Figure 6: Anger micro expression ...... 35 Figure 7: Fear micro expression ...... 36 Figure 8: Surprise micro expression ...... 36 Figure 9: Disgust micro expression ...... 37 Figure 10: Contempt micro expression ...... 37 Figure 11: Happiness micro expression ...... 38 Figure 12: Not face ...... 38 Figure 13: Lip pout ...... 45 Figure 14: Lip purse ...... 45 Figure 15: Arm-cross ...... 58 Figure 16: Arm akimbo ...... 58

IV 1 Introduction Nonverbal communication is everywhere where people can be found. It provides a constant stream of information to a person’s environment and has various functions such as communicating our feelings or attempting to elicit certain reactions in another person (e.g., Morris, 1977). It does not have to rely on words and is sending signals even when the voice is absent. It is such a powerful communication tool that even a short period of time suffices to give us a good impression of a situation or person (Ambady & Rosenthal, 1992; 1993). In a similar vein, culture accompanies us every day around us and within us. Given the current development of business and technology, cross-cultural encounters necessitating communication may become rather more common than scarce (Bennett et al., 2000; Collings et al., 2007; Thomas & Ely, 1996). Research focusing on either nonverbal communication or culture is plenty (e.g., Ekman, 2003b; Hofstede, 2001), but literature combining both aspects in a detailed manner is scant. In general, mentioning is made of only a few examples to corroborate the broad claim that nonverbal communication is important and that cultural differences exist (Adler, 2008). It remains unclear which exact role nonverbal behaviour plays in intercultural communication and what the details or underlying reasons may be. Yet, especially international management may succumb to the effects of nonverbal communication differences caused by culture. Communicating with a multicultural workforce and negotiations with business partners of various international backgrounds are situations that may arise easily when being in the process of establishing and managing a foreign subsidiary or when entering a new market. Even importing and exporting might already necessitate face-to-face negotiations with people from another culture. This thesis tries to contribute to the existing literature and assist international managers by addressing this issue. Nevertheless, nonverbal communication can mean many things, including the wearing of inanimate objects, which is why this term will be limited to the three big and distinct elements of body language, proxemics, and voice to provide focus to the research of this thesis (for more details see Section 2.1). Hence the main research question will be:

What kind of role do body language, proxemics, and voice play as obstacles in nonverbal communication across cultures and what are potential reasons for this?

Aside from the nonverbal behaviour in general, there is also a specific element of it that merits special with regard to crossing cultural boundaries. This is the affiliative

1 conflict theory and the resulting nonverbal equilibrium of Argyle and Dean (1965). In one sentence, the affiliative conflict theory states that a certain level of affiliation between two people finds its expression in different nonverbal signals (e.g., distance, eye contact) and that if there is a change in one of these signals that would not fit this level of affiliation it would be compensated by another nonverbal signal. Peterson (1973) suggests cultural dissimilarities for this theory and Graham (1985) delivers indications that seem to point into this direction. However, this question is not answered by the existing research. Thus, this thesis will try to better understand this point with the following sub-question:

What differences are there in affiliative, nonverbal equilibrium levels with concern to body language, proxemics, and voice across cultures?

In order to deal with these two research questions, this paper will provide a literature review which will cover a definition of nonverbal communication, a look into the ’ ability to decode nonverbal communication, a description of the affiliative conflict theory and the nonverbal equilibrium, an evaluation of nonverbal communication in the context of culture and international business, and a coverage of the three big elements body language, proxemics, and paralanguage. The literature part will be followed up by the empirical part which includes information on the reference cultures Austria and Taiwan, a presentation of the sample and the employed procedure, the findings, as well as the final discussion. Finally, the last parts will focus on implications for scholars and practitioners, limitations, and the request for further research with a conclusion posing the end of the paper.

2

I. LITERATURE PART

2 Nonverbal communication and the human Nonverbal communication is pervasive. It most likely accompanies us in all face-to-face encounters that we experience in our daily lives. Even in our modern times with all digital devices it seems we still find ourselves looking into another person’s eyes may it be in situations of communication or silent interaction. As a matter of fact, only part of our communication is really verbal (Millar, 2008). As soon as two people meet each other, the nonverbal dance begins. This involves off-work situations but also the power plays and metaphorical fights in the arenas of the business environment. To begin examining this topic, this chapter will look in more detail into what exactly nonverbal communication represents and whether human beings are able to understand it. The following sections first provide a definition for nonverbal communication, then evaluate our decoding abilities, and finally investigate a theory that allows us to see how our levels of interpersonal affiliation may influence our nonverbal signals.

2.1 Definition of nonverbal communication Although everyone might have a slight idea about what it could be, the definition of nonverbal communication is not always easy. The nonverbal dictionary, a website which collects and summarises research regarding nonverbal communication, features entries beginning with “Adam’s-Apple-Jump” and ending with “Zygomatic Smile” (Givens, 2016). However, it also features topics like “Arm Wear”, “Color Cue”, “Ergonomics of the Mind”, “Hair Cue”, and “Shoes”. These latter points do have some justification when it comes to their ability of communicating nonverbal messages. To exemplify this, a brief overview of some aspects of colour will be given. Heller (2011) published the results of a bigger study about how people perceive colours and analysed the outcomes by reviewing existing literature on the topic. According to her, different feelings are being linked to different colours. Colours affect us in many different ways, but one way to do so is via psychological influence. This point is equally mentioned by Vollmar (2012), who also reviewed the matter of colour. For this, it is important to investigate the context in which the colour originally appeared. Moreover, colours seem to take on a

3 special meaning depending on how they are being combined with each other (Heller, 2011). To start with an example, approximately 70 % of the subjects felt the colour red to be related to love. However, 47 % also felt it to be related to hatred. This latter meaning could then be emphasised by combining red with black, the latter colour having the tendency to emphasise the negative connotations of other colours. To further consolidate the meaning of colour, other colour-related meanings would be violet for extravagance, blue for distance, green for live, pink for femininity, and white for cleanliness (Heller, 2011). With regard to the topic of this thesis, colour also offers cross-cultural peculiarities. To name two examples, green has the connotation of holiness for the disciples of the Islam (Heller, 2011), whereas yellow becomes holy in the area of the Himalaya (e.g., China, India) (Vollmar, 2012). This should demonstrate that colour is indeed capable of carrying nonverbal messages. Together with all the other potential facets of nonverbal communication in the broad sense, this presents an almost overwhelming array of topic areas and an indifferent inclusion of all of them would render any resulting definition necessarily cumbersome and complex. Nonetheless, the nonverbal dictionary (Givens, 2016) also features an entry for nonverbal communication itself. Here, the first sentence regarding the definition reads: “The process of sending and receiving wordless messages by means of facial expressions, gaze, gestures, postures, and tones of voice” (Givens, 2016). Later, grooming habits and space positioning are also mentioned. Thus, a good working definition, which captures the essential elements of nonverbal communication and, at the same time, helps to keep the scope of this thesis sufficiently narrow, would be the following:

Nonverbal communication constitutes communication based on body language, voice, and proxemics, excluding the use of words.

This definition places emphasis on the nonverbal signals emanating directly from our body. It, thereby, basically excludes everything attached to our body, like adornment of any kind. Given that the body is assembled of several different parts, all with their own ability to engage in nonverbal signalling, this thesis separates it into different subsections instead of dealing with this complex instrument of nonverbal communication in its whole under a single heading. To allow for a reasonable separation, several publications concerning body language have been consulted in order to find the best structure (e.g., Collett, 2003; Navarro, 2011; Morris, 1986). Consequently, the resulting substructure of the chapter for body language should help breaking the body down to enough detail, while avoiding over-atomisation from a body

4 language point of view. The reason why proxemics will not be subsumed under the heading of body language is that it does rather focus on how a single body is being located in relation to other bodies and not so much on how the body itself expresses itself. Hence, it may be better discussed in its own chapter. The voice earns its own chapter because it can easily be separated from the body. In other words, another person could easily listen to and make judgements about another person on the basis of voice recording without having to see the other person’s body or location in space. Regarding the single sections, the focus will rather be on the basic messages which the different areas can signal (e.g., interest, dominance) than on the various, single cues. This is because it would be most likely impossible to review all the existing, different gestures and signals in sufficient detail without creating a comprehensive compendium that would by far exceed the scope of this thesis. As for the basic literature of the review for most of the sections regarding body language, this thesis will draw on the material of David Givens and Desmond Morris. The former has conducted major work in his creation of the nonverbal dictionary, which is comprehensive and appears to be sufficiently scientific. The publications of the latter reappear as sources of several other publications regarding nonverbal communication and further include details about anatomy and evolutionary backgrounds. For the face, Paul Ekman and his research colleagues will supply much of the research utilised. Concerning the chapter for proxemics (Chapter 5), Edward T. Hall may lay the groundwork. Due to their importance, these authors will provide the cornerstones of the different sections. But before jumping into the realm of concrete expressions and actions, some sections regarding a few basic conditions of nonverbal communication will be discussed in order to provide the necessary context.

2.2 Human ability to decode nonverbal communication Morris (1977) states that one aspect of nonverbal signals is to clearly transmit meaning with minimal ambiguity. He goes on by explaining that this is usually done by standardising nonverbal signs so they may not be confused with other gestures. Implicitly, this indicates that we are able to understand and react to those signals. If we were unable to do so, the need to reduce ambiguity would make no sense as we would be unable to make use of nonverbal cues no matter if they were crystal-clear or absolutely ambiguous. A meta-analysis of forty-four studies compiled by Ambady and Rosenthal (1992) sheds some light on the human ability to comprehend nonverbal signals. Even though the relative importance of nonverbal signals as compared to the verbal ones varies depending on several factors (e.g., the kind of message transmitted), the authors found that nonverbal cues

5 contribute to the accurate judgement of a situation. Ambady and Rosenthal (1992) further unveiled that short periods of observation are sufficient for arriving at an accurate judgement. To be more specific, observation of less than 30 seconds appears to be as accurate as observations up to 5 minutes. Seemingly, accuracy does not increase with longer observations. Notwithstanding this, having basically relied on data about the judgement of videotaped situations, the authors admit that these findings may suffer when trying to apply them to face-to-face interactions since less accurate judgements seem to be made in these situations. They suggest that this could be grounded in the fact that face-to-face interactions may be more distracting due to other factors than when watching a video. In another paper, Ambady and Rosenthal (1993) presented further research regarding the judgement accuracy concerning nonverbal behaviour. This time, subjects were asked to predict the evaluations of teachers based on their nonverbal demeanour. Again, the results showed that people are relatively accurate in their judgements. Moreover, the authors found that six seconds of observation (three clips of two seconds) allowed for similar accuracy as 30 seconds of observation (three clips of ten seconds). This gives credence to the argument that we are able to decode nonverbal behaviour with some accuracy, even if the time to do so is limited. With particular respect to the face, research indicates that people are generally able to recognise and correctly distinguish facially expressed emotions. This equally holds true for spontaneous expressions of the face (Ekman et al., 1974). Moreover, our own facial muscles respond to certain facial signals we receive without our being conscious of it (Surakka & Hietanen, 1998). Despite this encouraging evidence, it appears as if more subtle facial expressions of the face are much more difficult to spot for untrained people, although further training can reliably improve this ability (Ekman, 2003b; Ekman & Friesen, 1975). One area that has commonly brought forth studies regarding the decoding of nonverbal behaviour is the field of deception detection (Ambady & Rosenthal, 1992). Overall, it seems as if we are hardly better than chance in catching liars (Ekman, 2009). This basically means that untrained people make insufficient use of the nonverbal cues available. Yet, even people allegedly trained in lie detection do not seem to perform significantly better (Anderson et al., 1999). Moreover, this inability to accurately distinguish a lie from a truth persists even after calling the judged person a friend for about six months (Anderson et al., 1999). However, there are certain people who do significantly better in detecting lies. These experts seem to be particularly savvy in attending to nonverbal cues in a way in which others do not (although they may also make use of verbal cues to some extent) (O’Sullivan & Ekman, 2004). Even so, there are some hints that non-experts may as well pick up on certain cues without knowing it.

6 In an experiment of Anderson et al. (1999), people referred more frequently to verbal cues when explaining their judgement of a truth, whereas visual cues were more commonly mentioned when talking about their judgement of lies. This implies that, at least unconsciously, we may be able to spot lies by the means of nonverbal information. Furthermore, the same experiment has shown that people who concentrated on auditory cues of the voice were more successful in distinguishing between truths and lies than the average. Additional support for the importance of nonverbal cues in deception detection can be drawn from the paper of Etcoff et al. (2000) who found that people who lost their capability to accurately comprehend speech are seemingly better in spotting lies than others. The authors propose that this could be the result of compensation, which puts the focus more on nonverbal cues since speech is no longer fully available. Nevertheless, it has to be mentioned that there is no single nonverbal cue indicative of a lie. There is no such a thing as a lie gesture but there are gestures which can indicate that what a person says is at odds with what that person feels, thinks, or beliefs and it seems possible that training in this area could enhance an individual’s lie detection skills (Ekman, 2003a; 2009) despite the unsatisfactory results mentioned above. As a result, detecting deception is not an easy task and, therefore, a failure in detecting deception is not the same as a failure in interpreting nonverbal cues per se due to the difference in difficulty. It only shows the limits that we face concerning reading other individuals’ nonverbal signals. In total, this evidence suggests that we are well able to decode nonverbal communication. However, it also shows that we are not perfect in it, particularly in the case of lie detection, and that additional training could further enhance our abilities in this area. Intriguingly, multinational businesses have already been advised to include nonverbal communication into the training programs for their employees (Briggs & Harwood, 1982).

2.3 Finding a nonverbal equilibrium in the affiliative conflict theory With regard to nonverbal communication, there is another issue that merits additional attention. It seems as if there exists a certain equilibrium in nonverbal communication with respect to the tolerated level of intimacy, where intimacy means the overall closeness of another person, regardless of gender. The idea of nonverbal equilibrium stems from Argyle and Dean (1965) and has been baptised affiliative conflict theory. By focusing on the nonverbal elements of proximity and eye contact, Argyle and Dean (1965) postulate that if a person draws too near to us and disturbs our equilibrium of intimacy, we rebalance this closer proximity by reducing eye contact, which equally reduces the overall, nonverbal level of

7 affiliation and eventually may re-establish our preferred equilibrium level (Argyle & Dean, 1965). To arrive at this assertion, Argyle and Dean (1965) conducted several experiments with a focus on the variables of eye contact and proximity. One of their experiments included to ask people to locate themselves in a distance of their comfort near certain things, including another person that had the eyes either open or closed. In a series of other experiments of the same paper, the authors created an interaction situation with a confederate and a subject in which the sitting distances between the confederate and the subject were fixed. In addition to this, the confederate had the task of continuously staring at the subject during the interaction. In all the experiments undertaken by Argyle and Dean (1965), the subjects where only subsequently informed about the real purpose of the experiment in order to safeguard against potential biases. However, in at least some of the experiments the sample was not representative. Their findings demonstrated in various ways that there seems to be an equilibrium between eye contact and proximity of the other person. For instance, when a person A was asked to locate him- or herself close to a person B, who had the eyes open, person A tended to chose a wider distance than when person B had the eyes closed. In a similar vein, Argyle and Dean (1965) further found that a person A decreased the amount of eye contact the closer a person B had been seated, even though the eye contact never dropped to zero. From this the authors conjecture that there must be an equilibrium level of intimacy which is effectuated by the interplay of different elements of nonverbal communication. Patterson (1973) elaborated on the affiliative conflict theory by drawing on other studies and supposes that this equilibrium is linked to immediacy, which basically describes the expression of interpersonal closeness by nonverbal means, and that it has to be understood as a certain range rather than a fixed point. Aside from this, he states that this compensation behaviour seems to be difficult to inhibit, even when we are consciously aware of it. Notwithstanding this, there might be situations in which a person may be unable to sufficiently adapt some of the nonverbal elements to regain his or her equilibrium of intimacy. For example, this was the case in some of the experiments, when seating distance was reduced below the comfort level and subjects were unable to re-establish their equilibrium by the means of adapting eye contact or other nonverbal factors (e.g., leaning back) (Argyle & Dean, 1965). In these cases of disequilibrium, we may feel either deprived of affiliation if we feel that social distance is too great or anxious because the intimacy level of the situation is too high to fit our nonverbal equilibrium. Indeed, some of the subjects became tenser during the close distance condition, which lends some support to this conjecture of the authors (Argyle &

8 Dean, 1965). Patterson (1973) further offers flight as a solution for a sudden upheaval of nonverbal equilibrium that appears to be nonrestorable (e.g., sudden appearance of an intruder). The experiments of Argyle and Dean (1965) also unveiled a few peculiarities regarding this theory. The probably most noteworthy point was a gender-effect when subject and confederate were of opposite genders. In this situation eye contact was proportionally more reduced with declining distance than when subject and confederate were from the same gender (Argyle & Dean, 1965). In general, females seemed to maintain slightly more eye contact than males in same-gender pairing conditions. Another interesting facet was that children appear to opt for shorter distances than adults in any situation (Argyle & Dean, 1965). One possible explanation for this phenomenon could be that children favour a nonverbal equilibrium with more intimacy than adults. Support for this presumption stems from Morris (1971), who asserts that children are increasingly facing a trade-off between intimacy and independence the older they get. Being used to and comfortable with high levels of parental intimacy but low in independence in their infancy, they eventually show high levels of independence when reaching adulthood but low levels of intimacy, at least with concern to their initial level. Some additional support for this explanation of increasing independence can be drawn from the study of Kahlbaugh and Haviland (1994), who investigated the interaction behaviour in 30 families with children aged between 7 and 16 years. Their findings propose that nonverbal avoidance behaviour increases with the age of the children. Interestingly, nonverbal approach behaviour itself seems rather unaffected for this age group. Perhaps the last issue meriting attention is that Argyle and Dean (1965) stated that this level of equilibrium might somewhat differ from person to person and across cultures. They equally implied that intimacy levels may also vary depending on the relationship of the individuals interacting. Strangers may display a different affiliation-related equilibrium than lovers. Morris (1971) lends support to this intuitive suggestion and also Patterson’s (1973) review seems to deliver indications that point in this direction. Even though Argyle and Dean (1965) focused primarily on the interplay of eye contact and proximity, they also mention that there may, in fact, exist a variety of other nonverbal signals that could equally well contribute to this equilibrium of affiliation, like smiling or the intimacy level of a conversation topic. A study by Burgoon et al. (1984) supports this influence of other nonverbal elements and provides some support for the equilibrium theory. Even so, they state that proximity may be relatively more important than other nonverbal signals. Furthermore, the authors mention that touch and smiling also carry high weight. The

9 review of Patterson (1973) found that body angle also interacts with eye contact and proximity in the sense of the affiliative conflict theory. Hence, closer proximity and more eye contact may result in the body’s turning and angling away from the interlocutor. Patterson’s (1973) paper also reports that behaviours like scratching and hand rubbing, which are being seen as indicative of arousal, may equally surface with compensation efforts. He suggests that some nonverbal behaviours may be more important to the establishment of nonverbal equilibrium than others, so that a little change in one area may require a much more substantive change in another area to compensate, which generally agrees with Burgoon et al.’s (1984) findings as mentioned above. According to a study carried out by Lesko (1977), glass partitions as well may increase felt distance and thereby influence eye contact even when physical distance remains the same. Thus, inanimate objects might equally impact the establishment of a nonverbal equilibrium. These findings are in line with the research questions of this thesis. There is no reason why voice and other factors of body language should not equally contribute to the maintenance or disturbance of the nonverbal equilibrium. Moreover, since Argyle and Dean (1965) suggested potential cultural variation with respect to different nonverbal signals in their paper, it is justified to ask the question of whether there actually are differences regarding the affiliation-related equilibrium levels across cultures. To name just one example, a paper by Graham (1985) researched nonverbal differences in negotiation behaviour of Brazilian, Japanese, and US-American bargainers. Compared to the other two cultures, Brazilians held eye contact for a longer period of time and engaged more frequently in interpersonal touching. These two nonverbal behaviours both point in the direction of higher intimacy. Consequently, it is reasonable to suspect that Brazilians may have an affiliation-related, nonverbal equilibrium that potentially tends more towards intimacy than the nonverbal equilibria of the Japanese and US-Americans. This, in turn, suggests the possible existence of different nonverbal equilibria across cultures. In his review, Patterson (1973) also raises concerns with regard to how the affiliative conflict theory may play out across cultures. He does so by referring to the studies of Watson and Graves (1966) and Aiello and Jones (1971) who both focused on the investigation of proximity behaviour in different cultures. The first of these two studies even includes the voice, which lends further support to this thesis’s claim that the inclusion of the voice may be reasonable. The latter of the two studies proposes that the nonverbal equilibrium may be similar across cultures but the way it is established in the different nonverbal elements may vary from culture to culture. It could be that there are also nonverbal equilibria of other emotional states than intimacy. For instance, maybe there is a nonverbal equilibrium for aggressiveness. When being distant, a

10 person in an aggressive situation may gesticulate and shout out with raised voice. However, when being close, volume of the voice may be lower and gesticulation might be reduced but, therefore, the person may invade the other person’s personal space in a threatening manner. One could easily assume cultural variations in these nonverbal equilibria as well. Although it is not the purpose of this thesis to search for other kinds of nonverbal equilibria, it may well be that some of them may accidentally emerge during the data analysis. With regard to the credibility of Argyle’s and Dean’s (1965) affiliative conflict theory, there appears to be relatively good support. Patterson’s (1973) review of the topic shows that evidence seems to be overall positive despite some studies that deliver inconclusive findings. Thus, he still calls for a critical stance. His call for being critical does not only originate from some of the ambiguous or unsupportive findings, but also by referring to environmental and situational constraints that may equally impact on a person’s nonverbal behaviour. Furthermore, he reminds the reader that there are many reasons why nonverbal behaviour may surface that are unrelated to the affiliative conflict theory. A more comprehensive overview of the different meanings conveyed by various nonverbal signals will be given in Chapter 4, 5, and 6. Certain credibility is bestowed upon the cautionary note of Patterson (1973) also from a methodological perspective. Although confirming the affiliative conflict theory in one of their experiments, Knight et al. (1973) discovered in a second study that observer bias is significant with regard to the observation of eye contact. They postulate that this bias seems to be particularly pronounced with increasing distance. So far, all the studies discussed in this section seem to corroborate Argyle’s and Dean’s (1965) theory of a nonverbal equilibrium in its enactment during interaction. More recent research equally lends rather positive evidence to the concept of the affiliative conflict theory. Bailenson et al. (2001) transferred human subjects into a virtual setting that also featured a human-looking avatar. They found that the subjects kept more distance to the human-like avatar than to inanimate objects. However, only females increased distance with increased eye contact with the human-like avatar, whereas males did not. In a similar vein, Yee et al. (2007) investigated the behaviour of avatars of second life, a game-like online community, with regard to social behaviour. Their findings confirm that the affiliative conflict theory apparently invades the cyberspace. Hence, the affiliative conflict theory appears robust enough to reappear in interpersonal encounters that take place in highly virtualised environments.

11 3 Nonverbal communication and the cultural factor Having laid the cornerstones for the subject of this thesis, it is now necessary to add a new facet to the puzzle of nonverbal communication, which is the cultural factor. Covering this point is of paramount importance with respect to the purpose of this thesis. For this reason, the following sections will look into the origins of nonverbal communication, linking them to the discussion of whether nonverbal cues are universal or culturally-specific, then further explain the importance of nonverbal communication for business, which is also important for the purpose of this work, before finally looking at the bigger picture of culture and nonverbal communication.

3.1 The origins of nonverbal communication Nonverbal communication is grounded in numerous signals that are often being displayed without the use of words. One could easily get lost in this amount of different nonverbal signs, perceiving it like a mass of vocabulary without any underlying meaning. To avoid this impression, this section is dedicated to shed light on where the different signals originate from. This seems necessary before starting to draw attention to individual, nonverbal signals, as it serves as clarifying background. The first step is to acknowledge that different signals may have different origins. Even though there seem to be many kinds of gestures, it appears reasonable to put them into two bigger categories. One category would be socially-grown signals. These include anything from historic signs to trained actions. The contrasting category would be the evolution-related signals. These signals originate from evolution and are linked to basic reactions of our brain and nervous system (Morris, 1977; 1986). Of course, one could easily create a wider variety of more fine-grained categories, but this two-category separation seems to be sufficient for discussing this topic within the scope of this thesis. First, the socially-grown signals of nonverbal communication will be examined. One source for signals that were created by society is of course the history of the respective society. Gestures may originate from a certain historical context. As times change, a specific signal may lose

Figure 1: its original context or use but still remain inside a society (Morris, 1977; Moutza (Travis, 2015) 1986). To make this point more understandable, the moutza will be used as an example. The moutza is a hand gesture. To form it, one simply needs to spread open one’s fingers and present one’s palm to another person. At first it might look like an invitation

12 to a high-five, but in fact it is a gesture which aims at insulting the other person (Collett, 2003). But why is it an insult? The gesture itself might not give it away, except if other nonverbal signals hint it, but adding its original historical context allows for understanding. The origin of the moutza lies in the history of the Byzantine Empire. At that time it was a Byzantine custom to chain criminals and then pull them through the streets. Spectators expressed their disdain for these criminals by thrusting dirt into their face, which they did with the open hand. Today, the dirt is gone, but the moutza has still maintained its meaning and resembles the original gesture (Collett, 2003). The nonverbal signal has lost its practical character and has instead adopted symbolic meaning. Other socially-grown signals may be imitations of another act or object (Morris, 1977). These nonverbal signals try to create a resemblance of the original action or object. Some examples may be the drinking gesture in which a person lifts an imaginary cup or glass and lift it up to his or her lips in an act of mock-drinking (Morris, 1977). Although there is no cup or glass, people seeing this gesture may instantly understand the reference to drinking as they are familiar with the original context. Only societies that do not know cups and glasses or anything alike may not be able to decipher the underlying meaning. For them, maybe the drinking out of one’s cupped hand may be more common. In that fictional case, pretending to drink out of an empty, cupped hand may potentially signal drinking. Similarly, gestures for mock-eating exist (Morris, 1977). One other example would be the gun (Morris, 1977), in which a person protrudes his or her index finger and maybe also the middle finger, leaving the thumb erect and rolling up the other fingers. Again, a society that has never seen a gun, will probably not understand this gesture. Certain gestures of nonverbal communication arise from our early experience as infants. It would be justified to call these socially-grown as well. This is especially true with concern to our intimate behaviour with close ones (Morris, 1971). As with the paragraphs before, an example will serve as aid in explanation. Morris (1971) mentions the pat on the back as nonverbal signal that has its origin in infancy. He states that it was originally part of a full embrace. But as infants grow older, they equally grow uncomfortable of the parental embrace. As a fact, only the pat on the back remains as a reminder of the original parental embrace. This also explains why it carries some of the meanings of the full embrace, like reassurance or comforting. Nonverbal signals that require training or have been created for professional purposes will also be termed socially-grown. These may vary across professions and fields and may constitute a certain code (Morris, 1977). For instance, scuba diving relies on a set of hand

13 signals where electronic devices for communication are not employed. To give a few examples, a vertically raised hand with the fingers together signals “stop”. When a scuba diver wants to indicate that he is going down, a single fist with the erect thumb pointing downwards is moved downward. In a similar vein, when wanting to signal that he or she goes up, a single fist with the erect thumb being extended upwards is being raised. To signal distress or asking for help a scuba diver quickly moves a hand from a horizontal to an overhead position in a wave-like manner (Recreational Scuba Training Council, Inc., 2005). These kinds of gestures will not be in the focus of this thesis’s review, since this would not contribute much to the purpose of this thesis. Having discussed the more important areas of socially-grown signals, it is now time to draw attention to the evolution-related signals of nonverbal communication. These signals are not based on society and are often based on reflexive behaviour. They originate from different brain areas, which are usually those that are the oldest from an evolutionary perspective. One important brain area for nonverbal communication is the amygdala. Amygdala is one of the primeval parts of our brains being originally based on the fish brain (Givens, 2016). It is implicated in the processing and production on nonverbal signals of fear and anger, as well as, defensiveness and avoidance. Regarding its processing abilities, the amygdala can, for instance, react to fearful behaviour of others’ bodies and faces (De Gelder, 2006). To give an example for its production of nonverbal behaviour, we may instinctively crouch when in fear in order to protect ourselves or press our lips in response to something angering us (Givens, 2016). These automatic reactions are due to the activity of the amygdala and may well have helped us to survive as a species. It can further trigger the release of certain hormones (e.g., adrenaline). Even so, an experiment conducted by Hariri et al. (2000) revealed that brain areas outside the limbic system are capable of regulating the amygdala’s response in certain contexts. Without the amygdala, certain cues related to the emotions and reactions it oversees would lose their significance and meaning to us (Givens, 2016). Nacewicz et al. (2006) demonstrated some outcomes of a smaller amygdala in autistic individuals. They undertook research in this area, since there seems to be a relationship between and amygdala size. The results demonstrate that a smaller amygdala increases the time necessary to distinguish neutral from emotional expressions. Further, social impairments are likely to arise with a smaller amygdala. These findings indicate the amygdala’s importance in nonverbal communication. A younger, but still important, area of the brain influencing nonverbal communication is the cingulate gyrus. The cingulate gyrus is responsible for nonverbal signals we exhibit towards

14 infants, small children or people we care about, as well as, audiovocal cues. Therefore, it plays an important role in nonverbal communication with concern to maternal behaviour and behaviour towards other intimates (e.g., cuddling) (Givens, 2016). These two areas, the amygdala and the cingulate gyrus, are part of a bigger system, called the limbic system. The limbic system also encompasses other brain areas and is responsible for much of our nonverbal behaviour and most of our emotional life (Givens, 2016). It has as such also been acknowledged by practitioners of body language (Navarro, 2011). From an evolutionary perspective, the limbic system is one of the oldest parts of our brain. It served and still serves us well in ensuring the survival of our species (Givens, 2016). A special role in the limbic system is occupied by the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is linked to the autonomic nervous system as well as the endocrine system which is in charge of releasing hormones. Due to these links, this brain area is involved in fight-or-flight responses of our body (Givens, 2016). Nevertheless, apart from participating in contributing its part to the overall amount of messages issued by the limbic system as a whole, the hypothalamus further acts as a mediator for all these messages from the limbic system and, thereby, the resulting nonverbal signals executed by our body (Givens, 2016). To demonstrate the power of our limbic system, the study of Tamietto et al. (2007) will be mentioned. The authors found that if certain kinds of brain damage occur, the limbic system may well be able to override the resulting impairment in certain situations. More specifically, they uncovered that people with attentional disorders concerning the left side of their vision, due to brain injury, may still react to fearful bodies on their left side to an extent that surpasses their attention under neutral conditions. Although linked to the amygdala (De Gelder, 2006), the basal ganglia are not a part of the limbic system. However, it is still essential in terms of nonverbal behaviour. The basal ganglia command involuntary actions regarding expressions of the face, posture, and basic movements of the body. Furthermore, it has some functions targeted at speaking (Givens, 2016). Actions caused by the basal ganglia are, for instance, postural submissiveness or dominance displays. A further example would be the automatic arm-swing while walking. This is due to our basal ganglia still presuming that we are animals walking on all four of our limbs. (Givens, 2016). Parkinson is apparently due to damage in this brain area. This entails problems with all the movements and expressions controlled by the basal ganglia (e.g., facial expressions) (Givens, 2016). A damaged basal ganglia also impacts on the recognition of nonverbal meaning carried by the voice. Pell and Leonard (2003) found that people with

15 damage in the basal ganglia are less sensitive to emotional particularities embedded in the voice’s prosody. By now, it may have become more understandable how profoundly the different brain areas presented contribute to nonverbal communication that is linked to evolution-related signals. To highlight this importance, the study of Carey et al. (2001) will lend evidence. The authors investigated in how far children who survived a brain tumour suffer from nonverbal learning disability, which is a condition that also negatively impacts a person’s nonverbal communication abilities. The study found that the nonverbal skills were below the children’s verbal skill level. Furthermore, they also appeared to lack social skills, which have been found to be positively correlated with the children’s level of nonverbal communication capabilities. Thence, damage in different brain areas may lead to a noticeable impairment of one’s nonverbal communication skills. Of course, to execute nonverbal behaviour and actions, signals need to be transmitted from the brain to the respective muscles. This is done by nerves running down our spine and spreading through our tissue, but even in this process there are some peculiarities with regard to nonverbal communication. Some signals are transferred via the special visceral nerves. These nerves originally used to contribute to the digesting and respiration function and now link to muscles in throat, neck, shoulder, jaw, and face (Givens, 2016). For instance, they are involved in creating facial expressions or swallowing. Since the muscle groups activated are hard to control consciously and since signals are sent unconsciously, resulting nonverbal signals are relatively genuine (Givens, 2016). Between the brain and the respective muscle groups, there are paleocircuits. These are old nerve cell networks or paths involved in sending or receiving nonverbal information. While there are paleocircuits in the brain, they are also in our spinal cord and can act on their own. One example would be the withdrawal reflex after a tactile stimulus (Givens, 2016). Before concluding on the evolution-related, nonverbal function of the brain, there is one more area which merits at least brief attention. This area is mirror neurons. To express it in the words of Rizzolatti (2005) mirror neurons are “…a particular type of neurons that discharge when an individual performs an action, as well as when he/she observes a similar action done by another individual“ (p. 419). While originally discovered in monkeys, it is suggested that humans equally possess this special type of neurons (Buccino et al., 2004; Fadiga et al., 1995; Rizzolatti, 2005). There are several proposed functions for these mirror neurons. The basic mechanism underlying most of these is the recapitulation of an observed action in one’s own movement-related brain areas. It helps us to better understand an observed action and its

16 intention, to imitate observed behaviour, to improve empathy, and even to facilitate speech (Buccino et al., 2004; Rizzolatti, 2005). It may also be that mirror neurons support us in achieving synchrony in nonverbal communication. Kim (2015) defines synchrony as an interactional phenomenon in which we either match or complement our counterpart’s nonverbal behaviour, including the timing. He states that this enhances interaction climate and effectiveness and further indicates that this behaviour has evolution-related as well as socially-grown components. Approaching these functions from a nonverbal point of view, mirror neurons may help us to better understand nonverbal behaviour and to imitate observed nonverbal behaviour and integrate it into our repertoire, which might rather relate to socially- grown signals of nonverbal communication. However, they may also support evolution- related tendencies in our nonverbal behaviour, for which synchrony poses an example. It would surely be possible to extend this discussion of socially-grown and evolution-related nonverbal communication signals over many more pages. Yet, this would go beyond the scope of this thesis. For the purpose of this thesis, the covered points should suffice in order to provide the reader with a sufficient background to better understand single, nonverbal signals and to be able to form an assumption about where they might come from and what might have been their original purpose.

3.2 Nonverbal universality versus specificity Bordering on the subject of Section 3.1 is the discussion of whether signals of nonverbal communication are universal or specific in nature. Universality would suggest that nonverbal behaviour is the same across all human beings across all cultures. In contrast, specificity would imply that nonverbal behaviour is completely different for the members of different cultures. Having discoursed the origins of nonverbal communication signals in Section 3.1, it may now be more understandable that neither the one nor the other direction can be fully supported. Socially-grown signals are likely to by specific for the respective societies or cluster of societies. To repeat the example of the gun gesture of Section 3.1, a society not knowing any guns or firearms of similar shape may have difficulties to make sense of that gesture in the absence of any other more enlightening nonverbal signs. Moreover, the history component may further contribute to the level of specificity in nonverbal communication. Ostensibly, different cultures often do not share a completely identical history, which can lead to different historically grown gestures and nonverbal expressions. An example involving the already introduced moutza gesture (see Section 3.1) can lend support to this point. When an English

17 football team arrived in Greece to challenge a Greek football team, Greek fans of their local team where presenting the moutza to the coach of the English team. However, this was being interpreted as merely a prediction of the fans that the English team would lose five to zero (Collett, 2003). At the same time, when referring to the evolution-related signals of nonverbal communication, it can hardly be assumed that these vary considerably across cultures. Since all normal human beings possess the same brains with the same areas, they should also be subject to the same basic programs of our species and the entailing nonverbal signals. This may be further supported by recalling that many of the signs in this category are not voluntarily controllable. When looking at the categories employed by Morris (1977), a similar impression arises. Inborn action is any behaviour which we all possess from birth on. Discovered action subsumes actions that are similar across people not because they are inborn but because we all have the same basic anatomy. Therefore, we may all discover several similar gestures over time, which we share with people of other cultures as well. Absorbed action includes any nonverbal behaviour we learned from the people in our society, making it liable to cultural variation. Trained action is any behaviour we acquire voluntarily. Finally, Morris (1977) states that some nonverbal behaviour may be the result of the driving forces of several of his categories. He termed these mixed actions. Here we see the representation of nonverbal universality, as well as specificity. Inborn, and discovered action appears to be universal, whereas absorbed action is specific. Trained action may or may not be universal or specific depending on whether it relates to a practice that is culture-specific or a practice that spread all over the globe. Where does this leave us? From what has been discussed so far, it becomes reasonable to presume that some parts of nonverbal communication are universal across culture, while other parts of nonverbal communication are specific to the cultural context in which it occurs. This conjecture could explain how people all over the world are able to get a basic understanding of members of other cultures, but still stumble into occasional nonverbal confusion. Research seems to be supportive regarding this idea of coexistence of culturally universal and specific nonverbal signs. A meta-analysis conducted by Elfenbein and Ambady (2002) ascertained that across-culture recognition of emotions based on several aspects of nonverbal communication is higher than chance. Simultaneously, their analysis provided evidence for an advantage of in-group membership. Members who were similar on dimensions of nationality, culture, or ethnicity exhibited higher accuracy in recognising their emotions than those of out-

18 group members. This advantage was less significant if the two cultures in question showed low physical distance between them or if communication between them was more common. To interpret these findings, the above-chance accuracy of cross-cultural recognition of emotions based on nonverbal communication appears to be related to the universal aspects of nonverbal communication which are being shared by the different cultures. The better accuracy concerning in-group members serves as a hint for the presence of culture-specific nonverbal signals, which are being known to members inside a certain group and maybe also to other groups which are close, but which are less likely to be known to many other people. Another supportive study comes from Scherer and Wallbott (1994). Their results suggest that the experience of basic emotions and the elicited nonverbal signs are universal across cultures, while also acknowledging some extent of cultural variation, which would imply aspects of cultural specificity. This debate could also be broken down to the different areas of nonverbal communication. For instance, facial expressions were for a long time regarded as mainly being subject to cultural influence and learning (Ekman et al., 1974). Later, research conducted by Ekman and colleagues (Ekman, 2003b; Ekman & Friesen, 1971; 1975) found that the facial expressions for the seven basic emotions of sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, contempt, and happiness are universal across cultures. However, this does not mean that there are no other facial expressions that may be specific to a certain culture. Furthermore, even these universal facial expressions may be distorted by culture-specific display rules (Ekman, 2003b). In brief, display rules are norms that regulate the exhibition of emotions. Moreover, there seem to be accents in facial expressions. Marsh et al. (2003) found that people are better able to guess a person’s nationality when the respective person makes an emotional than when he or she displays a neutral facial expression. A more detailed discussion of these aspects and other related facets of the face will follow in Chapter 4 and especially Section 4.1.1. Another exemplary area of nonverbal communication, which shows this simultaneous existence of universal as well as specific cues, is the voice. In their study, Sauter et al. (2010) investigated the mutual understanding of members of a culturally isolated Namibian village and Western subjects with regard to vocal cues. The results of their study suggest that vocal cues representing the emotions of surprise, anger, fear, disgust, sadness, and joy were mutually understood by both subject groups. Nonetheless, voice cues of other emotions (e.g., relief, achievement/triumph) were only understood by members of the same cultural background but not by the other subject group. Another discovered tendency was that

19 vocalisations of mostly negative emotions are understandable cross-culturally, whereas the biggest part of positive emotions is expressed via signals specific to the respective culture. As has been demonstrated, it is not possible to call nonverbal communication and its signals either completely universal across cultures or absolutely culturally specific. This appears to be true for nonverbal communication as a whole but also for the single areas of nonverbal communication. Instead, it seems much more sensible to acknowledge the coexistence of both universality as well as specificity in nonverbal communication and its signals. To discuss this subject was necessary regarding the purpose of this study. Without support for culture specific signals of nonverbal communication, there would have been no reason to assume differences in the nonverbal communication behaviour of different cultures and trying to study them would have been devoid of any sense. However, since nonverbal communication encompasses cultural specificity, the purpose of this thesis seems justified. Having now dealt with the basics of nonverbal communication, the next chapter will look at the place that nonverbal communication occupies in international business conduction.

3.3 Importance of nonverbal communication in international business One does not necessarily have to look at the international arena when searching for evidence for the importance of nonverbal communication. Nonverbal communication is also essential in everyday business conduct at home. Morgan (2001) highlights the role of nonverbal communication during presentations and speeches. In other areas, nonverbal information is even seen as more important than verbal information (Gupta, 2013). During presentations and speeches it is less the possibility to decode but more the knowledge about the effects certain nonverbal signals can call forth in one’s listeners, which may lead to success. Morgan (2001) even implies that a good presentation style may be more salient than content, since the audience’s level of retention is relatively low. This should help to connect to the audience, which is being termed a “kinesthetic connection” (Morgan, 2001; p 114). This is done by supporting verbal messages with nonverbal messages as well as reading the audience’s cues and can also be applied in other interactions to enhance a manager’s leadership capabilities (Morgan, 2001). To give an example, he advises to use gestures which open up and reach towards the listeners (e.g., opening the arms) and to avoid gestures that may involuntarily resemble a barrier between the speaker and the listeners (e.g., arm-crossing). A subordinate as well can benefit from more detailed knowledge about nonverbal communication. McCaskey (1979) stated that actively observing and utilising nonverbal communication can support an individual in his or her job. It allows making assumptions

20 about others’ willingness to support a certain project or give a general impression of interest and disinterest. He further highlights that some thoughts that are believed to be too sensitive in a given situation for open acknowledgement may still be communicated nonverbally, rendering this channel of communication especially salient. Furthermore, Peterson and Leonhardt (2015) discovered that training in nonverbal communication can enhance an individual’s persuasive capabilities, especially if it is combined with training in empathy. The former two paragraphs clearly depict the potential of nonverbal communication to make a difference in daily business for both, managers and their subordinates. However, even here, without crossing national boundaries, cultural influence emerges. Due to immigration for several reasons, expatriate assignments as well as different alternative forms of international short-term assignments, and other factors of today’s business environment, the multiculturalism of national workforces increased and challenges the traditional ways of their being managed (Bennett et al., 2000; Collings et al., 2007; Thomas & Ely, 1996). In fact, a person never leaving his or her home office for work and consequently never crossing national boundaries might well be confronted with several cultural boundaries at work every day. Moving on to the international level, one aspect in which nonverbal communication may play an important role is multicultural work teams. Adler (2008) states that there are many issues regarding a multicultural team’s effectiveness. Overall, these teams either prove to be remarkably effective or highly ineffective compared to the performance of single-culture teams. Normally, nonverbal communication can contribute to the smooth operation of a team. As already mentioned, Peterson and Leonhardt (2015) found a positive link between training of nonverbal skills and persuasiveness. In addition to this, Wood (2006) shows that nonverbal signals can help to build rapport as well as an image of honesty, expertise, and benevolence, which in turn fosters trust and perceived trustworthiness. Further, Bedi (2006 as cited in Peterson & Leonhardt, 2015, p. 78) identified nonverbal communication aspects as contributing to alliance formation for collaborative purposes. Consequently, nonverbal communication can contribute to many factors that may be conducive to effective teamwork. However, it is of paramount importance to keep in mind that nonverbal misunderstandings can happen at any point during teamwork and may even go unnoticed until damage (e.g., lost trust) ensues. This comes down to as basic points as the communication style. Xie et al. (2009) offer support for this claim by demonstrating that members of high context cultures are more effective communicators with respect to nonverbal behaviour, whereas members of low context cultures are more effective in communication with regard to verbal information. Only

21 virtual multicultural teams may be spared by the effect of culture-based nonverbal misunderstandings, which might strongly depend on the degree of naturalness of the individual communication technology employed (Kock, 2005). In other words, technology with less naturalness will digress more from the usual face-to-face contact and, thereby, allow for less transmission of confusing nonverbal cues, which may safeguard against misunderstandings in this area. Halbe (2012) lends some support to this idea. Her comparison of face-to-face meetings and conference calls reveals that the amount of interruptions, overlaps, and pauses decreases with the use of simple conference calls. What remains to be clarified is whether the voice with its rhythm and tonality may still be able to carry nonverbal messages to a sufficient extent, despite the elimination of the visual channel. Cultural intelligence poses another way in which knowledge about nonverbal behaviour can contribute to an employee’s competence and a manager’s leadership capabilities. In short, cultural intelligence, also known as CQ, allows a person to interpret and comprehend the behaviour of members of another culture in the same way as an insider of that very culture would do (Earley & Mosakowski, 2004). Thus, a person with sufficiently high cultural intelligence can interact effectively with people of other cultures (Thomas, 2006). Earley and Mosakowski (2004) split cultural intelligence in three elements. These are the head, representing the acquired knowledge about a foreign culture, the body, meaning the ability to tune into the foreign culture’s customs and expected demeanour, and the heart, referring to the willingness to persevere and overcome difficulties and at the same time believing in one’s own skills. While using three sub-categories as well, Thomas (2006) relies on a slightly different compartmentalisation. His knowledge component resembles the head component and his behaviour component seems to match the formerly explained body component. Even so, his third component is termed mindfulness, which serves as link between acquired knowledge and behaviour and is based on awareness and cognitive processing. Thomas (2006) asserts that without mindfulness knowledge cannot be translated into effective behaviour. Knowledge about nonverbal communication tactics in other cultures may contribute, as the wording already implies, to the head or knowledge component by expanding the existing stock of available information. It may further lead to more adapt utilisation of one’s body and, in this manner, enhance the body or behaviour component of cultural intelligence. Therefore, it is sensible to presume that being adept in nonverbal communication, especially with awareness of its cultural differences, can ameliorate a person’s cultural intelligence making him or her a more effective actor in different cultural settings. What remains to be evaluated now is whether cultural intelligence can actually

22 deliver on its promises. Having a high CQ may be nice, but would eventually lose its importance for business if it cannot produce results. Research (Lin et al., 2012) proves that cultural intelligence indeed facilitates better cross-cultural adjustment, although emotional intelligence, which is the ability to attend to one’s own emotional state and to comprehend that of others, has a moderating role. Further research conducted by Chen et al. (2011) discovered a positive relationship between cultural intelligence and task performance in a foreign culture. Furthermore, their study unveiled a negative relationship between cultural intelligence and culture shock, meaning that people with high cultural intelligence suffer less from culture shock than others. Overall, cultural intelligence seems to be a valuable competence in a multicultural business environment. The probably most prominent business area of application would be intercultural negotiations. Literature states that culture can influence negotiation styles in many different ways (Faure & Sjöstedt, 1993; Sergey, 1999). Given that nonverbal communication differences are part of cultural dissimilarities (Ferraro, 1994) it is reasonable to conclude that nonverbal communication may also influence, and in the worst case critically impede, intercultural negotiations. In fact, even textbooks recognise this connection between cultural, nonverbal communication differences and international negotiations, although only briefly delving into this subject (e.g., Adler, 2008). Summarising, the benefit of nonverbal communication competence for business conduction has been depicted, while also highlighting the possibility of cross-cultural, nonverbal misunderstandings. To give a brief idea about this latter point, the next section will give a few examples of what kind of nonverbal differences may be encountered across different cultures, before delineating the importance of research in this area.

3.4 Communicating across culture It was in summer 2000 at Camp David when Ehud Barak, the Israeli leader at the time, and Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader then, embarked on talks to ease the tensions between their two countries in the presence of former US-president Bill Clinton (Palestine Facts, 2016). After having presented themselves to the reporters, they were about to enter a building. Clinton entered the building first, but Barak and Arafat both seemed to be eager to let each other enter first. Soon hands replaced words and then what almost appeared to be a friendly brawl ensued in front of the cameras. Finally, Barak managed to push Arafat into the building, entering last. While some may have guessed this to have been an unnecessarily pushy attempt to politely offer the other person to enter first, or a slight escalation of hostile feelings, the real

23 cause for this spectacle lies elsewhere. In the Middle East, the person entering last is seen as the person in power, something that both leaders most likely wanted to convey to their people via the cameras of the reporters by this nonverbal action (Millar, 2008). Adapting this to the business world, a negotiator may be well advised to attend to this nonverbal peculiarity when wanting to do business in the Middle East. Subtle differences as exemplified by the dance of Barak and Arafat are more likely to be various than few and permeate many spheres of life. To remain with the topic of international business negotiations for the moment, Graham (1985) conducted a study analysing the negotiation behaviours of cultural members of Brazil, Japan, and the United States. Concerning the nonverbal side of the negotiation behaviour he uncovered several differences. Japanese negotiators allow for more silence than both the US-Americans and Brazilians. Brazilian negotiators interrupt more often and further tend to speak simultaneously. In contrast to the last point, situations with the Japanese as well as the US-Americans showed that one of the speakers would stop talking in the case of an interruption. Brazilians further looked at their bargaining partners for longer periods of time than the US-Americans or the Japanese. Not only eye contact but also physical contact was more common for Brazilian negotiators, who touched each other relatively often. For the Japanese and the US-Americans touch was restricted to the handshake. Dissimilarities in nonverbal communication across cultures do not stop from equally invading relationships of love or close friendship. Bello et al. (2010) studied how verbal and nonverbal behaviour in this kind of close relationships differs between the US-Americans and the Chinese. Their results demonstrate that US-Americans favour verbal over nonverbal behaviour in communicating their appreciation in close relationships. The opposite was true for the Chinese, who highlighted nonverbal behaviours. What is of further interest is that the Chinese not only put more weight on nonverbal behaviour but also displayed a greater variety of such behaviours. As the authors state that the US-Americans are members of a low-context culture, whereas Chinese are members of a high-context culture, this is in line with the findings of Xie et al. (2009) as presented in Section 3.3, which show that members of high context cultures are better in communicating nonverbally and low context cultures are more effective in communicating verbally. Ostensibly, this has an impact for business wherever a friendship may emerge from a cross-cultural business relationship or event. That friendships are being seen as important in international business conduction has been evidenced by a study from Foley et al. (2014).

24 A more difficult situation might arise if a particular nonverbal sign carries different meanings depending on the cultural background in which it is being exhibited. Morris (1977) mentions the circle-sign as having such a condition. In America is signifies “OK”, or that something is great or fine. While French people now adopted this new connotation of the Americans, they also use it to show when they believe that something is worthless. Figure 2: Circle-sign Here, the circle-sign implies “zero”. They distinguish the meaning in a (Travis, 2015) certain situation by paying attention to other contextual features and other nonverbal signs. For Japanese people, the circle-sign represents a coin and, consequently, means “money”. Other countries like Sardinia and Greece even use it in an insulting fashion. Often the people involved do not know about the diverging meanings but assume that it is understood everywhere in the same way. This is where misunderstandings can easily arise. One only has to imagine a meeting of an international workgroup. One member may present a suggestion for purchasing new equipment asking the team leader for his or her opinion. If the leader now uses the circle-sign without offering verbal explanation, the expressed and understood meaning could now vary depending on the cultural origin of these team members. It could mean that the team leader agrees, that she or he perceives the equipment as worthless, or carry a money-related meaning, like that it is too expensive or that clarification for funding sources is required. In the worst case, the presenting member feels that he has just been insulted in front of the whole team. As has already been hinted in the paragraph above, different cultural backgrounds may not only change the meaning of certain nonverbal signals, but also how these signals are being decoded. To give an example for clarification, a study conducted by Albert and Ha (2004) presents evidence that Latino- and Anglo-Americans may interpret certain cues differently. For instance, Latino-Americans tended to interpret silence as punishment in situations in which Anglo-Americans favoured other explanations. Together with the points discussed above, differences in cultural backgrounds can add meaning to behaviour that is seen as neutral by others, change the importance people place on nonverbal communication compared to verbal communication, change the meaning of a nonverbal sign that already has another meaning in another culture, and influence how people perceive certain nonverbal cues. After having dealt with some of the basics of nonverbal communication, the next chapters will focus on the actual nonverbal messages and signals. In line with this thesis’s definition of nonverbal communication, as stated in Section 2.1, the chapters will deal with body language, proxemics, and the voice’s paralinguistic signals.

25 4 Body language Body language is perhaps the biggest part of nonverbal communication. It might even communicate if our lips are closed. The ways in which our body language can transmit messages are manifold. To give just one example, Bailey and Kelly (2015) found that body language has the potential to override the effect of gender stereotypes on perception to some extent. In an experiment, they asked subjects to view images of men or women in either dominant or submissive poses and then to select from an assortment of words those which best suit their impression of the respective image. Accuracy and rating speed revealed that men in submissive poses could not fully convince subjects to choose words indicating submission. But women in dominant poses indeed elicited the selection of dominant words. Another aspect of body language is that it may not only communicate to others but also to our own body. An experiment by Carney et al. (2010) discovered that adopted postures of high power resulted in physiological changes like the increase in testosterone and the decrease of cortisol in both male and female subjects. As a consequence, their feelings of power and risk tolerance increased. An opposite effect could be observed when subjects adopted low-power postures. Interestingly, to trigger this effect, adopting two postures for one minute each suffices. Although this is an intriguing effect, this literature review will not go into too much detail regarding this aspect of body language, since the focus of this thesis is on how people send and comprehend nonverbal messages. As already explained in Section 2.1, the basic literature for this chapter and its subsections will be the material of Morris and Givens. However, Section 4.1.1, which deals with micro expressions, will more strongly rely on literature from Ekman and his colleagues. The following sections will examine different parts of the body starting from its top and ending at its lowest part.

4.1 The head and face In order to explore the body language related to the head and face of the human body, it may be advisable to first look at the anatomical peculiarities of these areas. From an evolutionary standpoint, the human head differs notably from the head of primates. One of these anatomical differences is the forehead. While in primates the forehead appears nonexistent, human beings without forehead would seem utterly strange (Morris, 1986). An explanation for this may well be the increase in brain matter of human beings compared to primates (Morris, 1986). At the bottom of the human forehead are the eyebrows. One of the functions of the eyebrows is the protection of the eyes from sweat. Even so, a more important function

26 of them is to allow for a better reading of facial signals, since the eyebrows usually form a contrast with the rest of the human face (Morris, 1986). Indeed, both forehead and eyebrows are essential regions of the human face when it comes to nonverbally expressing emotions during communication (Ekman, 2003b; Ekman & Friesen, 1975). It even appears as if this area of the face is one of the more reliable ones when it comes to collecting evidence for lie detection, as some of the muscles cannot be controlled voluntarily (Ekman, 2009). In general, the eyebrows of women are thinner, whereas male eyebrows tend to be rather bushy in comparison (Morris, 1986). Omitting the eyes (which will be discussed separately in Section 4.1.2), the next part would be the nose. There are several evolutionary theories for the development of the nose, which will not be the centre of discussion of this section. What remains is to acknowledge that, like with the forehead, the nose distinguishes the human face from the face of a primate (Morris, 1986). The shape of the nose differs across ethnicities. Usually, humans with darker skin colour have broader noses than most of the human population with lighter skin colour. These differences are the evolutionary response to the diverse temperature and humidity conditions of the areas in which the respective ethnicity originally lived (Morris, 1986). Morris (1986) further posits that female noses are on the average smaller than those of their male counterparts. Another important part of the head, though less expressive than other areas, are the human ears, which allow for better hearing and also house our sense of balance (Morris, 1986). The cheeks are again one of the more expressive parts of the face since they are involved in several emotional displays (Ekman, 2003b; Ekman & Friesen, 1975; Morris, 1986). The cheek has further significance in the realm of intimate behaviour (Morris, 1971). Mouth and tongue will be discoursed separately in Section 4.1.3. The last major part of the head is throat and neck. Once more, the evolutionary process brought forth a male and a female version of this part of the human body. For males, it is shorter and broader, whereas the opposite is true for females. Moreover, males possess a bigger Adam’s apple. The throat and neck are also involved in many movements that move the whole head (Morris, 1986). This brief look on the most ostensible anatomical features of the human head and face shows clearly the complexity involved in this area of the human body. This allows for expressions in many ways, even when only looking at the face itself. Therefore, it is understandable that Ferraro (1994) describes the face as “…perhaps the single most important part of the body for channelling nonverbal communication” (p. 91). This perception is shared by Morris (1977) and McCaskey (1979). Furthermore, when watching TV-interviews of any kind, the head is often in the centre of the frame. Due to this elevated importance, this area will experience

27 more comprehensive covering compared to other areas of nonverbal communication dealt with in this literature review. When it comes to the importance of head and face in detecting lies, there are different points of view. Although rather based on his professional experience as former FBI agent than solely on science, Navarro (2011) classifies the face as having low reliability for the simple reason that it is a part of the body, which people are usually aware of during communication and which is also controllable to some extent. For the science part of his argument, he apparently drew on Morris’s (1977) delineation. In contrast, Ekman (2009) stresses the importance of the face when trying to discover untruths by focusing on the muscles and expressions of the face that can hardly be voluntarily controlled by the average human being. Apart from everything mentioned so far, before delving further into the topic, it remains to be answered whether head and face can actually portray and communicate emotions in an understandable manner. Special attention is here given to the face. Intuitively, many people would probably answer with “yes”. Yet, research of early years delivered controversial evidence regarding this question, which even led to periods of pessimism (Ekman et al., 1974). One reason for this early confusion, as suggested by Ekman et al. (1974), is that not all facial expressions are linked to emotions. An example would be physical pain, which spawns a facial expression clear enough to allow for machine based detection (Ashraf et al., 2009). Nonetheless, Ekman et al. (1974), after analysing a significant amount of studies regarding emotions and the face, reach the conclusion that the main responsibility can be found in faulty empirical research design and inaccurate reasoning. One of the main conclusions of their review is that human beings are well able to express emotions via their face and that observers are able to reliably determine the emotion, which triggered the facial expression, even if that expression is of spontaneous nature. Another point, which is clarified by Ekman et al. (1974) is the relationship between context and facial expression when it comes to decoding a person’s emotional state. According to them, research was unclear whether context or whether the face was the superior indicator for an individual’s emotional state. By critically evaluating several studies, they assert that neither the face nor the context is superior in all situations. They further refute the claim that context and face together allow for the best guess of the experienced emotion by referring to the possibility of contradictory information in the context and in the face. However, they state that the face alone suffices to make a sound judgement about its owner’s emotions. A related topic is the specific relationship between face and body regarding the accurate reading of body language. Avizier et al. (2012b) researched how observers process face and

28 body and discovered that subjects were better able to judge a person’s emotional state when they were allowed to process body and face as a holistic unit. Consequently, they conclude that face and body are originally seen as two sub-parts of one holistic unit. Another study of Avizier et al. (2012a) demonstrated this connection between body and face by investigating the body language during peak moments of highly intense positive or negative emotion. They found that observers cannot distinguish whether a person is experiencing positive or negative emotions in that situation by referring to the face alone. However, the body alone or in combination with the face does allow for reliably determination. Interestingly, they further revealed that most subjects imputed their judgement to the expression of the face instead of body cues. Avizier et al. (2012a) suggest two explanations, the first being that the facial muscles may simply be insufficiently developed for the accurate display of the emotions in high-intensity situations, and the second being that the high intensity might be the dominant feeling in that moment discounting the actual valence of the emotion felt. As a result, it seems as if facial expressions become more reliable indicators of emotion when combined with body cues. It has already been discussed in Section 3.2 whether nonverbal communication is predominantly universal or specific with concern to culture. Since this was an especially contested issue regarding the face, it merits a few additional lines before eventually describing the basic nonverbal signals of head and face. Ekman and Friesen (1971) did seminal work in this respect by unveiling that at least some important emotional expressions are being shared across cultures. Before their research, most scholars presumed that facial expressions were specific to each culture and that cross-cultural understanding of these was enabled by mass media exposure, which supposedly taught the facial expressions to people of another culture (Ekman et al., 1974). Further support stems from the investigation of facial expressions of emotions of blind children, which produce the same basic expressions as sighted children (Ekman et al., 1974). More recent research of Galati et al. (2003) provided additional support by equally discovering similarity of facial expressions of congenitally blind and sighted children of eight to eleven years of age. This again counters the claim that all facial behaviour is learned and builds the argument of certain innate universals. Having now discussed at length the several important basics for the nonverbal communication ability of the human head and especially the face, it is now great time to follow up with some examples of how these parts of the body actually communicate. One basic condition that can be communicated is interest. One signal of disinterest can be the blank face. The blank face is what our face looks like if it is expressionless, usually with mouth closed and eyes open

29 (Givens, 2016). Humans adopt this blank face when engaging in unexciting everyday activities and when trying to establish distance to other people (Givens, 2016). This nonverbal tactic appears to work, as even infants of less than one year of age direct less attention to expressionless faces than joyful faces. In fact, they direct as much attention to expressionless as to angry faces (LaBarbera et al., 1976). Regarding head movements, disinterest can be demonstrated by a pulling back of the head or the turning away of the head. Both are movements which allow the head to distance him- or herself from the disliked object or subject (Morris, 1986). When considering head movements which indicate interest, these patterns are being reversed. If we are interested in something, we more often than not turn our head to face the object or subject of interest. Similarly we may move our head into the respective direction to get closer (Morris, 1986). Another important nonverbal message which can be sent with head and face is vulnerability. A relatively typical gesture employed for displaying vulnerability is the head-cant, which is being executed by lowering the head towards one of the shoulder, without necessarily touching it (Morris, 1986). It appears to be more common in female than male nonverbal communication (Collett, 2003; Costa et al., 2001). The head-cant displays Figure 3: Head-cant (The Psychology of vulnerability because it exposes the vulnerable neck to the Attractiveness Podcast, 2015) other person (Collett, 2003). Via this display of vulnerability, the head-cant can act most notably as a signal for appeasement and submissiveness, but also as a flirting or friendliness signal (Collett, 2003; Givens, 2016). The latter two signals may seem strange at first, but can be easily explained when looking at the role of the head in intimate behaviour. In this context, only close ones are allowed to touch our head and face (Morris, 1971). A recent study of Suvilehto et al. (2015) provides additional support by unveiling that we do not expect strangers to touch us at the head, even though it is not a taboo zone. This holds true for both females and males. However, exposing vulnerable parts of the head does not always imply friendly feelings. One good depiction of this statement is the leaning back of the head which entails a forward-thrust of the chin (Givens, 2016). This gesture equally exposes a vulnerable part of the head, namely the throat, yet it also tends to give the impression of increasing one’s height, which communicates dominance (Collett, 2003; Givens, 2016) and is, therefore, in opposition to the head-cant, which rather lowers a person’s body height. Moreover, the often accompanied chin thrust is a sign of aggressiveness (Grant, 1969; Morris, 1986). Overall, the exposure of the throat is meant to be a sign of

30 dominance perhaps showing that the person executing this nonverbal signal feels no need to protect this vulnerable part of his or her body due to his felt superiority (Morris, 1986). As a result the signal is one of haughtiness, superiority, contempt, and almost aggression (Givens, 2016). Somewhat related to the topic of vulnerability is the matter of self-comfort. Here the head displays a more passive role by being one of the prime targets of the hands, which usually conduct the different gestures (Givens, 2016; Morris, 1971; 1977). There are different names for this element of nonverbal communication, like auto-contact, self-touch, or self-intimacies, but in general they try to achieve one purpose, which is to increase comfort and alleviate stress (Givens, 2016; Morris, 1971; Navarro, 2011). As a consequence, they may appear more often under conditions of, and therefore hint, emotional tension (e.g.,, fear, insecurity) (Givens, 2016). More activity is seen in the head when it nonverbally transmits the message of submissiveness or dominance. As has already been explained in this section, increases in size tend to convey an image of dominance. Hence, erect postures of the head help demonstrating dominance or at least the executing person’s feeling of it. Another already mentioned signal of dominance is the leaning back of the head and the chin-thrust. The head-cant would then be a sign of submissiveness as it gives the impression of reducing the body height (Givens, 2016). Thus, lowering the head can potentially become a sign of submissiveness. One example of this is the head dip. This is a brief downward movement of the head, which temporarily lowers the body height and, thereby, communicates submissiveness and could happen after having committed a mistake (Millar, 2008). Another head movement exemplifying this principle would be the forward-tilt of the head, which, besides of displaying submissiveness, further serves as a sign of a depressed emotional state (Morris, 1986). In addition to this, the forward-tilt of the head seems to be a culturally universal sign of shame, although it is subject to cultural regulation in its expression (Tracy & Matsumoto, 2008). Also the tucking-in of the chin, as the opposite of the putting forth of the chin, communicates submissiveness (Grant, 1969). Head and face are not only restricted to their mobility in their output of nonverbal signals. In shame and other situations which draw negatively perceived attention to a person raising self- consciousness issues, that person’s face may blush (Collett, 2003; Givens, 2016; Morris, 1986). This reddening of the face often originates from the cheeks but can extend to the rest of the head, including the ears and the neck, and may even spread to the upper chest (Givens, 2016; Morris, 1986). It is not subservient to the voluntary control of the person’s will (Collett, 2003; Morris, 1986). Blushing is also involved in anger reactions (Givens, 2016), yet it

31 usually signifies inactive anger, which should not be followed by any physical aggressive reaction (Morris, 1986). According to Morris (1986), the paling of the face is indicative for anger which entails physical aggression, since here the body draws the blood from the face into the muscles in preparation for action, which may be attack or (fearful) flight. The head and face further add as nonverbal support in spoken interaction. Two movements which may come to mind quickly concerning this subject are the nodding and shaking of the head. Most Westerners would intuitively conclude that head nodding implies agreement with a statement or towards a question, whereas head shaking implies disagreement and refusal. It is true that these meanings can be conveyed by these motions (Morris, 1986). However, they can signal other things as well. As for the head nod, it can also be utilised in conversation as a sign of encouragement towards the speaker or even by the speaker himself (Duncan, 1972; McClave, 2000). The amount of head nodding also increases when a person is attracted to another person (Morris, 1977). With respect to the head shake, there are as well other potential meanings. For instance, it could also express disbelief or conviction (Givens, 2016). Another example has been discovered by McClave (2000), which is a lateral sweep motion of the face. This happens whenever the speaker mentions a greater amount of something (e.g., “everybody”, “whole”) to accompany the words. The origin of the head shake is seen as being related to infant behaviour. Whenever the infant refuses the mother’s breast it commonly does so by turning its head to the side. It appears to be this movement, which is responsible for the head shake in its refusal function (Givens, 2016; Morris, 1986). The head further seems to be helpful as emphasiser when talking, much like the hands, in a baton-like manner (Morris, 1977). Morris (1977) additionally mentions head movements as a pointing device under conditions in which pointing with the fingers is not allowed. Another action, which serves the Figure 4: Plucked purpose of greeting and may eventually lead to a conversation, is eyebrows (Sol, 2016) the brief plucking of the eye brows (Morris, 1986). It will again be mentioned here that cultural variation exists with regard to the different nonverbal head and face actions described until now, even though some of them might well be universal across cultures. To exemplify this potential for cultural variation, a return to the head shake and head nod may be recommendable. In fact, the head shake is not the only possibility to express disagreement and refusal. Morris (1977) describes the head toss, an upward jerking motion of the head, as potential signal for “no” in different cultures. This may be confusing for unaware observers since it is also a vertical movement like the head nod. In a

32 similar vein, the head nod is not the only possible way of displaying approval and agreement across the world. For instance, in Bulgaria and parts of India, the tilting of the head to one shoulder and then the other is used to convey agreement (Morris, 1986). As these examples hopefully display, even the head movements some may perceive as being some of the clearest of our nonverbal repertoire may fail in their communicative function in certain cultures. Before examining some more specific parts of this body area and the basic nonverbal messages they can transmit, it remains to be briefly mentioned that this section concentrated on the more dynamic aspects of the head and face. For the sake of completion, it needs to be mentioned that also static features of the face can communicate certain messages. Hair would be just one example. Age would be one example for information communicated by hair due to its age-related change of colour (Morris, 1986). Beards are another form how hair can lead to nonverbal communication. For example, a study conducted by Dixson and Brooks (2013) revealed that a fully grown beard transmitted an image of better health and better parenting abilities of its wearer to both men and women. There are many more possibilities how static features of the head and face can communicate nonverbally, but this would eventually exceed the scope of this thesis.

4.1.1 Micro expressions When discussing the nonverbal signals of the face, micro expressions are not to be foregone. Micro expressions are quick movements of the face which remain on it for less than one-fifth of a second (Ekman, 2003b). They can occur as a full expression on the whole face or as more subtle expressions. Subtle expressions are limited to one or a few parts of the face or reduced in intensity (Ekman, 2003b; Ekman & Friesen, 1975). Reasons for the emergence of micro expressions could be for example that a person is trying to consciously or unconsciously conceal their facial movements and the emotions linked to it (Ekman, 2003b). However, since the reflex to conceal is too slow to block the first signs of the facial expression, which is the result of brain activity that acts faster than the wish to suppress, the complete and immediate elimination of the expression is impossible, giving birth to a micro expression (Ekman, 2003b; Ekman & Friesen, 1975). Micro expressions are universal across cultures for the emotions of sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, contempt, and happiness (Ekman, 2003b). This circumstance implies that cross-cultural, nonverbal communication regarding these basic emotions can be facilitated by these expressions, given that the facial expression is being present for a long enough time.

33 As the in-text references of the former paragraph already imply, the father of micro expressions is Paul Ekman (Millar, 2008). The probably most important piece of research for the establishment of the universal micro expressions for the seven basic emotions may well be Ekman and Friesen’s (1971) discovery that facial expressions of members of Eastern and Western literate cultures were equally well understood in an isolated, illiterate culture in New Guinea. An equally supportive study, though unpublished, of Ekman et al. (1970 as cited in Ekman et al., 1974, p. 135) shows that the facial expressions of Japanese during the observation of a stress inducing video demonstrate striking similarity with the facial expressions of US-Americans watching the same video, given that the Japanese thought their face was not subject to observation. As the USA and Japan are different with concern to their culture, as is suggested by their values on several etic dimensions of culture (Hofstede, 2001; House et al., 2004), this again provided evidence for universal facial expressions across cultures. To measure these micro expressions, but also other facial expressions, and to create scientific terms for the different movements of the various facial muscles Ekman et al. (1971) developed and validated the facial action scoring technique (FAST), which drew strongly on the anatomical knowledge of the human face (Ekman et al., 1974). FAST has later been succeeded by the facial action coding system (FACS) (Ekman & Friesen, 1978). FACS is still based on the anatomical peculiarities of the human face and codes the movements of the different facial muscles into action units (AU). Thence, a facial expression can be described as a set of AUs, which can effectively communicate the facial expression to other researchers who did not see the face but have knowledge of the FACS. The following pages will give an overview of the micro expressions of the basic emotions. The pictures will be drawn from the publications of Ekman (2003b) and Ekman and Friesen (1975), which can both be found in the reference list of this thesis. Note that the following descriptions focus on the emotion’s micro expression in its complete form 1 . As already discussed, more subtle forms of these can be partial (e.g., activity only in the eyes but not the mouth area) or relatively low in intensity.

1 For more information on the subtleties of micro expressions and the emotional triggers, which call forth the different micro expressions, the reader is referred to Paul Ekman’s book Emotions Revealed. It can be found in the reference list of this thesis.

34 Sadness

The sadness micro expression displays an angled upward pull of the inner corners of the eyebrows as they are being drawn together and up. In many people, a wrinkle between the eyebrows may ensue from that. This telltale movement is usually hard to produce voluntarily for most people. Yet, some people do not display the upward pull but instead a wrinkling of the forehead’s part above the inner eyebrow corners (Ekman,

Figure 5: Sadness micro 2003b). The upper eyelids droop slightly. The lips go into a expression (Ekman, 2003b, p. 106) horizontal stretch with the lower lip being pushed up and the cheeks raised (Ekman, 2003b). Normally one would expect to see the lip corners pointing downwards, but the raising of the cheeks can eliminate this expression or even lead to an upward pull of the corners, which would then produce an expression somewhat resembling a grin. A further offspring of the raised cheeks is the nasolabial furrow. This furrow runs downwards starting from about the nostrils and ending beyond the lip corners (Ekman, 2003b). The mouth itself can be either shut or open. The chin muscle wrinkles and pushes up the skin between the lower lip and the chin (Ekman, 2003b).

Anger

In anger we lower and draw-together our eyebrows. This is accompanied by glaring eyes, which are characterised by the lifting and tensing of the upper eyelid and the tensing of the lower eyelid (Ekman, 2003b). The jaw is tensed. For the mouth, there are two possibilities. If it is open, it should form a rectangular shape due to the tensed muscles of the jaw. If the mouth is closed, it should lead to the thinning of the lips as these are tightly pressed against each other. This thinning of the lips appears to be a relatively reliable and early sign of anger in

Figure 6: Anger micro a person. The jaw, and with it potentially the chin, moves expression (Ekman & Friesen, 1975, forward (Ekman, 2003b). p. 93)

35 Fear

Fear leads to a raising and pulling together of the eyebrows. However, the inner corners of the eyebrows are not angulated as in the sadness micro expression. This raising of the eyebrows may also create wrinkles in the forehead (Ekman, 2003b; Ekman & Friesen, 1975) The upper eye lids are raised, in a state of extreme fear as much as possible, with the lower eyelids being tensed and raised as well (Ekman, 2003b). The lips should stretch back towards the ears in a horizontal Figure 7: Fear micro expression manner. Further, the chin may be pulled back (Ekman, 2003b) (Ekman, 2003b, p. 168)

Surprise

The signals of surprise and fear are often confused with each other (Ekman, 2003b). However, there are differences. To start with the eyebrows, surprise eyebrows too are being pulled up, but, as opposed to fear eyebrows, they are not being drawn together, which gives them a somewhat semicircular appearance. Yet, they may also wrinkle the forehead as the fear eyebrows (Ekman, 2003b). The upper eyelids are

similarly raised in surprise, tough they might be raised higher Figure 8: Surprise micro expression in fear than in surprise. Nevertheless, there are two features (Ekman, 2003b, p. 168) that can distinguish a strong surprise expression of the eyes from a strong fear expression. One is duration. The surprise micro expression is relatively short-lived, which makes it disappear after one or two seconds. A longer duration rather implies fear. The second distinguishing feature is the lower eyelid, which is relatively passive in surprise, whereas it is raised and tense in fear (Ekman, 2003b). Finally, the mouth tends to drop open in surprise without a stretch of the lips (Ekman, 2003b).

36 Disgust

In disgust, the eyebrows may be pulled down. However, they are not being drawn together as in anger. The cheeks are raised pushing up the lower eyelid. These movements can also create crow’s-feet wrinkles (Ekman, 2003b). In spite of these changes, the real indicators of disgust lie in the lower areas of the face (still including the cheek action). A strong sign of disgust is the wrinkling of the nose with lifted nostril wings further producing a deep wrinkle starting from the sides of the nose and running

Figure 9: Disgust micro down to beyond the corners of the lip (Ekman, 2003b). Another expression (Ekman & Friesen, 1975, strong signal is the raised upper lip, which is complemented by a p. 70) raised lower lip that might also be slightly pushed out. The mouth can be closed or open (Ekman, 2003b; Ekman & Friesen, 1975).

Contempt

To clarify the idea of contempt, Ekman (2003b) describes it as close to disgust. It is a feeling of (moral) superiority to other people or their actions. The micro expression of contempt does not include many movements. Its predominant characteristic is the one-sided activity of the face, seemingly with focus on the mouth (Ekman, 2003b). One upper lip corner could be raised as in disgust, potentially leading to a slight opening of the lips,

whereas the other side of the mouth does not display much Figure 10: Contempt micro expression movement. Nonetheless, an even less ambiguous sign of (Ekman, 2003b, p. 185) contempt would be the tight-lipped raising of one lip corner, with the opposite lip corner not mirroring this movement (Ekman, 2003b). This latter case is being shown in the picture for this micro expression.

37 Happiness

The most conspicuous sign of happiness or enjoyment is the smile (Ekman, 2003b). The smile of this micro expression may well occur with each enjoyable emotion but needs to be distinguished from the fake smile. The other signs of the real enjoyment smile aid in this task. The most important part, but perhaps also the hardest to spot, is the slight lowering of the eyebrow combined with a pulling down of the skin below them.

This movement cannot be controlled voluntarily and cannot be Figure 11: Happiness micro expression fabricated without experiencing joyful emotions (Ekman, (Ekman, 2003b, p. 208) 2003b). Indeed, it can serve in distinguishing the real smile from a masking smile (Ekman et al., 1988). The lower eyelid is being tensed. Combined with the former movements, this leads to a narrowing of the eyes. Further, the cheeks are raised and crow’s-feet wrinkles may emerge (Ekman, 2003b). The lips stretch in a smile, which is marked by the pulling up of the lip corners (as opposed the mere pulling back as in e.g., fear). The lips may part to show the teeth or remain closed (Ekman, 2003b; Ekman & Friesen, 1975).

These are the seven basic emotions and their full micro expressions. Please remember that every emotion may appear as a fragment of the original, full expression in parts of the face. In addition to this, it must be mentioned that there can also be other reasons for displaying what appears to be a part of a certain micro expression. For instance, the lowered and drawn- together eyebrows of anger can equally occur in situations of intense thinking (e.g., trying to solve a problem, confusion) or when being exposed to bright light (Ekman, 2003b). Ostensibly, this does not automatically incur anger, which means that this partial expression can show up in the complete absence of any angry feelings due to other circumstances. In addition to this, emotional blends are possible, displaying one emotion in one part of the face and another emotion in another one (Ekman, 2003b; McCaskey, 1979). One example for this is what Benitez-Quiroz et al. (2016) called the not face. According to them, the not face is an assemblage of the micro expressions of anger, contempt, and Figure 12: Not face (Gregoire, 2016) disgust. The authors assert that it accompanies speech as a kind of

38 marker and nonverbally signals negation. They further point out the cultural universality of this expression. A further topic that requires short discussion is the role of cultural display rules. It has been asserted in this section that the presented micro expressions are universal across cultures. This is true, but things like to whom which emotion can be shown and in which situations a certain expression is permissible depend on learned, cultural norms (i.e., display rules) (Ekman, 2003b; Ekman & Friesen, 1975). Even though the members of different cultures share essentially the same facial expressions for basic emotions, they introduce a certain variance into nonverbal communication by adhering to their respective culture’s display rules. In addition to this, facial expressions seem to carry some kind of nonverbal accent. Marsh et al. (2003) found that people are more accurate in guessing a person’s nationality when that person displays a facial expression than when being presented with a neutral face. Another research article of Marsh et al. (2007) lends further support to this finding by showing that US-Americans were able to distinguish Australians from US-Americans when being presented with an emotional, facial expression of the judged person but not when seeing a neutral expression in the face. Somewhat related to this are the findings of Hess et al. (2016). Yet, instead of looking at how culture influenced the display of facial emotions, they looked at how it affected the perception of facially expressed emotions. They found evidence that cultural decoding rules indeed affect the way we understand others’ facial expressions. A factor, which is of additional interest concerning the basic micro expressions across culture is the fact that not only the way of expressing but also the experience of emotions follows cultural norms, which again impacts on when the observer may encounter micro expressions. Eid and Diener (2001) studied the cultural norms for experiencing emotions and discovered that there, too, one finds universal and culture-specific norms. By comparing collectivistic and individualistic societies, they found different norms for emotional experience, especially for emotions, which are based on self-reflection (e.g., guilt). Moreover, the intranational coherence of these norms was greater in the studied individualistic countries than in the collectivistic countries. These findings are somewhat mirrored by the work of Scherer and Wallbot (1994), who found that emotional experience across cultures has universal as well as specific aspects. Overall, this means that culture has an impact on how we display, how we experience, and how we decode facial expressions, although these facial expressions are basically the same across cultures.

39 4.1.2 The eyes The eyes are most likely the human organs which provide us with most of the information concerning our environment (Morris, 1986). An opening, the pupil, regulates, by dilating or contracting, the amount of information in form of light, which is being passed on to the cells at the back of the eye. After having received the visual information, these cells transform it into signals that are then sent to the brain which finally allows us to consciously recognise the visual image of what we are actually looking at (Morris, 1986). The pupil contraction and dilation are effectuated by the iris, which cannot wilfully be controlled. In order to allow for the right amount of light to effectively process the visual information received, dark surroundings lead to the dilation of the pupil, whereas bright surroundings result in the contraction of the pupil (Morris, 1986). Iris and pupil are in the midst of the sclera, which is the white part of the eye. The mainly white sclera is an element of the eye that appears to be generally absent in the eyes of animals, making it a predominantly human feature. However, it seems to have no other use than to allow observers to see what we are looking at, as it has no optical function in processing visual information (Morris, 1986). The last major part of the eye meriting attention is the eye lid with its lashes. The eye lid can close to protect our optical apparatus from damage, but this is not its sole function. It further contains glands which release fluid. Blinking then allows for keeping the eye moist and cleaning it. This effect is further supported by the secretion of tear fluid (Morris, 1986). As the eyes might serve as our main input channels for external information, it intuitively makes sense that they help to indicate their owner’s level of interest. There are several ways the eyes can give away a person’s state of interest. One is the gaze pattern of a person. When being interested in something or someone, we tend to direct our gaze at that thing or that person (Givens, 2016). This is somewhat related to our turning our head towards objects or subjects of interest, as mentioned in Section 4.1, and may often serve the purpose of information gathering (Argyle & Dean, 1965). Normally, we feel uncomfortable maintaining eye contact for too long and, therefore, break it after some time (Givens, 2016). There are, however, conditions that can lead to a prolonged stare. One of these conditions is attraction or love. When being attracted to someone, we tend to maintain eye contact just a little longer than would be usual in our cultural setting. Alternatively, we repeatedly break eye contact before again directing our gaze at the person we feel attracted to (Collett, 2003; Morris, 1977; 1971). One other behaviour that could appear especially during flirting is the eye puff. Here, a person opens his or her eyes wider than usually, making him or her slightly resemble a big-eyed infant, which may raise

40 protective feelings in his or her conversation partner. The eye puff seems to be a rather female nonverbal behaviour (Collett, 2003). Returning to the gaze, there is, however, another situation in which prolonged staring can occur. This is a situation of hate (Morris, 1986). Already primates use the stare as threat display (Givens, 2016). Further evidence suggests that prolonged eye contact and close proximity are indicative of higher dominance and control (Burgoon et al., 1984). Taking these two meanings of the stare, loving attraction and pronounced hate, may finally help explain why we do not feel comfortable when maintaining eye contact with a relative stranger for an extended period of time. Remaining with the topic of interest, a second way of conveying this relies on the pupils and may, therefore, be less conspicuous than overt gazing. Overall, if we are confronted with something pleasant our pupils tend to dilate, whereas they contract if we face something unpleasant (Morris, 1986). From a practitioner’s perspective, ex-FBI agent Joe Navarro (2011) seems to support this idea. It is supposed that this unconscious behaviour of the pupils acts as a kind of perceptual protection against unpleasant stimuli (Hutt & Anderson, 1967). As mentioned above, pupil size contractions and dilations are involuntary. Hence, they seem to be relatively reliable in transmitting real attitudes and feelings of a person. The ability of the pupil to disclose a person’s emotional state is deemed sufficiently reliable so that Al-Omar et al. (2013) explored this nonverbal signal as being used in combination with machines to aid noncommunicative individuals in communicating their emotional state. In addition to this, Morris (1986) states that a person with dilated pupils is perceived as more attractive than a person with pupils lacking dilation. Nevertheless, Jones and Moyel (1971) suggest that this effect may be restricted to the perception of the opposite gender and might not be valid if the observer is of the same gender as the person with the dilated pupils. Yet, they found that people with light iris colour are perceived more positively than those with darker iris colour. According to King (1972), increased pupil size of people displayed in advertisements can help improving the advertisement’s perception. Gaze patterns can further act as compensation for other kinds of (nonverbal) closeness (e.g., interpersonal proximity). As discoursed in Section 2.3, Argyle and Dean (1965) found that a person reduces eye contact the closer another person was located. Similarly, a person would stand closer to another person if that latter person had shut eyes. This implies that eye contact may be averted to increase the felt nonverbal distance if a person draws too close or might be prolonged to reduce the felt nonverbal distance if the other person is felt as being too far away. However, rapid eye blinking may rather show that a person is in a state of arousal or

41 stress (Givens, 2016). It can also occur when a person is close to crying as an attempt to rid the eyes of an excess of tear fluid (Morris, 1986). In contrast, a reduction in the blinking rate could mean that a person is engaged in cognitive tasks, as blinking may disrupt the flow of thinking (Holland & Tarlow, 1975). Dominance may also be displayed by gaze patterns during communication. Dovidio and Ellyson (1982) found that people who look more at the other person while speaking compared to the amount of time they look at the other person while listening, are perceived as more dominant. This conveyed dominance augments with an increase in the amount of time spent looking while speaking and diminishes with an increase in the amount of looking while listening. A further nonverbal area of interest with regard to the eyes is deception. The eyes seem to be strongly linked to deception in the mind of most people. Even police officers seem to believe that they can find the truth in someone’s eyes (Millar, 2008). Apparently, people believe that liars avert the gaze to not have to look their victim in the eye (Ekman, 2009; Gordon et al., 1987). While averting eye contact may indicate a higher stress level, Navarro and Schafer (2001) assert that even investigators rely too heavily on this element of nonverbal communication to spot lies. One reason for this is that looking away can have several reasons, like sadness (looking down), guilt and shame (looking away or down) or disgust (looking away) (Ekman, 2009). Looking down can equally appear in the early phases of courtship or in a situation of submissiveness (Morris, 1977). Another factor is the fact that this “rule of thumb” is known to potential liars. Henceforth, liars may deliberately extend eye contact to manipulate their victims into believing their untruth (Ekman, 2009; Navarro & Schafer, 2001). Especially people rating high in Machiavellianism display a tendency to do so (Exline et al., 1970). A further point is the ignorance of cultural differences in this respect. Ferraro (1994) and McCaskey (1979) state that different cultures differ in their gaze patterns, including eye contact. Consequently, cultures which tend to favour short periods of eye contact with more frequent breaks may be perceived as less sincere, whereas cultures which favour longer periods of eye contact might appear more sincere in their statements. This could most likely influence intercultural communication. Apart from eye contact there is another form of gaze pattern that was initially thought to betray a liar, although it does not originate from common sense. Instead, it stems from the realm of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). According to The Association for NLP (ANLP) NLP is “…a collection of a wide range of methods and models which create an understanding of thought process and behaviour” (ANLP International CIC, 2016). One of

42 these models is the eye accessing cues (O’Connor & Seymour, 1990). In brief, this model asserts that a person’s thoughts can be categorised according to the eye movements of that person during his or her thinking process. For right-handed people this means (from the perspective of the thinking person) that looking up and left signifies visual memories, looking straight to the left implies memories of sounds, looking down and left means the person is engaged in an inner dialog, looking up and right signifies constructed visual thoughts, looking straight to the right stands for the internal construction of sounds, looking down to the right implies feelings or reactions of the body, and looking forward in a straight manner indicates visualisation (O’Connor & Seymour, 1990). An application of this pattern with regard to deception detection led to the belief that looking up to the right happens when someone is telling a lie, whereas looking to the left is a sign of truth telling (Wiseman et al., 2012). Wiseman et al. (2012) conducted three studies, which failed to provide support for the idea that eye accessing cues could reliably mark a lie or a truth. Overall, it seems as if the eyes fail to provide certain information about whether a person is lying or not. Two cross-cultural differences of the static features of the eye will briefly be mentioned since they may be pertinent to the ethnicities which pose the sample groups of this thesis’s study (i.e., Austrians and Taiwanese; see Section 7.2). One ostensible difference of the eye that might be one of the most pronounced between Westerners and Asians is the almond-like eye shape of various Asian ethnicities. This is due to an additional skin fold that is termed epicanthic fold (Morris, 1986). The epicanthic fold is potentially an additional protection for the eye devised by evolution against the cold. Even so, every human fetus possesses this epicanthic fold and some Western babies are even born with it before it vanishes during growth (Morris, 1986). Another, somewhat less recognised difference is the colour of the iris. The colour of the iris is the result of the amount of melanin contained. The more melanin the darker the iris gets until it eventually reaches a dark brown. Apparently, the level of melanin decreases with an ethnicities habitat’s distance from the equator. This means that people living at the height of the equator should display more brown eyes than those being more distant to the equator (Morris, 1986). Since Taiwan is somewhat closer to the equator than Austria (Atschko et al., 1995), it may well be that the amount of brown-eyed individuals is lower in Austria than in Taiwan, despite potential immigration effects.

4.1.3 The mouth, lips, and tongue The mouth is one of the most expressive if not the most expressive part of the face. One can arrive at this deduction by acknowledging the impressive variety of different expressions and

43 their signalled meanings (Collett, 2003; Morris, 1977; 1986). For this reason, it will be awarded with its own section. As the lips and the tongue, which is mostly hidden when not communicating, are important parts of the mouth region, they too will be considered in this section. At first, the human mouth may appear similar to that of primates. But a closer look produces at least two major differences. One of these is the expressiveness of the mouth. The human mouth serves as a versatile instrument for both language production and expressiveness of feelings. Therefore, it apparently developed a remarkable anatomical flexibility. In comparison, the primate mouth falls short in producing an equal anatomical development (Morris, 1986). The second major difference is the lips. The difference is simple, humans have them and primates do not. The lips are a part of the inner mucous membrane of the mouth turned outwards (Morris, 1986). One function of this is that it allows for more easily discernible mouth movements, which is of great use for nonverbal communication (Morris, 1986). A second function concerns the signalling of sexual arousal. In this case the lips start to swell and darken due to increased blood inflow. This increases their visibility and sensitivity. Furthermore, it may help explain the initial idea for and use of lipstick (Morris, 1986). The tongue can also be used to send nonverbal signals, but its use is probably more common with regard to its supporting role in creating spoken output. Moreover, it helps in cleaning the inside of the mouth (Morris, 1986). The mouth, the lips and the tongue are seriously impacted by age. Mouth and lips tend to give away how a person has lived his or her live as signs of common expressions may now be visible in the relaxed position of the mouth and lips (e.g., dropping lip corners) (Morris, 1986). On the tongue, the cells for taste recognition diminish, making it more difficult to notice fine taste nuances (Morris, 1986). The mouth, lips, and tongue can boast a broad spectrum of expressions with different meanings. As delineated in Section 4.1.1 a tense mouth is a reliable signal for a person’s angry feelings, being accompanied by thin lips. Notwithstanding this, a tense mouth can also have other meanings. Most likely depending on the context and other nonverbal signs, it may equally hint frustration, determination, cognitive activity, or a feeling of sympathy (Givens, 2016). The opposite movement, an open mouth, has equally been mentioned in Section 4.1.1 as a part of the surprise micro expression. In contrast, a saggy mouth, as well as trembling in the mouth region, has been identified as nonverbal cue indicating depression (Waxer, 1974). Section 4.1.1 also described how the pushing up of the lower lip contributes to the micro expression of sadness. This produces a pout and may stand for several feelings related to

44 sadness. Anxiety could be another signalled feeling. Paradoxically, it can also occur during courtship as a means of communicating one’s availability and harmlessness (Givens, 2016). If the upper lip is involved, this creates a lip purse. The lip purse implies disagreement (Givens, 2016). The biting of the lip may, yet, signal distress, embarrassment or sad feelings. It may also be a sign of a person holding back a certain piece of information (Collett, 2003). Remaining with this latter point,

Figure 13: Lip pout lifting the hand to cover the mouth (Anecdotes, Antidotes, and Anodes, 2011) may indicate that a person is reluctant to say something or even be a potential sign for deception (Collett, 2003; Morris, 1986). In general, lips are a common target for self-touch gestures. These are used as Figure 14: Lip purse self-comforting in difficult situations (Collett, 2003; (Pucker, Purse?, 2012) Morris, 1971). An expression which deserves separate attention is the smile. We smile in many different ways (Collett, 2003) and, as Section 4.1.1 has shown, not every smile fulfils the requirements for a smile that is being triggered by true, enjoyable emotions. Similarly, smiles may occur in different situations and, therefore, can send different nonverbal messages (Ekman, 2003b). For example, Winkielman and Cacioppo (2001) discovered that smiles can occur when encountering an easy to process task, implying a relationship between process ease and positive affect that may then produce smiles. Besides, the same equivocalness of meaning is also encountered in laughing (Grammer, 1990). Real and fake smiles even stem from different areas in the brain (Ekman & Frank, 1996). Further, we seem to be capable of distinguishing between the two smiles subconsciously. Research conducted by Surakka and Hietanen (1998) unveiled that the subjects’ faces reacted to the view of genuine smiles. In addition to this, their facial muscular reactions to fake smiles were the same as their reactions to the view of neutral faces. This is especially important, since this reciprocated movement itself activated muscular regions of the face which are involved in producing the genuine smile. In turn, this may facilitate positive affect in the reciprocating viewers. This effect is called facial feedback and even works if the activated expression does not fully equal a genuine smile (Strack et al., 1988). Additionally, smiling has been found to increase perceptions of popularity of the person smiling (Cashdan, 1998). Smiling also makes sense in business terms. Even though mediated by other factors, smiling can lead to increased encounter satisfaction of customers

45 with employee interactions (Barger & Grandey, 2006). Furthermore, Tidd and Lockard (1978) provided evidence for the potential of increasing monetary gains due to smiling. In their study, the broadness of the smiles was linked to the amount of tips given by the person who has been smiled at. Regarding the tongue, a visible signal is its showing to another person or the environment. The background of this movement seems to stem from our early infancy, when the baby used its tongue to reject the mother’s breast (Morris, 1977). Thus, showing the tongue is basically a gesture of rejection. A person shows the tongue usually if she or he is absorbed by a difficult task. In this case, the tongue acts as a nonverbal signal of unavailability. It may be more common when the person in question feels that she or he might be approached by someone else (Morris, 1977). Other meanings could be disliking, uncertainty, disagreement, or disbelief (Givens, 2016). The tongue can, of course, insult as well. This is performed by sticking out one’s tongue towards another person. In the insulting variation of this showing of the tongue, the tongue is normally fully protruded, whereas in the version which only shows some kind of rejection or unavailability the tongue protrudes only slightly (Morris, 1977) Another important activity involving mouth, lips, and potentially the tongue is kissing. Kissing is normally a sign of intimacy between close ones (e.g., friends, parents and children, lovers), although it can also function as greeting between near strangers (Morris, 1971). The kiss can be applied to different parts of the human body (e.g., forehead, cheek) and seems to have its origin in infancy. Before the invention of convenient baby food, mothers had to chew food and then transfer it mouth-to-mouth to their children (Morris, 1986). Even so, the romantic-sexual form of the kiss is by no means universal across cultures. A recent study of Jankowiak et al. (2015) found that less than half of the cultures sampled attributed a romantic- sexual meaning to the kiss. Kissing is not the only cultural difference with regard to this area and its nonverbal communication function. In general, gestures that include the mouth show noticeable variation across cultures (Morris, 1986).

4.2 The torso The human torso is composed of shoulders, breast, back, abdomen, and the hips. Apart from the brain, most of our vital organs can be found in the torso. Compared to primates, our torso has the special feature of being in erect position most of the time. While monkeys are also able to move with erect body posture, it is still not their predominant way of displaying this

46 part of their body (Morris, 1986). From an evolutionary point of view, our shoulders gained much more flexibility since we started to prefer the upright stance. This benefits our arms and the movements they can now conduct (Morris, 1986). In male humans, the shoulders are usually stronger than in the average human female. This is due to our species’ past as hunters and gatherers. Since male humans were usually occupied with hunting, they made much more use of weaponry. Evolution reacted to this trend and opted for males with stronger shoulders (Morris, 1986). This same reason may also explain the stronger breast area of males. For more effective hunting, male lungs had to develop further. Greater lungs, in turn, needed greater housing which altered the male chest into this direction (Morris, 1986). However, the most noticeable difference in the breast area between males and females is the protruding female breast. Primate females only develop swollen breasts when this is necessary to secure the survival of their offspring. In contrast, human females display permanently swollen breasts, although an additional swelling also occurs during pregnancy. One explanation for this is again our change into the upright stance. The female primate sends sexual signals with the rear, which swells when the female is receptive (Morris, 1986). Due to the upright position of the later human and its different form of walking, the focus has shifted to other parts of the body. It appears as if to mirror the original signal of the rear, evolution created the female breast as an echo thereof (Morris, 1986). The upright stance of us humans may also explain the complexity of our back and its system of muscles (Morris, 1986). Concerning the abdomen, there are gender differences too. Aside from the change occurring during pregnancy, female humans’ abdomens are in general slightly more rounded at their lower part, whereas the male human abdomen is rather flat (Morris, 1986). Finally, the hips need to be considered. It does not take long to recognise further gender specific dissimilarities in this part of the human body. The male human hips are narrower than the female human hips. This seems to be due to the female role in giving birth to children. This physical feature also introduces difference into our gait. As a result, the female gait differs to some extent from the male gait (Morris, 1986). Even though we may often forget about the torso, it does communicate nonverbally in several ways which might escape our attention. A recent paper of Bahns et al. (2016) looked into how the torso helps us to judge other people based on nonverbal cues. They conducted a few experiments in which people were asked to wear either a black bag, a transparent bag, or no bag over their torso and then to interact with same sex individuals. The black bag was chosen to make nonverbal signals of the torso illegible. The results attest that people that are not able to read nonverbal signs of others’ torsi where less likely to choose conversation partners that

47 were similar to them on the dimensions of personality, attitude, and behaviour. This was not the case in the absence of the black bags, where subjects were able to take in the nonverbal communication elements of their interlocutor’s torso. Even so, after-experiment ratings of attraction were not influenced. Bahns et al. (2016) suggest that this is because nonverbal information is more salient in selection according to similarities before the interaction because we do not have any other information at that point. After the interaction we can also refer to verbal information to make our judgements. This proves how essential the torso is when it comes to the nonverbal signs of communication. Aside from this, the posture of the torso can also contribute to how confident we are in our own thoughts about ourselves, whether they are positive or negative. This form of thought-related confidence is more pronounced in individuals adopting an upright posture with pushed-out chest than in people that adopted a slumped posture (Briñol et al., 2009). Consequently, the position of the posture has an impact on how we think. After having taken a brief look into the anatomical and evolutionary basics of the torso as well as its importance in nonverbal communication and even thinking processes, it is now time to have a look at what and how the torso communicates nonverbally. The torso can, like other body parts as well, communicate interest in something or someone. This is done by turning one’s torso. We become consciously aware of that whenever one person turns his or her back at another person. This is seen as a sign of rejection and insolence (Morris, 1986). By doing so, we literally show our disinterest in an almost hurtful manner. The opposite would then be to turn our body to someone or something we are interested in. Indeed, Mehrabian (1969) described the turning of the torso towards someone as a sign of a positive attitude towards that person. Thus people engaged in a talk who face each other with their torso show a basic sign of attention. In addition to this, further research indicates that presenting the torso to someone is a better sign of a positive attitude than eye contact alone (Mehrabian, 1967 as cited in Mehrabian, 1969, p. 203). There is also another way for our torso to convey our basic interest and positive attitude. This is done by leaning forward or reclining. When having a positive attitude towards someone, we lean forward to reduce the distance between us and our conversation partner. However, in the case of a rather negative attitude, we lean backwards to increase the distance between us and our interlocutor. These behaviours could also occur when sitting (Burgoon et al., 1984; Mehrabian, 1967). Notwithstanding this, leaning into the personal space of another person in a situation of dispute or at least without the implicit consent of that person can easily be felt as threatening or even aggressive gesture (Morris, 1977). This could then be classified as a negative form of

48 interest (i.e., one is interested in a person because one wants to hurt or threaten that individual). The torso does also play a role in intimate behaviour. Here it acts as a target of intimate touching (Morris, 1971). This may not surprise, as the torso is the main receiver of embraces. But there are special kinds of embraces that may more clearly carry the connotation of intimacy. For instance, only lovers may embrace each other at the hip (Morris, 1971). Although it is not necessarily a taboo zone, research shows that we do prefer not being touched at the torso. This becomes more valid the lower the region of the body is, since it would reduce the distance to the genitals (Suvilheto et al. 2015). For females this may not vary so much due to the position of their breasts. Another nonverbal signal transmitted by the torso is dominance and aggressiveness. The most generic way of exhibiting dominance with the torso might well be the straight stance. Standing upright increases one’s height and communicates confidence. With a stiff back this may even get an aggressive notion (Morris, 1986). This link between dominance and size of body appears to stem from our animal past. Consequently, standing tall seems to be enacted in our body without our conscious involvement (Givens, 2016). Additional evidence for this is being provided by Tracy and Matsumoto (2008). They investigated how pride is being exhibited by sighted, blind, and congenitally blind sportsman across more than thirty cultures. Since the display of pride included an expanded posture, which may well relate to an upright torso position, and since the authors found evidence for similarity, it appears reasonable to assume cross-cultural validity of this nonverbal sign. Furthermore, Tiedens and Fragale (2003) found that adopting an expansive posture of dominance instead of a slouched posture can incite a conversation partner to exhibit signs of submissiveness and that this effect could eventually lead to increased liking. Due to the flexibility of our shoulders, they are able to send nonverbal signals by themselves. Hence, aggressiveness can also be shown by pulling our shoulder up and forward, though the meaning of this may vary according to the context. By doing so, we may protect our neck area because we are preparing to attack, literally or not (Morris, 1986). A further way of displaying dominance involves our hips. Yet, for this the help of arms and hands needs to be enlisted. By putting them on our hips we can again, voluntarily or involuntarily, signal dominance (Morris, 1986). A completely different manner of nonverbally communicating dominance can sometimes be relaxation (Mehrabian, 1969). This makes sense, as being relaxed may also show that we are in control of a situation without having to fear any harm. Yet, this needs to be considered in

49 its context, especially concerning the existing power relationships. One good nonverbal sign of relaxation is body asymmetry (Mehrabian, 1969). Regarding the torso, this means leaning to one side. This has to be distinguished from a mere misalignment of head and body, which may potentially indicate a lack of integrity of someone’s words (Millar, 2008) and, therefore, require further probing. Even so, sometimes relaxation means just that, being relaxed and feeling comfortable in one’s environment or with one’s company. If dominance and aggressiveness can be communicated, it is likely that the torso is equally able to transmit nonverbal messages of submissiveness and defensiveness. In fact, these messages are often the opposite of what has been described as nonverbal signs of dominance above. For instance, being submissive often means that one does not have the right to be relaxed in the presence of the dominant individual (Morris, 1977). Looking at the torso, this may play out by making a submissive person adopt more symmetrical and less asymmetrical torso postures (Mehrabian, 1969). One basic way of signalling submissiveness is by crouching and similar movements (Morris, 1986). This accomplishes two things. Firstly, the person crouching is effectively lowering his or her body in order to appear smaller. This similarly reduces transmitted dominance. Secondly, in extreme forms of crouching, the person may reveal his or her back to another person, which is a relatively vulnerable part of the human body (Morris, 1986). As has been mentioned above, the back display may be able to communicate rejection and disinterest, which one would rather expect in the context of dominance. But in connection with the crouch this back display carries a more submissive nonverbal notion (Morris, 1986). Submissive nonverbal signals like this have a strong appeasement component. This means that we adopt a posture which shows that we do not want to attack and that we do not even merit an attack as we are no threat and already defeated from a nonverbal perspective (Morris, 1977). Interestingly, it seems others react to a slumped posture by adopting a more dominant stance. This was unveiled by Tiedens and Fragale (2003), who further found evidence that this complementarity of postural stances can increase liking towards the interlocutor. A slouched posture of the torso further appears to be universal across cultures at least in the display of shame, although regulative rules of cultures may introduce a certain variation into this basic nonverbal signal (Tracy & Matsumoto, 2008). More specialised forms of submissive crouching already existed in antiquity. Even today, there are certain cultural variants that resemble the crouch. Probably, the most prominent example would be the Japanese bow (Morris, 1986). A common nonverbal sign indicating defence can be to pull the shoulders up and forward. To avoid confusion, it is true that this signal may also indicate aggression, but its basic intention

50 seems to be to protect our fragile neck area. We may do so when deciding to attack ourselves but also when feeling under attack (Morris, 1986). Thus, this movement can communicate both. To distinguish between the two meanings, the observer could use information about the context in which this gesture occurs as well as the nonverbal signals stemming from other areas of nonverbal communication. An offspring of this is the shoulder shrug. The shoulder shrug is executed by quickly pulling up the shoulders before letting them fall down again. It may also be accompanied by other gestures that happen simultaneously, like a head dip (Morris, 1977). If a person is doing a shoulder shrug, he or she can communicate several feelings that relate to submissiveness. It could signify a feeling of insecurity. This may be most understandable when a person having been asked a question responds with a shoulder shrug to show that he or she does not have an adequate answer (Morris, 1986). Apart from this, it may further indicate helplessness or resignation. From a societal point of view, the shoulder shrug seems to appear in different cultural variations (Morris, 1986). With respect to cultural variation in nonverbal communication involving the torso, dissimilarities can be found. A study conducted by Kleinsmith et al. (2006) asked subjects of different cultures to judge the postures adopted by avatars in emotional terms. Avatars are digital representations of humans created via computers. The postures also included elements of the torso. The results of their study showed both cross-cultural similarity and dissimilarity. Although the torso lacks the fine-grained expressions found in the face or the impressive dexterity of the fingers, it should have been shown that the torso is very communicative in a nonverbal sense. Nonetheless we seem to focus on other areas like the face and the fingers to a much greater extent than on the torso, in spite of its relative size compared to other body parts.

4.3 The arms and the hands Compared to most animals, our arms and hands have lost their function as instruments for walking after our species opted for the upright stance and walk. Now we are able to execute more precise tasks with them (Morris, 1986). This applies especially to our hands. A big advantage of the human hand is its thumb, which can directionally oppose the other fingers of the hand. This allowed for the completion of tasks, which other species were not able to conduct due to their lack of dexterity (Morris, 1986). One other peculiarity of our hands is that our palms are usually relatively pale. This applies to people of light skin colour as well as those with darker skin tones. People who received their darker skin tone by tanning are no exception to this rule. As a consequence this feature should

51 be shared by all ethnicities. An explanation seems to be enhanced visibility. Due to the difference in colour of our palms they should be more visible when interacting (Morris, 1986). The essentiality of our hands appears as such that evolution decided to build in exceptions in the case of exposure to the cold. Normally, when being exposed to cold, our body’s blood vessels constrict to reduce blood flow on the surface of our body. This is done in order to prevent the blood from wasting body warmth. This same process occurs in our hands. However, after approximately five minutes, the vessels dilate again and direct blood to the surface of our hands for the next five minutes. This colours the palms of our hands reddish. After the five minutes, the vessels contract again. This five-minute cycle keeps repeating itself as long as exposure to coldness is experienced (Morris, 1986). The evolutionary cause seems to stem from our live during the ice ages. Frozen hands might have easily meant eventual death, which required a certain protective mechanism to ensure our survival (Morris, 1986). As with many other parts of the human body, evolution decided to provide males and females with slightly different versions of this part of the body. The average human male possesses longer and stronger arms than his female counterpart and the female forearms are relatively seen shorter. A suggested theory for this is that the human male was much more often required to aim and throw things in our evolutionary past (Morris, 1986). Another gender- related difference of male and female arms is that the female arm resides closer to the body. The reason for this can be found in the broader shoulders of the average male human (Morris, 1986). Regarding the hands, the male hands seem to be stronger, which may again relate to the man’s evolutionary role as hunter and user or creator of weaponry. However, as soon as it comes to precision work, the female hand surpasses the male hand noticeably (Morris, 1986). The reason for the females’ superior capacity in this area originates from their slimmer fingers and more flexible joints. The latter point seems to be the result of differences related to hormones (Morris, 1986). Humans are basically perceived to be left- or right-handed. Nevertheless, Hardyck and Petrinovich (1977) suggest that handedness should better be perceived as a continuum with the two poles of strong right-handedness and strong left-handedness and mention genetic factors as explanation for this phenomenon. They also state that those who are moderately to strongly left-handed make up approximately ten percent of the human population. Moreover, the authors point out that handedness may influence how different functions are organised in the brain, while adding that there seems to be little support for the assumption of deficits in left-handed individuals. However, later research lends some support to the idea that

52 handedness has health-related implications as well. Geschwind and Behan (1982) discovered a relationship of left-handedness and migraine as well as immune disorders like the celiac disease. Additionally, the authors uncovered a link between left-handedness and learning disabilities like stuttering. The hands are apparently one of the most active parts of the human body (Morris, 1986). In spoken interaction they might even make up the biggest part of our gesticulation (Morris, 1977). Research undertaken by Jancovic et al. (1975) indicates that the complexity of our arm and hand gestures increases with age and verbal fluency in this context. Thus, it may be best to start with their function as nonverbal support of verbal communication. First of all, an individual can indicate directions or point on something by using his or her fingers. This is mostly done with the index finger. Yet, the thumb as well might occasionally be used for indicating the direction. Even so, using the thumb may be seen as impolite in certain contexts (Morris, 1986). Another nonverbal manner in which our arms and hands support us in nonverbal communication is counting. Counting is done with the fingers, but it seems that there are cultural differences on how it is done. For instance, survey-based findings of Lindemann (2011) indicate that members of Western cultures tend to start counting on the left hand with the thumb representing the number one, while Iranians begin counting on the right hand with the little finger being used as number one. The habit of starting with left was further explored by Fischer’s (2008) paper. In his questionnaire-based study he found that two thirds of a sample composed of Scottish subjects started counting with their left no matter whether they were left- or right-handed. In order to explain this he established a connection with the spatial representation of numbers. Since there seems to be a tendency to attribute small numbers to the left and bigger numbers to the right, starting with the left hand makes sense, at least in Western cultural environments. Fischer (2008) mentions that cultural dissimilarities might exist concerning this attribution of numbers. This may explain the habit of the Iranians in Lindemann’s (2011) study, as Iranians may be used to utilise Arabic writing and Arabic is written from the right to the left (Stanford University, 2016). This may equally affect the direction of spatial understanding of numbers. Remaining with the topic of nonverbal communicational support, hands appear to be the primary emitters of baton signals. These signals beat in line with the rhythm of our spoken words (Morris, 1977). There are many different kinds of baton signals depending on the situation, the individual person, and the respective culture (Morris, 1977). Thus, the signals mentioned here can by no means be assumed to be exhaustive. One baton signal of the hands

53 is the precision grip. There are two ways to form the precision grip. One is to merely let the tip of the index finger touch with the tip of the thumb, which resembles a circle. The other way is to put all the five finger tips together. Here it is the fingertips, which somewhat look like a circle. The precision grip is employed when wanting to point out details or the finesse of a certain point (Morris, 1977). A less subtle baton signal is the power grip. In the power grip, the gesticulating individual clenches with his or her fingers. In its most extreme form the fingers will touch the palm, creating a fist. The meaning of this nonverbal sign is determination and power (Morris, 1977). Similarly aggressive is the use of the hand to chop or jab the air. A speaker employing this sort of baton signal wants to push his or her idea or point of view (Morris, 1977). A less aggressive but still dominant and menacing gesture is the use of the erect index finger (Morris, 1977). This position of the index finger already demands attention (Morris, 1986). However, if used as a baton signal it seems to get an almost aggressive character. Notwithstanding these signals, there are also nonverbal, conversational signals that indicate weakness. A speaker putting both hands together does so because he or she is in need of comfort. This may well be due to an inner conflict (Morris, 1977). Neither weak nor aggressive but instead more friendly is the reaching out of the hand with the palm faced to the side. When a speaker displays this nonverbal signal during conversation it seems as if he or she wants to get in contact with the interlocutor and reduce a potential gap (Morris, 1977). These supporting signals are so prevalent that there are claims asserting that an unexplainable reduction of these illustrating movements may hint a potential lie (Morris, 1977; Navarro & Schafer, 2001). Morris (1977) suggests that this may be caused by our inability to successfully make up illustrating hand and arm movements. Since most of the time we are unaware of how exactly we utilise our hands and arms during conversation, we cannot convincingly reproduce them, which makes us afraid that any attempt to do so may betray our lies leading us to eventually restrict our hand and arm movements (Morris, 1977). A conversation may equally be supplemented with nonverbal signs of insults. These may even be used outside of verbal conversation. Symbols of insult are relatively culture specific (Morris, 1986). One example, the moutza, has already been described in Section 3.1. Another more common insult is presenting to someone an erect middle finger, while the other fingers are curled up. Sometimes an upward thrust may accompany this obscene gesture. This very insulting nonverbal symbol has already been known to the ancient Romans and has phallic connotations (Morris, 1986). Even the thumbs up, in many cultures meaning that something is fine, may become an insult in certain cultures due to the same reason of resembling a phallic display (Morris, 1986). To not overextend this topic, the description of insulting symbols will

54 stop here, in spite of the many more examples existing. Yet, not all culture-specific signs of the fingers are to be seen as potentially insulting. For instance, presenting the erect small finger in some cultures may simply mean that a person is relatively thin or even ill (Morris, 1986). Hands and arms are not only instruments of nonverbal support or insulting. They also play a role in intimate behaviour. Lovers, family members, or friends may touch each other for several friendly reasons (Morris, 1971). One example is the pat on the back as a friendly nonverbal signal, which evolved out of the full embrace as already described in Section 3.1. This kind of touching comes in many different forms and usually helps to form a mutual bond (Morris, 1971). An experiment by Fisher et al. (1976) demonstrates that a hand-to-hand touch made by a library clerk, whether consciously realised or not, elicited more positive evaluations of the touched person’s own affective state and the library clerk for both men and women. However, only the women also rated the library environment as having been perceived more positively, whereas men rather perceived it more negatively after the touch. Regarding the arms and hands as targets of touching, we seem to be most comfortable with being touched in these body areas than in any other area of our body (Sulvilheto et al., 2015). One reason for this might be that touching these areas is usually seen as sexually most neutral (Morris, 1986). Of course, there are cultural differences regarding touching and its frequency. To exemplify this, Graham (1985) states that Brazilians touch each other much more commonly during negotiations than both the Japanese and US-Americans. Distantly related to the topic of the nonverbal, intimate behaviour of the hands and arms is their role in greeting and farewell. A more formal way to do this may be the handshake (Burgoon & Walther, 1990). Although only a small gesture, the handshake has a strong impact on a person’s first impression. For example, a study conducted by Shipps and Freeman (2003) indicates that handshakes which are dry, firm, and warm are related to positive characteristics. The study further shows that gender-related variation may render these handshake qualities especially salient for women. Other research undertaken by Stewart et al. (2008) supports this theory of the handshake influencing others. The authors discovered that the handshake may mediate a job interviewer’s impression of the candidate’s extraversion levels. Moreover, a firm handshake with eye contact is related to better ratings of employment suitability. Again, this effect is more pronounced for women than men. To consider this nonverbal power of the handshake is especially important since the handshake can be considered a socially expected nonverbal action between people (Burgoon & Walther, 1990). Thus, it may not easily be possible to circumvent it. Yet, even here there seem to be gender-

55 related differences. When examining the effect of a teaching instructor’s handshake in the first class meeting, Wilson et al. (2009) found that this practice lead to a better evaluation of female instructor’s skills and ability to motivate students. However, male instructors received lower ratings on these dimensions. This highlights the different effects of handshakes provided by men and by women. Consequently, a handshake does not appear to be a standardised signal. In fact, there seem to be many different styles of shaking hands as well as cultural variations (Collett, 2003). For example, in the realm of politics a handshake can communicate dominance when one’s own palm is on top of the other person’s palm, which is done by slightly twisting the wrist (Millar, 2008). A more distant manner of greeting and taking one’s leave is waving the arms. There are several ways for waving. The two more common variants are waving repeatedly from the left to the right and back in the other direction. The other common way of doing it is by moving the open hand up and down (Morris, 1971). As with the pat on the back, waving seems to originate from the full embrace (Morris, 1971). Like many other gestures, greeting gestures also have their variants. One may be the military salutation in which the hand is being moved to the side of one’s head with stiffly extended fingers. This gesture is imputed to stem from medieval times when knights used this gesture to open their visors (Morris, 1986). Leaving the subject of intimate signals and greeting behaviour, it is now time to look at how we use the hands to touch ourselves. We may do so for several reasons and one of these reasons is to comfort ourselves. This is often indicative of nervousness or other pressure- related circumstances (McClintock & Hunt, 1975; Millar, 2008). These self-comforting gestures operate on the basis of our hands, arms, and body substituting for the hands, arms, and body of a person close to us (e.g., our mother during our infancy) (Morris, 1971). Fidgeting behaviours are not restricted to one’s own body. They can also spill over to inanimate objects around us. In this case they may lose their self-comforting effect on the executor of these gestures. Here, another character of these body or object manipulating gestures becomes evident. This can best be described as an overflow of physical activity (Mehrabian & Friedman, 1986). It might well occur in situations in which our body feels the need for physical activity due to our current state (e.g., writing an important exam) while at the same time being impeded in living up to this need (e.g., sitting while writing the exam) (Mehrabian & Friedman, 1986). As a result, also from this perspective it may act as a good indicator of nervousness, but also for other related states. In fact, there seems to be a correlation with a person’s anxiety levels and the habit of fidgeting (Mehrabian & Friedman, 1986). This behaviour has received special attention with regard to deception detection. There

56 is the idea that an increase in fidgeting implies that the person executing it is trying to sell a lie (Gordon et al., 1987; McClintock & Hunt, 1975; Morris, 1977; Navarro, 2011). This would make sense, since lying may be an action which is more stressful for an average person than normal conversation of trivial content. Notwithstanding this argument, Ekman (2009) points out that at least self-touch behaviour may equally occur in situations in which we are comfortable. Moreover, he brings forth the argument that the only thing nonverbally transmitted is nervousness or other anxious feelings. Yet, there may be many reasons for a person to be nervous or anxious, including the fear of false accusation by the police and being put to jail due to overly suspicious investigators. The hands have also another means for nonverbally communicating nervousness or stress. This is sweating. Intriguingly, our hands only sweat in cases of felt stress but not when being exposed to heat (Morris, 1986). Research by Asahina et al. (2003) discovered the involvement of the amygdala in the emotional sweating response of the palm. Their research also suggests that the amygdala has an important function in any kind of emotional sweating. As described in Chapter 4, the amygdala is involved in nonverbal signals that are related to our evolutionary heritage. Consequently, it is reasonable to propose that this nonverbal signal is not under voluntary control and, therefore, serves as reliable indicator of a person’s mental state. This part of our body is even sensitive enough to react to unsettling political events. During the Cuban Missile Crisis any tests using the measurement of sweat release of the human hand had to be postponed, since no relaxed hand was available due the general elevation of stress levels (Morris, 1986). As other parts of our body as well, our arms and hands are able to nonverbally communicate when we feel defensive. One way we use our arms and hands to transmit this message is relatively easy to perceive. We extend our arm with the palm facing forward. Ostensibly, this helps to create or maintain distance between us and a subject or object. Thus, it signifies rejection (Morris, 1986). The body-cross is another gesture which can help us in erecting nonverbal defences. To be exact, the body-cross is not a gesture per se but rather subsumes a group of different gestures with the same basic feature. This basic feature is that one of our hands reaches across our body to the opposite side or meets at some point with our other hand or arm in front of our body (Morris, 1977). By doing so, we bring our arm in front of our body and, thereby, nonverbally communicate our wish for a barrier against something. Some variants of the body-cross are the reaching of a woman for her handbag, which is hanging on the opposite side of her body, or the adjustment of a suits handcuff with the opposite hand (Morris, 1977). A rather common expression of the body-cross is the arm-cross. To execute

57 the arm-cross, a person basically needs to put both hands to the biceps of the opposite arm (Givens, 2016). The defensive character of this gesture seems to be especially pronounced in women (Givens, 2016). Another way in which the arm-cross works is by self-comforting. By conducting the arm-cross, a person increases the contact he or she makes with his or her own body. This again seems to have a soothing character as one’s own arms and hands

Figure 15: Arm-cross might, thereby, substitute for the hands of another close person (Navarro, 2011, p. 131) comforting us, which could also make this gesture appear in situations of heightened nervousness (Givens, 2016; Morris, 1971). Yet, to avoid misunderstandings, the arm-cross may equally be utilised to transmit other nonverbal signals than mere defensiveness. It can as well communicate dislike or even arrogance (Givens, 2016). Navarro (2014) lists further reasons as self-restraint or simply feeling cold. Hence, an observer of this gesture might be well advised to compare the arm-cross against the situational conditions and nonverbal signals emerging from other areas of nonverbal communication. Hands and arms can contribute to the nonverbal messaging of dominance and power. The erect index finger as sign of dominance has already been mentioned above when discussing baton gestures. Adopting an open arms and hand posture is one other possible nonverbal sign transmitting these messages. Cashdan (1998) lends support to this point by showing that open hand and arm postures are related to perceptions of power, although not being related to heightened popularity. In a similar vein, Tiedens and Fragale (2003) found that an expansive use of arms and legs, which may be part of a more open posture of these body areas, as a demonstration of dominance may lead to the adoption of a more submissive posture by the interlocutor. Notwithstanding this aspect of dominance, an open posture of arms and hands may also be used by both men and women to signal interest in a person of the other gender (Grammer, 1990). The expansive element of the arms and hands may equally impart its notion of dominance to another gesture, which is called the arm akimbo. To do an arm akimbo a person simply needs to put his or her hands on the hips while letting the elbows point outwards (Collett, 2003). Apart from the space expansion, another facet that renders this gesture dominant is the position of the hands. Resting on the hips, they appear more prepared for Figure 16: Arm akimbo (Navarro, 2011, p. 172) launching an attack than when hanging down to each side of the

58 body (Collett, 2003). The arm akimbo exists in several variants. Probably the most dominant and menacing of them is to rest the fists on one’s hips (Collett, 2003). A less threatening, but still dominant nonverbal signal is the palms-down display of the hand. It nonverbally communicates confidence and assertiveness and may also occur as a baton signal during conversation, in which situation its dominance may be reduced to mild emphasis (Givens, 2016; Morris, 1977). The reason for the palms-down gesticulation appears to be grounded in our past as quadrupeds. At that time, one important display of dominance was to stand tall. Although our former forelimbs are now no longer needed to do so, they seemingly still feel the necessity to try to support our tall stance in situations of dominance (Givens, 2016). The opposite gesture would then be presenting the hands in palms-up position. This gesture is more submissive in nature and elicits impressions of a begging gesture (Morris, 1977). It nonverbally signals an uncertain and humble state of a person’s mind and is often a part of the shoulder shrug (see Section 4.2) (Givens, 2016). It seems as if we display the palm-up gesture mostly unconsciously. This is due to its origin in evolutionary older parts of our brain (Givens, 2016). Like the head and the face, the arms and hands seem to be rather communicative in nonverbal terms when considering the variety of different, nonverbal messages they can send. This is why this section is slightly more extensive than some other sections of this review. Arms and hands can support verbal communication, have an intimate function, be indicators of nervousness and defensiveness, act as display of dominance, but may as well show signs of submissiveness. Of course, arms and hands are also subject to cultural variation in their signals (Morris, 1986).

4.4 The legs and the feet In contrast to other species, we humans acquired the upright stance and walk by balancing our whole weight on our former hindlimbs in order to make our forelimbs available for other tasks than walking. To be able to succeed in this delicate and constant balancing act our feet grew to be very complex. They comprise 26 bones, 20 muscles, and 114 ligaments, which allow us to react to the numerous messages received by our feet every second and to maintain our balance (Morris, 1986). However, to obtain this capability our feet had to change. Compared to primates our toes are shorter and less mobile, although we are still able to slightly move them. This applies particularly to our big toe, which primates can use to grasp things, whereas we have mostly lost this ability (Morris, 1986).

59 In adult human beings, the legs and feet account for approximately half of our body height (Morris, 1986). Since children’s legs are, relatively seen to their own body, shorter than an adult person’s legs, longer legs carry a slight notion of sexuality (Morris, 1986). Since our arms and hands used to be our forelimbs and, therefore, once served the same purpose as our legs and feet nowadays, it may be understandable that feet and hands share some features. One of these is related to sweating. Like the palms of our hands, as mentioned in Section 4.3, our feet increase sweat production in situations of stress (Morris, 1986). This sweat possesses a certain scent and marks our tracks. While it may not be a surprise that dogs are well able to find a person based on his or her tracks, it might even be possible for other human beings to smell these tracks if the respective person was walking on his or her bare feet. It may be that these signals of scent were more important in our distant past (Morris, 1986). What may be an even less known fact is that our toe prints, like our finger prints, are unique. Thence, they could be equally well used to reliably identify a person. Interestingly, the dermal ridges that create the print were originally meant to give us a safer step when walking on our bare feet (Morris, 1986). To add another similarity of hands and feet, the soles of our feet seem to be as impervious to tanning as the palms of our hands. This leaves the soles of our feet with a paler colour than the rest of our skin (Morris, 1986). It would be surprising to find no gender-related, anatomical differences in these areas of the body, since they occurred in very much all of the other areas discussed so far. The foot of the female human is narrower and shorter than the male foot. This gave rise to the connection of femininity and small feet (Morris, 1986). The products of female shoe fashion seem to pronounce this feature due to their design. This idea also seems to be causal for the now extinct Chinese practice of restricting young, female children’s foot growth. This was done by various methods and led to a foot of about a third of its normal size. While it was socially accepted and encouraged at that time, it was also painful to the girls and women suffering from this treatment as it rendered normal walking an agony (Morris, 1986). As with the arms and hands (see Section 4.3) we seem to have a favourite leg and foot as well. Berger et al. (2011) conducted an experiment with infants and found that most of the 13- month-old infants observed already displayed certain preferences with regard to footedness. Nonetheless, the authors also conducted a second study which unveiled that, on a longitudinal basis, there were several shifts concerning the infants’ footedness preferences. Berger et al. (2011) further stated that preferences of handedness appear to be more stable than preferences of footedness. In spite of this developmental variability of footedness, by using a listening

60 task, Elias et al. (1998) uncovered that footedness might be a better indicator of cerebral laterality than handedness. After this quick delve into some details of the evolutionary and anatomical past of our legs and feet, it is now time to look at what kind of nonverbal messages they are capable of sending. Although Ekman and Friesen (1969) perceive particularly the feet’s ability to communicate nonverbally as being limited, they can still tell a lot about the inner states of a person. To begin, legs and feet can signal power and dominance. Asymmetry of one’s stance may be one way to do so. Showing asymmetry often means that a person is relaxed, which is usually the case for dominant individuals (Mehrabian, 1969). Aside from asymmetry and like with the open arm and hand posture (see Section 8.3), Cashdan (1998) found that a posture with open legs conveys power. Nonetheless, it is not related to higher popularity. In general, male posture seems to be more open (Cashdan, 1998). Morris (1986) lends support to this point by asserting that opened legs send confident signals when standing, but also when sitting and lying. Regarding the standing position, standing with legs apart signifies dominance because the vulnerable genital region is being presented without any protection. The person standing like this apparently sees no need to provide protection due to his or her confidence (Morris, 1986). Moreover, this stance occupies more space, which contributes to its being perceived as dominant (Collett, 2003). This unprotected display of the genital region also reappears in the sitting posture with the legs apart. The message of confidence is least pronounced in the lying position. A posture which basically achieves the same opening of the legs is to put the ankle or lower leg of one leg on the knee or thigh of the other leg. This again exposes the crotch of a person and may, therefore, communicate a more dominant attitude. This form of leg crossing is more prevalent in males and probably more common in North America than in Europe (Morris, 1986). Apart from confidence, an open leg posture might also carry sexual connotations, which may again be explained by the display of the genital region (Morris, 1986). This may be echoed by the findings of Grammer (1990) who found that interest in a person from the opposite gender can lead to adopting a posture with open legs. In contrast, keeping one’s legs closed appears to be a nonverbal sign of formality (Morris, 1986). To remain with the nonverbal messaging of interest, there are other ways of communicating interest or disinterest with one’s legs and feet aside from adopting an open posture. One indicator arises from the way we cross our legs. Leg crossing can be done in several ways. One can merely cross the ankles, put thigh on thigh (which is easier for women due to their broader hips), or even put the ankle on one’s knee as mentioned above (Morris, 1986). What

61 is actually of importance to gauge a person’s interest is the direction in which the upper leg is pointing. If in a conversation a person has his or her legs crossed and the upper leg is pointing towards his or her interlocutor, this implies friendliness towards or interest in that person or the content of his or her statements (Morris, 1986). If the upper leg is pointing away from the interlocutor, this signals disinterest in the person or the conversation’s content. This becomes clearer when looking at what this position of the legs does with the rest of the body. As soon as we point away from our conversation partner with the top leg, our body, including the torso, twists slightly away (Morris, 1986). As explained in Section 4.2, this turning away of the torso is a nonverbal sign of disinterest. This may partially explain the signal of disinterest contained in this behaviour. Notwithstanding this, it seems as if uncrossed legs are more conducive to the formation of rapport (Harrigan et al., 1985). Another signal of the legs and feet that can indicate disinterest or boredom may also occur in some of the crossed-leg positions. When crossing the legs, there is often one foot on the floor, while the other foot and leg remain somewhat in the air. In this position, a person could indicate boredom and a lack of interest by repeated and short forward-thrusts of the dangling foot (Morris, 1986). However, this nonverbal signal also carries a notion of annoyance and aggressiveness, since it can be understood as a movement that implicitly aims at kicking the person responsible for the existing boredom. Yet, since it never fully reaches the body of the other person it looks more like kicking the air (Morris, 1986). Legs and feet can further nonverbally transmit discomfort and potentially nervousness. When being in a situation of discomfort or pressure our feet may show what our whole body might want to do in that situation, which is fleeing. Notwithstanding this subconscious intention, the situation often requires us to literally stand our ground or sit still, which restricts our feet’s activities to mere intention movements (Morris, 1986). One of the foot movements that can indicate this hidden wish is that a person may start walking on the spot in some way or another. Another is that one or two legs may start to repeatedly bounce up and down in a nervous gesture (Morris, 1986). The opposite of an intention to flee can be conveyed by crossing the legs in a relaxed manner. This usually indicates that a person is not willing to stand up for the moment (Morris, 1986). Nonetheless, also crossed legs can become a signal of discomfort and protectiveness. This happens whenever a person with crossed legs presses his or her thighs tightly against each other. This does not serve a potential flight, but rather serves as defence. In this case, the tightly pressed thighs are trying to protect a person’s vulnerable crotch area from potential attacks. Hence, the narrower the legs are being crossed, the better protected this body area seems to be, and the more defensive a person appears to be

62 (Morris, 1986). Apart from protecting one’s genital area, the tight pressing of the thighs against each other provide us with comforting contact with our own body. This self-touch element helps to somewhat alleviate our stress (Morris, 1977). Even crossing the legs at the height of one’s lower legs can indicate anxiety (Collett, 2003). These basic movements of the legs and feet can to some extent be used as indicators for pain. While relaxed legs are encountered in the absence of pain, restlessness, tenseness, kicking movements, or drawing up one’s legs can be seen as being associated with pain (Voepel-Lewis et al., 2010). Due to their potential in communicating when a person is under stress, the legs and feet might well be providers for cues regarding the detection of deception (Navarro, 2011). Indeed there seems to be some evidence for this idea. A study by McClintock and Hunt (1975) found that foot movements were part of the behaviour that occurred when a person told a lie. However, especially our feet receive relatively little attention from us compared to other parts of our body (Ekman & Friesen, 1969). One intuitive reason for this could be that they are the farthest away from our head (Morris, 1986). Moreover, it seems as if we are also aware that others rarely look at the nonverbal signals sent by our feet during communication (Morris, 1986). According to Morris (1986), these points may render our feet the most honest part of the body. In general he suggests that the lower a certain body part is, the more honest its nonverbal signals should be. Although our legs and feet seem to receive little attention, nonverbal signals emitted by them do possess cultural variation. One movement illustrating this point is the slap on one’s thigh. While this movement exists in several different cultures, it changes its meaning depending on the cultural environment (Morris, 1986). The gesture already appeared in ancient Greece and Rome where it was a nonverbal expression of dismay and sadness, but also of happiness. In today’s Europe, it can still take on the meaning of sadness, but it could also signal shame or surprise. In South America, it may evince feelings of anger or impatience. It seems as if the only shared feature of all these cultural variants is that they are mostly based on a strong emotion (Morris, 1986). In conclusion, our legs and feet are able to communicate dominance, interest as well as disinterest, our comfort level, defensiveness, and can even convey certain hints regarding the truthfulness of their owner’s statements. On top of that, the nonverbal signals sent by our legs and feet seem to be subject to cross-cultural variation similar to other areas of nonverbal communication.

63 4.5 The gait As already pointed out in Section 4.3 and Section 4.4, our transition to the upward stance changed our hands, arms, legs, and feet and their functionality to a notable extent. It is also logical that this had an impact on the way we move. For the human species, the walk is the usual mode of locomotion. Although we start out crawling on all four during our infancy, we later change to the upward position for moving from one place to another. Walking is a complex activity and apparently unique to the human species, since other animals only move like this for a limited amount of time (Morris, 1977). During the normal walk, we usually have at least one of our feet on the ground. When putting down the foot we do so heel first and then roll it to the toes before pushing us forward again (Morris, 1977). The fact that we make contact with the heel first is important, since it helps us to dampen the impact of our foot colliding with the hard ground (Morris, 1986). We further move our arms back and forth during walking. Usually it is the opposite arm, compared to the foot that swings forward (i.e., if the left foot moves forward our right arm should swing forward and vice versa). This happens without our conscious involvement (Givens, 2016). This unconscious movement stems from our evolutionary past as quadrupeds. It substitutes for the movements we made with our forelimbs when walking forward on all four limbs (Givens, 2016). As soon as there is at maximum one foot on the ground at each time, this would be classified as run (Morris, 1977). Apart from this normal form of walking, human kind has also developed stylised forms of walking. One example would be the marching of the military (Morris, 1977; 1986). Differences in one’s gait appear with respect to the individual person as well as with regard to gender (Morris, 1986). To illustrate this last point, men swing their arms slightly inward, whereas women swing them slightly outwards during walking. This is due to the fact that women can move their arms further back at their elbows (Collett, 2003). For much the same reason, men tend to swing their arms more upwards, while women are more likely to swing their arms further backwards (Collett, 2003). A person’s gait can convey power and dominance. Research conducted by Karg et al. (2010) suggests that the nonverbal expression of dominance can be embedded in a person’s gait. Power and dominance are often linked to the show of masculinity in males. To do so, one has to pronounce the upward-swing in front of one’s body with turning the wrist inwards. The reason for this is that strong breast muscles, which are often present in male bodybuilders, lead to a slight inward rotation of the arms, which contributes to this gait pattern (Collett, 2003). A further element of dominance during walking is the swagger walk. The swagger walk is usually a male feature and is represented by exceeding the normal side-to-side

64 movement of the walk. By doing so, a person may cover a greater territory, which may be the mechanism by which the nonverbal signals of dominance are being sent (Givens, 2016). Even so, conveying power by extensively moving one’s own body while walking is not the only possibility. To opt for movements that are more formal, trying to eliminate any excess use of energy, can transmit a similar nonverbal message (Millar, 2008). Ostensibly, an erect body position would be conducive to the display of power and dominance (Givens, 2016). In contrast, a continuous, slight forward-tilt of the body during walking is more representative of a constant feeling of submissiveness (Morris, 1986). A person’s attraction towards another person of the opposite gender may also be nonverbally communicated via a person’s gait. If a female is attracted to a male, she may start to move on the balls and toes of her feet. This presents and prolongs her legs, since longer legs carry sexual connotations (see Section 4.4). Interestingly, high heels, which seem to pronounce the length of the female foot, were found to produce a gait, which was deemed less attracting and also more submissive. They do so by introducing a certain stiffness and equally reducing hip- sway and arm-swing movements (Walter et al., 1998). Thus judging by the gait itself, without including other nonverbal cues, high heels are rather counterproductive in transmitting this signal. However, in other contexts, walking on one’s toes in the sense of tiptoeing is usually employed to remain unnoticed and seems to be accompanied by a slight forward bend of the body (Morris, 1977, 1986). Another way by which a woman could nonverbally signal attraction is by adopting a more rolling gait, which apparently stems from female hip movements (Collett, 2003). As already described a reduced movement of the hip may render the female gait less attractive. When being in the presence of an attractive individual of the other gender, both genders are more prone to display a bouncing walk. This is to present oneself as energetic individual. This occurs especially for males (Collett, 2003). Overall, it seems as if a person’s gait is used to show that a person would be a favourable choice for mating (Collett, 2003). It will also be mentioned that a female’s gait can make her the target of inappropriate touching. Research conducted by Sakaguchi and Hasegawa (2006) uncovered that females with a slow velocity and short strides, which might send the nonverbal signal of vulnerability, are being seen as favourable victims for inappropriate touching. A person’s gait is equally able to send nonverbal signals regarding several emotions felt by the walker. Although different people have different individual peculiarities regarding their walk, Montepare et al. (1987) found that one can read emotions of anger, happiness, sadness, and pride from a person’s gait, even though we seem to be less accurate regarding the identification of pride. According to them, an angry gait is more heavyfooted than happy,

65 proud, or sad gaits. Moreover, angry and proud gaits are characterised by longer strides than both happiness and sadness. Still, the happy gait displays somewhat longer strides than the sad gait. In addition to this, the sad gait shows a less pronounced arm swing than the other three gaits. Interestingly, Montepare et al. (1987) did not find a strong characterising effect of posture. In a similar vein, Roether et al. (2009) discovered that happiness and anger are related to higher walking speed, whereas fear and sadness are associated with slower walking speed. Furthermore, anger and happiness are characterised by larger and faster posture related movements, while fear and sadness show the opposite, namely smaller and slower movements. At the same time, anger and fear are being signalled by more flexion of the limbs. This does not necessarily contradict Montepare et al. (1987), since this would be congruent with the less pronounced arm swing in sad gaits. However, Roether et al. (2009) still contradict, or at least elaborate on, Montepare et al.’s (1987) finding that posture is of negligible significance by highlighting the importance of the inclined head which corresponds with sadness in gaits. Michalak et al. (2009) focused on the nonverbal expression of sadness and depression in an individual’s gait. Their findings regarding the sadness and depression gait confirm the slower walking speed and reduced arm swing mentioned in other studies with respect to sadness. Additionally, these gaits apparently include less vertical head movements, a larger lateral sway of a person’s upper body, and a relatively more slouched posture. Further support for higher walking speed in anger and joy gaits and slower walking speed in sadness gaits stems from the paper of Gross et al. (2012). The authors also mention that joy and anger gaits possess a higher magnitude of shoulder, trunk, elbow, hip, and pelvic movement than gaits signifying sadness. For joy in particular, an extended trunk and depressed shoulders seem to be nonverbal gait signs, whereas a flexed neck and trunk are nonverbal signals of sadness. These findings are also in line with some of the other studies mentioned before. Using a software-based approach to identify emotions from gait, Janssen et al. (2008) agree that emotions, in their case emotions of anger, happiness, and sadness together with a neutral condition, may be recognisable for single individuals but that personal differences in walking might render emotion recognition across individual walking styles difficult. Karg et al. (2010) confirm this by pointing out that intraperson accuracy is higher then interperson accuracy with respect to detecting affective states. On top of that, slight signals of emotional conflict are embedded in a person’s gait, more specifically in its onset, as a study by Gélat et al. (2011) demonstrates. Being in a situation of emotional conflict, it may take us a little longer than normal to start walking and we seem to be less likely to prepare our posture for walking

66 before moving. However, it remains questionable whether an observer would be able to notice these slight changes without technical means. This will suffice to demonstrate that a person’s gait is rich in nonverbal signals, especially with concern to emotions. Although one could assume that walking is done by all human beings in the same way, empirical evidence suggests that even here we can expect dissimilarities across different cultures. A study by Marsh et al. (2007) discovered that US- Americans were able to tell Australians and Americans apart by relying on their gait. Thence, cultures seem to account for peculiarities in one’s way of walking. Cultural differences also occur with respect to the decoding of gait. Montepare and Zebrowitz (1993) investigated how Korean perceptions of gait differed from American perceptions. They unveiled that age and gender are being perceived similarly and that for both subject groups strength and happiness in gait decreased with age, while attractiveness showed a rising and then falling trend with age (i.e., children and old people are less attractive than adolescents or young adults). Notwithstanding these shared elements, perception of dominance decreased with age for American subjects, whereas the Korean subjects did not share this perception. Consequently, how we walk and how we read another individual’s gait might both be subject to cultural influence.

5 Proxemics – The space between people Since proxemics may be a less familiar area of nonverbal communication for many a reader, it might be useful to start with a brief definition of the subject before looking at how it acts out. Hall (1982) basically described proxemics as “interrelated observations and theories of man’s use of space as a specialized elaboration of culture” (p. 1). In doing so, he acknowledged the impact of culture from the outset. All the same, Hall (1982) used this concept for elaborating on many things, most notably architecture. In connection with this thesis’s content, the concept will be narrowed down to the level of individuals and the role it may play in nonverbal signalling. As such, one has to imagine different bubbles around a human being, which may or may not be invaded by different people in different occasions. Thus, in which distance (i.e., in which of the bubbles) a person stands relative to another person may tell us something about the two individuals’ relationship or related factors. It will not be omitted that the father of proxemics is, in fact, Edward Twitchell Hall. Although he willingly states that his idea of proxemics is based on other research that had been done before his observations, the term proxemics and its conception seem to stem from his own

67 mind (Hall, 1982). Hence, it might be understandable why this chapter will strongly draw on Hall’s material of this topic. After roughly clarifying the idea behind proxemics, it may be useful to look at how it influences animals to get an impression of the evolutionary importance of spacing between different living beings. While the spacing between animals appears to be slightly less fine- grained than between human beings, there are still certain distances that resurface across species (Hall, 1982). For the beginning it is necessary to mention that there are contact and non-contact animals. Contact species are those that can often be found to be in contact with other members of their species for longer periods of time (Hall, 1982). One example for this would be the walrus (Hall, 1982). In contrast, non-contact animals, like the horse, do not normally engage in more extensive contact amongst each other (Hall, 1982). One distance that can be found in animals with regard to interspecies contact is the flight distance. As the name indicates, this is the distance at which an animal will flee if a member of another species trespasses it. Interestingly, a larger animal has a larger flight distance, meaning that it will flee earlier, than a smaller animal (Hall, 1982). After the flight distance comes what is called critical distance. As explained by Hall (1982), it lies between an animal’s flight and attack distance. He mentions the example of the lion, which will retreat if a person enters his flight distance, but when being unable to retreat, and when the person is located in the critical distance, the lion will instead approach the person. There also seems to be personal distance between non-contact animals. When two animals of a species are in each others’ personal distance, they may be more intimately engaged (Hall, 1982). Additionally, animals of dominant status have larger personal distances than their non-dominant counterparts. This may be due to the fact that proxemics is strongly related to territoriality behaviour (Hall, 1982). Finally, animals exhibit social distance. Social distance refers to the distance at which animals still feel in contact, even though it is not necessary for them to still have visual contact (Hall, 1982). Variations in social distance are subject to environmental conditions. For instance, if danger seems to be present, social distance should decrease, which seems to be a survival mechanism (Hall, 1982). Hall (1982) further mentions that the exact distances are likely to vary across different species. These rules may have easily applied to our primate ancestors since well before we made our evolutionary steps towards Homo sapiens. While not being directly linked to any single part of our body as many of the other parts of nonverbal communication, proxemics seems to be related to our anatomy. On the one hand, proxemics is inherently linked to our senses. Hall (1982) highlights the role of the visual, aural, kinaesthetic, and olfactory receptors, as well as the skin as instrument for feeling

68 warmth emitted from other sources. He further proposes that the different distances of human beings may be separated to some extent by the senses which can receive information only up to some distance. On the other hand, certain conditions concerning proxemics can also influence how our anatomy develops. More precisely, crowding can, at least in animals, lead to a growth in adrenal glands in order to cope with the stress of constant overpopulation (Hall, 1982). However, if extended over longer periods of time, this can lead to bodily processes that may lead to a state of shock and a subsequent population collapse (Hall, 1982). Hall (1982) further suggests that the medieval plague crises would have been less severe in the absence of stress-inducing crowding, which may have additionally lowered the victims’ immune systems. Moreover, he mentions findings that ascertain that animals which are exposed to crowding may experience reproduction issues. In addition to these points, proxemics seems to exhibit gender differences like many other areas of nonverbal communication. It appears as if women are standing closer to each other when being strangers than men (Givens, 2016). One reason for this could be that women have somewhat shorter arms than men. Thus, standing outside the reach of another stranger might mean less distance when two women communicate than when two men interact. Overall, these aspects demonstrate that there is an important, although not ostensible, link between proxemics and human anatomy. Being equipped with a better understanding of proxemics from an evolutionary and anatomical perspective, it is now interesting to find out in how far these points apply to us humans. Hall (1982) mentions four distances for human beings, which do not contain flight and critical distance as we know them from animals. Each distance, he further subdivides in close and far phase. It will be pointed out that any metric measures given below apply to Americans since other cultures may exhibit other measures. The closest distance is intimate distance. This bubble is practically nonexistent in its close phase and extends to approximately 15 to 45 cm in its far phase (Hall, 1982). In its close phase, bodily contact is either enacted or almost so. The eyes and the voice are less important in this distance, whereas other senses like our olfactory sense or heat detection via the skin become more involved. Also the voice loses much of its importance as communicating device (Hall, 1982). Morris (1971) somewhat elaborates on this fact by stating that vocalisation may be restricted to soft cooing-like sounds in the case of physical intimacy, which are similar to how mothers communicate with their infants when holding them close. In its far phase, the bodies of two people are still close enough to be able to touch a relatively large area of an interlocutor’s body (Hall, 1982). It might also be this distance in which we experience most of the impact of crowding. According to Hall (1982), we react to this by reducing felt intimacy via withdrawal

69 behaviour. Some examples provided by Hall are the reduction of one’s own movements and the holding close of our hands. This seems to be in line with the affiliative conflict theory of Argyle and Dean (1965) as introduced in Section 2.3. The next bubble is termed personal distance. Hall (1982) delineates its close phase as ranging from about 45 to 75 cm and its far phase as ranging from approximately 75 to 120 cm. In its close phase it is still possible for one person to grab and hold on to another person as mentioned by Hall. He further asserts that sight regains some of its usefulness in this distance and can now better take in another person’s face without distortion. In its far phase, people in personal distance cannot directly touch each others’ body anymore but should be able to touch fingertips when both individuals protrude their arms (Hall, 1982). Further body heat is no longer perceivable. Also olfactory cues diminish. On the flip side, hand gesticulation can now be observed relatively well (Hall, 1982). Next, Hall (1982) mentions social distance, which may lie between 120 and 210 cm in its close phase and between 210 to 365 cm in its far phase. He asserts that this is the distance in which it is more difficult to dominate another person. In addition to this, Hall states that touching is unlikely to be expected when two people are separated by social distance. He further claims that differences between the close and far phase of social distance are few. In its close phase one can see an ever-increasing part of another person’s body eventually resulting in a full view of the other person with voice levels reaching their normal level, although certain visual details may become indiscernible (Hall, 1982). Hall also states that this may be the preferred distance for working together or when participating in a social gathering of casual status, since this distance appears to be sufficiently impersonal. In the far phase of social distance, relationships become even more impersonal. This bestows upon it a rather formal character (Hall, 1982). The sensory input seems to be reduced to auditory and visual cues, for which at least the latter seem to further lose detail (Hall, 1982). Intriguingly, Hall also mentions the heightened importance of eye contact at this distance as well as the possibility to make it feel more like personal distance when raising the volume of one’s voice. These points strongly resemble the idea behind the affiliative conflict theory (Argyle & Dean, 1965). Apart from asserting that behaviour regarding this distance is subject to cultural peculiarities, Hall (1982) mentions the far phase of social distance as effective insulation device in human interaction. In other words, this distance enables people to stop conversations and work near other people without being perceived as rude. The last distance presented by Hall (1982) is public distance. According to him, the close phase of public distance ranges from about 365 to 760 cm, whereas the far phase includes

70 anything beyond this mark. He asserts that this distance does not incur any extraordinary involvement. In the close phase of public distance, conversation needs to rely on raised voice. Furthermore, a person can take action against a threat in this distance (Hall, 1982). Details of another person are less and less perceivable. For instance, another individual’s eye colour should be impossible to see at this distance (Hall, 1982). The far phase of public distance is often found to surround important public personalities (Hall, 1982). In this distance, much of the nonverbal signals of another person are lost, including cues of the voice. Thus exaggerations of gestures and the like are necessary to ensure communication (Hall, 1982). Having introduced the four different distances of proxemics, it might be more understandable how different distances can nonverbally signal different things. This is possible since proxemics behaviour is also able to adapt to structural or situational factors as well as to the internal state of a person (Gillespie & Leffler, 1983). One of the more apparent signals may be dominance. It has already been mentioned above that proxemics is related to territoriality behaviour as well as that it is easier to exert dominance over others in some distances than in others. In their review of the theoretical groundwork of proxemics, Gillespie and Leffler (1983) state that dominance is characterised by entitlement to more space than non-dominant individuals as well as the right to defend this space. On top of that, they also state that a dominant person is allowed to invade the space of less dominant individuals without having to fear punishment, which is unlikely to hold true for the opposite direction (i.e., a non-dominant person invading the territory of a dominant person). Gillespie and Leffler (1983) also report that dominant individuals seem to touch non-dominant individuals more frequently than non- dominant individuals touch dominant ones. This behaviour is relatively similar to what can be found in some animal species (Hall, 1982). By dominance, Gillespie and Leffler (1983) do not refer to physical dominance but rather to relative, social status. Support for this claim stems from the research of Leffler et al. (1982). They assigned either high or low status positions (i.e., teacher or student) to subjects and investigated their nonverbal behaviour. The authors found much of the dominant behaviour mentioned above for those who have been assigned the teacher role. The teacher subjects enjoyed more space, and invaded other students’ space more commonly, including touching. In a next step Leffler et al. (1982) reversed the roles turning students into teachers and vice versa. They found that an according shift in nonverbal, dominant behaviour could be found in the patterns of proxemics. Aliakbari et al. (2011) also found that low status individuals tend to maintain greater distance to a person of higher status in most cases. Hence, social status seems to influence proxemics norms between people. Some of the factors of social status cited by Gillespie and Leffler (1983) are dressing (e.g.,

71 formal dressing), occupation rank, gender, or age. For example, Henley (1973) found that females were more often touched than males. Moreover, younger people received more touching than older ones. She attributes this to status, which means that females and young people are seen as being in an at least somewhat less dominant position than males and older people. Likewise, Lomax et al. (1994) found that both men and women are more likely to intrude upon the space of other women even when they do not yield their territory. As a result, when paying attention to how people interact in a group with regard to space invasions and spatial rights, then the diligent observer should be able to guess the hierarchical relationships within the group. In extreme cases, dominance may change into aggression. When being aggressive with the intention to hit someone, one needs to be closer to the target in order to reach that person. As implied by Hall (1982) this has to be below social distance, since it may be difficult to exert dominance beyond the far phase of personal distance. Thus, if one person intrudes the personal or even intimate space of another person, this could be a sign of abounding aggression if other contextual factors do not offer a better explanation for the approach. However, also the opposite may be true. McCall et al. (2009) discovered that people exhibited more aggression towards virtual avatars to which they kept more distance in an earlier task than towards those who they allowed to be closer during interaction. Synthesising both points, it seems as if immediate aggression may be nonverbally signalled by closer distances, whereas latent aggression might manifest itself in an attempt to avoid contact by adopting larger distances. Apart from these rather negative nonverbal messages, which can be communicated by proxemics, there is also the possibility of transmitting nonverbal signals of affiliation. One rather ostensible conclusion is that affiliation may be linked to how close we are to another person. Hall (1982) mentions intimate distance as being the distance in which love-related body contact may occur, which is the closest distance possible. This is confirmed by Morris (1971) who asserts that touching is import for bonding and other intimate activities. Also the affiliative conflict theory of Argyle and Dean (1965) agrees in this point by stating that closer proximity is seemingly experienced as being more intimate with another person. In an experiment, Allgeier and Byrne (1973) discovered that seating distance to a liked stranger is smaller than to a disliked stranger. This provides further evidence to the claim that affiliation is nonverbally communicated via shorter distances in proxemics. Accordingly, as with prolonged staring (see Section 4.1.2), entering or remaining in the closer distances of proxemics could indicate both affiliative and aggressive feelings. Again, one has to pay

72 attention to the bigger picture by including contextual clues and other nonverbal signals into one’s assessment of the situation. Another interesting point is proxemics changes when starting and ending interactions. When wanting to make contact with another person, one usually starts in the approach phase. Here we approach each other, reducing our distance. Depending on relationship and culture, this can mean various forms of actual touching (e.g., handshake, kiss, embrace) (Collett, 2003), which incurs the entering of intimate distance. Already here, proxemics can nonverbally signal attitudes. If the handshake has been chosen, the distance between the interacting parties can convey a lack of trust and reservation. This is the case if the distance is rather great (Givens, 2016). In general, it would be reasonable to presume that after this initial contact, we establish the adequate distance given all the relational and situational conditions that exist and change this distance as the conditions change. So far, this seems to be common sense. What may be less straightforward is our proxemics behaviour when parting. When the parting phase of the conversation is reached, we actually want to leave the other person by increasing distance. At the same time, we do not want that person to feel forsaken, which necessitates emphasising the value of the relationship between us and the other person (Collett, 2003). As pointed out above, affiliation of this kind is being nonverbally communicated by close proximity (with respect to the nonverbal area of proxemics). Under normal conditions, this conflict often results in repeated steps forward and backward (Collett, 2003). Of course, as for many other nonverbal signals, for this nonverbal behaviour to become visible the physical environment must allow for it. This back and forward moving might be concluded by a parting act much like at the beginning of the interaction (e.g., handshake) before finally parting ways (Collett, 2003). Thence, proxemics can tell a lot about the stage of a conversation, especially whether it is going to end soon or not. Apart from helping in communicating basic attitudes such as dominance or liking or indicating departure of a communication partner, Morgan (2001) claims that proxemics may also be used to influence others around us exactly by utilising the principle of the already discussed four distances as identified by Hall (1982). He suggests that, when speaking to a bigger audience, a speaker should move closer to the audience to enter their personal distance whenever he or she wants to bring in personal content like an anecdote or soliciting the individual audience members’ support. However, since personal space is rather something that surrounds a particular person (Hall, 1982; Morgan, 2001), the speaker may instead address one or more representative people in the audience, which Morgan (2001) calls proxies. According to the author, a personal connection with a proxy might allow to establish

73 a similar connection with the rest of the audience. All the same, he warns the speaker not to intrude into the intimate distance of the audience. For messages that are less personal in nature (e.g., a common problem for both the speaker and the audience), Morgan (2001) recommends to retreat to social distance. Even less personal is public distance, as has already been stated by Hall (1982). The speaker may want to shift to public distance to talk about the overall subject of his or her address (Morgan, 2001). Public distance might also be more common for public figures of high authority (Hall, 1982) as has already been mentioned above. Overall, proxemics may tell us something about other people but it may also be useful as instrument to reinforce messages we seek to transmit to others. It has been explained at the very beginning of this chapter that Hall (1982) himself has highlighted the cultural differences that may appear in proxemics. Criticism regarding the cultural influence is voiced by Gillespie and Leffler (1983), who rather stress social status than enculturation with concern to proxemics. In their review, they explain that findings were somewhat inconsistent in positing constant norms of proxemics in different cultures. In relation to this, they mention that many researchers missed to separate cultural influence from other social factors, such as status which has been discoursed above. With regard to their criticism, it can be agreed that culture is not the only facet that influences proxemics in people. This has hopefully been made clear by the other topics discussed in this chapter. However, it seems unjustified to presume that cultural influence is non-existent. Although rather anecdotal, Hall (1982) already provided some examples by referring to Arabs, the Japanese, and US-Americans. Watson and Graves (1966) further investigated the differences between Arabs and US-Americans by observing college students in their behaviour. By doing so, they found noticeable differences in proxemics. It appears as if the Arabs use of proxemics favours more directness and closeness (e.g., closer distance and more touching during conversation) than the style of the US-Americans. Even if one could still argue that differences may be due to different social status attributed to different cultures, the study of Aiello and Jones (1971) seems to be less compromised by this potential shortfall. They investigated the differences of proxemics in three different US-American subcultures, which were middle-class white children, lower-class Puerto Rican children, and lower-class black children. The age of the observed subjects was between six to eight years. Firstly, this sample allows for a reduction in status effects. The dyadic observation focused on two children of the same social class and the same culture. Secondly, the young age of the children may be further conducive to eliminating social factors, since children at that age might not be aware

74 of the entirety of social rules in their culture and sub-culture. Still, Aiello and Jones (1971) found dissimilarities in proxemics between the three subject groups. In total, proxemics can nonverbally signal dominance, aggression, affiliation, and other conversational information. Moreover, it represents a useful tool to enhance one’s communication abilities. Withal, one has to be aware of potential cultural differences regarding proxemics.

6 The paralinguistic cues of the voice To start, one thing requires clarification. When writing about the voice in this chapter, this explicitly excludes the production of words in order to stay in line with the definition provided in Section 2.1. While the verbal formulation of our thoughts, feelings, and intentions is significant when communicating with others, this chapter tries to show that the voice might also transmit messages without having to depend on words. One name for these signals is paralanguage. Paralanguage includes such elements as voice pitch, tonality, prosody, and rhythm (Givens, 2016). They may occur concurrently as components of normal speech (e.g., tonality and stressing of words) or stand as sounds of their own, without being accompanied by speech (e.g., laughing). From an evolutionary perspective, our voice patterns seem to stem from three basic sounds, which are being emitted by all mammals. These are a low-pitched sound, which comes from the growl, a high-pitched sound, which is equivalent to whining sounds, and a loud and low- pitched sound, which supposedly stems from barks (Givens, 2016). Different sounds (e.g., cry) further seem to elicit certain emotions in us. Not surprisingly then, the limbic system seems to be involved in reacting to as well as producing these non-word, vocal cues (Givens, 2016). All the same, there are also other areas of the brain which are involved in producing paralinguistic sounds, especially in connection with word intonation. Damage in these areas can lead to a condition known as aprosidia. Aprosidia basically describes a state in which a person may not be able to accurately comprehend the emotions conveyed by speech tonality. Moreover, people struck by aprosidia also lack the capability to infuse their own language with these paralinguistic cues of emotions, which makes their manner of speaking monotonous in nature (Givens, 2016). While they may not be as present as visual cues, it is true that voice cues are dissimilar across the genders (Apicella et al., 2007). According to Dabbs and Mallinger (1999), the reason for the deeper voice in males can be traced to the effects of testosterone in male humans. By

75 measuring testosterone and analysing the voice of undergraduate subjects, the authors found a relationship between the level of testosterone and the length, thickness, and tension of the vocal folds. This appears to be one reason for the lower-pitched voices. Furthermore, they state that also psychological factors could play a role. Since voice pitch is not absolutely fixed, a higher testosterone level may influence how individuals vary their voice during communication. The relationship of testosterone and lower voice pitch has been found for males, but it failed to emerge for females (Dabbs & Mallinger, 1999). The gender-related peculiarities of the voice also play a role in attraction across genders. Collins (2000) found that lower voices in males where perceived as more attractive by females. Similarly, a study by Collins and Missing (2003) supports the claim that males judge female voices with a higher frequency to be more attractive. Apicella et al. (2007) followed up on these findings and looked at how reproductive success is linked to voice pitch. In order to do so, they used data from a hunter-gatherer population in Tanzania. Their results indicated that males with lower voice pitch have higher reproductive success than their high-pitch counterparts, which means that they had more children. Apicella et al. (2007) suggest that this is due to the easier access to mates for males with a low voice pitch. As for the females of their groups, the authors did not find a similar relationship. Another factor researched by Apicella et al. (2007) is the relationship between low pitch in males’ voices and child mortality. They found some indications that high pitch may be related to higher child mortality, but in the end this relationship failed to reach significance, which is why they eventually report unsupportive evidence for this hypothesis. Overall, they conclude that there appears to be evolutionary selection pressure favouring males with low-pitched voices. Anatomically seen, the specific sound of our voices is shaped by our vocal cords. Thicker vocal cords lead to a lower voice as it is characteristic for the average male compared to the average female (Harbecke, 2014). As described above, this is the result of testosterone which is more prevalent in male humans and which thickens the vocal cords. Usually these vocal cords start to vibrate when being exposed to the air current stemming from our lungs when exhaling and these vibrations create the sound of our voices. However, this is only part of the story. These vibrations have to be carried from our vocal cords to our mouth and finally into the external environment. On this way, there are many hollow spaces in our body which alter the original makeup of the vibration (Harbecke, 2014). For example, some frequencies may be absorbed by tissue whereas others are not. These further changes eventually lead to the fairly characteristic sound of every individual’s voice (Harbecke, 2014). As most of our body,

76 our voice as well changes with age by getting lower the older we become (Harbecke, 2014; Millar, 2008). Interestingly, we are relatively adept in not only guessing the gender but also the age of the owner of a certain voice (Collins & Missing, 2003; Harbecke, 2014). Although we have some accuracy in making judgements about other people on the basis of their voice, our judgments are far from being perfectly reliable. For instance, perceived attractiveness of the female voice seems to be related to visual attractiveness of women as perceived by men (Collins & Missing, 2003). However, the study of Collins (2000) found that women were only able to make accurate judgements about men’s weight when using the voice as information. Other factors, like muscularity, were not being estimated correctly by the means of voice characteristics. Interestingly, we also seem to derive characteristics like passivity and persuasiveness from paralinguistic cues (Apple et al., 1979). How important voice can be in shaping others’ experiences is demonstrated by Ambady et al. (2002). They recorded surgeons’ voices during normal medical visits which were then presented to listeners in brief segments. The authors discovered that listeners were able to identify surgeons who had been the target of malpractice litigation. Most salient were ratings of higher dominance and lower anxiety and concern in voice tone, which identified the surgeons that had been targeted by malpractice claims. One suggestion of Ambady et al. (2002) was that these characteristics of the voice may to some extent even incite patients to file a law suit concerning malpractice. On a more basic level, certain emotional reactions of our brain are automatically being triggered in response to certain sounds we hear in another person’s voice (Givens, 2016). Such is the power of the voice. The former paragraphs should have presented some facts about the evolutionary and anatomical background as well as some of the ways in which the paralanguage embedded in the human voice can shape our perceptions. It may not be surprising then for the reader that paralanguage seems to be able to carry emotional notions. For instance, a cracking voice signals that a person is becoming emotional (Millar, 2008). However, aside from mere emotionality, there can be even more specific emotional messages embedded in the human voice. Matsumoto and Kishimoto (1983) provide evidence for the fact that we are able to successfully recognise anger, happiness, sadness, and surprise from nonverbal, vocal cues by the age of nine. Their findings further indicate that this decoding ability of the voice has to develop, meaning that little children are seemingly unable to correctly guess these four emotions. In general, we seem to be able to guess emotions from vocal cues reasonably well, no matter whether they are basic emotions (e.g., happiness) or more specific feelings (e.g., jealousy) (Scherer, 1995). Even so, we seem to be better in decoding some emotions than

77 others (Scherer, 1995). To start with anger, this emotion is characterised by a raise in the voice’s mean frequency and its intensity. The frequency may be of higher variability and range than normally. However, the mean frequency also shows some downwards movements. Articulation rate also rises (Scherer, 1995). Regarding fear, there are similar paralinguistic signs. The mean frequency tends to be higher, which also applies to weaker kinds of fear (e.g., anxiety), and the range seems to be wider again. Likewise, there seems to be more energy in the voice and the articulation rate rises (Scherer, 1995). In anxiety, the throat clear, a brief and often unconsciously produced sound, may be heard (Givens, 2016). Yet, there appears to be less variability in the fear voice than in the anger voice. As for the paralanguage of sadness, the case is rather different. Sad voices display lower mean frequency, lower intensity, and a more narrow range. In general, there is a downwards trend for the voice’s frequency. Articulation rate is lower (Scherer, 1995). Joy is again more in line with anger and fear. A joyful voice is infused with a higher mean frequency, intensity, variability, as well as a wider range. These factors are accompanied by an increase in articulation rate (Scherer, 1995). As can be seen from these delineations of the different emotions’ voice characteristics, there appears to be a rather clear cut between emotions communicating arousal in some manner as opposed to a subdued state. Still, Scherer (1995) implies that emotions have an aroused and subdued type, which should be reflected by different paralinguistic characteristics. As an example he mentions hot anger and cold anger. In spite of all these findings, reliably identifying emotions from the voice can be challenging in much the same way as reading micro expressions (see Section 4.1.1) can be. Apparently, voice blends of different emotions are possible as are quick sequences of different emotions (Scherer, 1995). Given that some of the emotions described above share somewhat similar traits, a trained ear might be necessary to accurately spot what is going on in another person’s voice. On top of that, the voice is also seen in context with other nonverbal signals, as indicated by Rezlescu et al. (2015). One more note of caution merits attention with regard to the findings presented. As mentioned in Scherer’s (1995) review, many researchers relied on actors to induce the specific emotion into their voice. Thus, it remains open to discussion how representative these results might be. The nonverbal, paralinguistic features of the voice can further communicate dominance. A lower frequency seems to be important in communicating notions of dominance (Givens, 2016). In animals, the same mechanism seems to be applied, which allegedly makes the animal sound bigger (Givens, 2016). In addition to this, a slow speech rate may convey strength, whereas a high pitch was rather perceived as signalling a lack of strength (Apple et al., 1979). A higher pitch may instead be utilised when trying to appease an interlocutor,

78 which may be the case when asking a question (Givens, 2016). According to Rezlescu et al. (2015), the voice even seems to take precedence over the face when judging another person’s level of dominance. However, the studies undertaken by the authors further show that dominance does not automatically seem to be correlated with trustworthiness. Consequently, dominance is characterised by a low pitch and potentially a slow rate of articulation. On the flip side, the voice also plays a role in transmitting a feeling of affiliation. As already mentioned, the voice allows for judgements of attractiveness for the different genders, even though other nonverbal areas may carry more weight in communicating attractiveness (Rezlescu et al., 2015). To briefly repeat these points, men are more attracted to higher- pitched female voices, whilst women are more attracted to lower-pitched male voices. Nevertheless, in order to encourage intimacy and to display harmlessness, men and women use a higher-pitched voice in situations of greeting and courtship (Givens, 2016). Additionally, the voice seems to become softer when dealing with our intimates (Givens, 2016). This applies to infants, friends, and lovers alike (Givens, 2016; Morris, 1971). Similarly, adults switch to a higher pitch not only when conversing with members of the other gender but also when talking to infants and small children (Givens, 2016). Hence, higher frequency and softer tone are characteristics of the voice that signal feelings of affiliation and intimacy. Given the nonverbal potential of the voice, it attracted the attention of those who wish to be better able to detect deception. From an intuitive perspective, this makes sense. Morris (1977) suggests that there might be a scale of reliability of nonverbal cues, in which the body parts that are closest to the head are those that are most likely to be consciously controlled since we are most aware of them. Thus, if it is true that those areas that we are least aware of are also those that deliver the most truthful and unbiased information, then it would be sensible to presume that paralanguage is relatively honest given that we cannot see and, thereby, may not attend to it as strongly. Likeminded suggestions come from Ekman (2009), who sees paralanguage as somewhat hard to voluntarily control. Indeed, there are hints that the voice may be relatively reliable for the detection of deception. These were even sufficient to spark the development of electronic means of deception detection based on paralinguistic cues (Millar, 2008). Research by Anderson et al. (1999) unveiled that people attending to paralanguage where more effective in detecting deception compared to people naming visual or verbal cues as the basis for their judgement. This idea that paralinguistic factors may betray a lie is corroborated by the suggestions of Ekman (2009). He states that this applies mainly to lies that include emotions. Often, a lie may be given away by a mismatch between emotional

79 states (Ekman, 2009). According to Ekman (2009), low as well as high voice pitch can consequently be paralinguistic signs of lies if they are incongruent with the situations and the emotions that would be expected to be normal in such a situation. Pauses and errors in speech may also betray a lie since they can indicate thinking processes that occur when making up or trying to remember a false story (Ekman, 2009). However, it will be remembered that there is no single sign indicative of deception by itself. For instance, speech errors and pauses may equally occur with negative emotions such as fear (Ekman, 2009). Another paralinguistic sign that could be a hint that someone told the untruth is throat clearing (Givens, 2016). It may be an unconscious signal of uncertainty and anxiety, which might accompany a lie, especially when being repeated at an unusual rate during the conversation. Nonetheless, it may equally signify doubting, scepticism, or mere disagreement (Givens, 2016). As a result, paralanguage can provide important nonverbal cues concerning deception but only to some extent. Apart from whether a person is telling the truth or not, the voice can make a person appear more trustworthy or not. It seems as if a voice with a high pitch is assumed to be less truthful (Apple et al., 1979; Millar, 2008). This may be due to its concurrent association with nervousness (Apple et al., 1979). Apple et al. (1979) found that a slow rate of articulation is equally presumed to indicate a lack of truthfulness. One reason for this may be linked to the fact that slow speech was similarly perceived as less fluent and less persuasive (Apple et al., 1979). Regarding the importance of paralanguage in this context, its impact on perceptions of trustworthiness has been found to be as strong as the influence of the face (Rezlescu et al., 2015). With respect to differences across cultures, there seem to be both similarities and dissimilarities. Concerning our ability to decode nonverbal signals, the study of Matsumoto and Kishimoto (1983) provides reason to believe that there are developmental differences in our paralinguistic decoding capability across cultures. According to the authors, American children of age four to five were able to recognise surprise from paralinguistic cues, whereas Japanese children of the same age group already recognised surprise and sadness. American children from six to nine years of age successfully identified all four emotions tested by the authors, which were anger, happiness, sadness, and surprise. In contrast, Japanese children of six years of age only recognised happiness, sadness, and surprise. Only at age seven to nine were they able to also identify anger, which made the set of four emotions complete, which was one year later than the American children. As for explicit cross-cultural understanding, the experiment of Sauter et al. (2010) provides evidence for cross-culturally specific and universal paralinguistic cues. By comparing understanding of nonverbal vocal cues across

80 Westerners and an isolated Namibian culture, the authors found that the basic emotions of joy, anger, disgust, sadness, fear, and surprise were understood by both groups in both directions. However, Sauter et al. (2010) also fund that other paralinguistic cues (e.g., relief) were only understood within the respective groups and not across both groups. These points delineate the intercultural variation and similarity with regard to paralanguage. Since we are often preoccupied with language barriers and different accents we may be at first unaware of these differences. It should not be forgotten that speaking in another language than one’s mother tongue as well as listening and actively trying to comprehend the verbal content of an interlocutor doing the same poses certain challenges related to factors such as speed of speech, (mis)pronunciation, and misinterpretation, which all draw on our mental resources. Nonetheless, paralinguistic differences are there and merit attention given the potential impact that paralanguage can cause as an area of nonverbal communication. After all, paralinguistic cues can disclose information about a person’s emotional state, his or her dominance and affiliative behaviour, potential attempts of deceptions, while also being able to influence perceptions of truthfulness, all of which can be of high value when trying to do business.

81

II. EMPIRICAL PART

7 Method Whilst attempting to find answers to the research questions introduced in Chapter 1, special requirements arose with respect to the cultures selected for the empirical part, the sample, as well as the procedure, all of which will be covered in this chapter. The two reference cultures that had been chosen for the experiment were Austria and Taiwan, which represent a western and an eastern country respectively. More information on these two countries and their cultures will follow in the subsequent section.

7.1 Austria and Taiwan: Background and differences To study culture-based nonverbal differences does only make sense if the investigated cultures are different enough to allow for these. This section is dedicated to the presentation of some background information by briefly presenting a few facts about the history, geography, and cultural dimensions related to Austria and Taiwan. It is true that national boundaries do not necessarily indicate cultural boundaries. In other words, a nation is not the same as a culture. Even so, it may be a reasonably good proxy for the purpose of this thesis. Before starting the analysis, it needs to be mentioned that history has a recognisable impact on cultures and their formation (House et al., 2004). To start out with history, Austria has experienced a vast expansion from its original small territory only to lose most of its acquired lands later on, including periods of annexation and occupation. Since Medieval times, Austria had been subject to monarchic rule. The two dynasties of importance were the Babenbergs and the House of Habsburg (Austrian Press & Information Service in the United States, 2016). Probably the main device for the Austrian growth was the marital policy of the reigning nobles, even though warfare was not alien to the Austrian sovereigns. Austrian rulers also carried the name of Holy Roman Emperor before dissolving the empire during the Napoleonic wars in 1806 (Austrian Press & Information Service in the United States, 2016). Through years of territorial growth, Austria reached its peak when it was known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This empire collapsed after the First World War from which emerged the now territorially smaller Austrian republic in 1918 (Austrian Press & Information Service in the United States, 2016). There was also a short civil war in Austria in

82 February 1934 (Vienna City Administration, 2016). In 1938, Austria even lost its independence and became part of Germany under the control of Adolf Hitler by means of annexation (Austrian Press & Information Service in the United States, 2016). This led to the involvement of former Austria in the Second World War and the subsequent occupation by the allied forces. Although now separate from Germany, Austria was freed from occupation only in 1955 (Austrian Press & Information Service in the United States, 2016). Again, it took on the shape of a republic and passed its constitution which included the principle of neutrality. In 1995, Austria became a member of the European Union and still holds this status (Austrian Press & Information Service in the United States, 2016). In comparison, Taiwan has equally suffered from a war-related loss of sovereignty and has also experienced a civil war before gradually receiving its freedom. From the fourteenth to the eighteenth century, Han-Chinese started to immigrate into Taiwan. Furthermore, colonising ambitions of different European powers began during the sixteenth century (Formosan Association for Public Affairs, 2016). In 1683, annexation of Taiwan was effectuated by the Qing rulers of China (BBC, 2016). What followed were years of unrest and rebellion against the Chinese authorities (Formosan Association for Public Affairs, 2016). As a result of the defeat in the Sino-Japanese War, China handed Taiwan over to Japan in 1895, which was now in control over the island. Rebellious movements were suppressed via military force, while the economy was strengthened to support Japanese warfare ambitions (Formosan Association for Public Affairs, 2016). After the end of the Second World War, Taiwan returned to China but only to experience brutal suppression by the Koumintang (KMT) faction, which fought against the communist faction in the Chinese civil war. Having lost the civil war, the KMT retreated to Taiwan and maintained their iron rule by means of martial law (Formosan Association for Public Affairs, 2016). Although originally being recognised as representative for China as the Republic of China, Taiwan was internationally substituted by the communist Peoples Republic of China in around 1970 to 1980. Further revolts led to political reforms, the formation of new political parties, and eventually to the replacement of the KMT with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) as the most politically influential party (Formosan Association for Public Affairs, 2016). Later, the KMT should re-establish control over important government positions, even though it seems as if the DPP is currently regaining control (BBC, 2016). The years since 2000 appear to have been an up and down regarding the diplomatic relations between Taiwan and mainland China. Despite the lack of resolution of the question of Taiwanese independence, overall positive political and economic relations seem to be forming (BBC, 2016).

83 The next area that merits short comparison is the geographical situation of Austria and Taiwan. Hofstede (2001) suggests that climate may have a profound impact on the formation of culture. Being in the middle of Europe, Austria has no direct access to any sea. Its territory measures approximately 82,000 km², of which mountain area (e.g., the Alps) accounts for a significant portion. Population head count lies at around 8.6 million. The climate is continental, with cold winters that allow for snow fall and moderate heat during summer time (CIA, 2016a). Contrary to Austria, Taiwan is a Southeast Asian island with plenty of sea access. It has about 32,000 km² of territory (excluding water territory), which encompasses mountain areas. Taiwan’s population counts approximately 23.4 million people. Its climate is tropical and marine with frequent cloudiness all year and monsoon periods in summer (CIA, 2016b). Finally, it may be interesting to look at the differences of cultural dimensions between the two countries. To exemplify this point, the cultural dimensions of GLOBE (House et al., 2004) will be used due to the many different aspects their dimensions cover. Moreover, the GLOBE dimensions distinguish between a culture’s practices and values with respect to the single dimension. As for the measurement, the GLOBE values vary on a scale from 1 to 7, with 1 representing the lowest strength and 7 representing the highest strength for a dimension. The first of these dimensions is performance orientation, which measures society’s encouragement of improvement of performance, innovativeness, and elevated standards (Javidan, 2004). Austria achieves a score of 4.44 on the practice scale and 6.10 on the value scale, whereas Taiwan displays 4.56 and 5.74 respectively (Javidan, 2004). For future orientation, which measures how favourable a society sees future-oriented actions (e.g., planning), Austria has a score of 4.46 on the practice scale and 5.11 on the value scale. The corresponding values of Taiwan are 3.96 and 5.20 (Ashkanasy et al., 2004). The dimension of gender egalitarianism, which looks at how similar the gender roles are in a culture, provides a score of 3.09 for the practice scale and 4.83 for the value scale for Austria as well as 3.18 for the practice scale and 4.06 for the value scale for Taiwan (Emrich et al., 2004). Assertiveness gauges the degree to which a society promotes assertive, tough, and even aggressive behaviour (Den Hartog, 2004). Austria’s practice scale score is 4.62 and its value scale score is 2.81, while Taiwan’s practice scale score is 3.92 and its value scale score is 3.28 (Den Hartog, 2004). The individualism-collectivism scale of GLOBE is practically split up into two sub-dimensions. The overall dimension illustrates how individuals and groups relate to each other in a society. Institutional collectivism describes in how far a society promotes action as collective and resource distribution on a collective level. In contrast, in-group collectivism is based on

84 feelings of pride as well as loyalty and cohesiveness with concern to one’s in-group (Gelfand et al., 2004). For institutional collectivism, Austria achieves 4.30 for the practice scale and 4.73 for the value scale, whilst Taiwan receives 4.59 for the practice scale and 5.15 for the value scale (Gelfand et al., 2004). Further concerning in-group collectivism, the values for Austria are 4.85 for the practice scale and 5.27 for the value scale, whereas the practice scale score of Taiwan is 5.59 with its value scale score being 5.45 (Gelfand et al., 2004). Power distance, which represents the extent to which a society approves of power inequalities, authority, and privileges of status, shows a value of 4.95 on the practice scale and 2.44 on the value scale for Austria, while Taiwan’s practice scale score is 5.18 with a value scale score of 3.09 (Carl et al., 2004). Humane orientation is the degree to which a culture supports the expression of altruism, caring, fairness, friendliness, generosity, and kindness (Kabasakal & Bodur, 2004). For Austria, a practice scale score of 3.72 and a value scale score of 5.76 can be found with Taiwan displaying 4.11 and 5.26 respectively (Kabasakal & Bodur, 2004). The last GLOBE dimension is called uncertainty avoidance and measures whether society sees ambiguity as a menace, to which extent it tolerates it, and to what degree it prefers order and rules instead (Sully de Luque & Javidan, 2004). Austria receives 5.16 on the practice scale and 3.66 on the value scale, whereas Taiwan obtains a score of 4.34 on the practice scale and 5.31 on the value scale (Sully de Luque & Javidan, 2004). A summary of these values is proposed by Table 1 to facilitate comparison.

GLOBE dimension Austria Taiwan Performance orientation (practice scale) 4.44 4.56 Performance orientation (value scale) 6.10 5.74 Future orientation (practice scale) 4.46 3.96 Future orientation (value scale) 5.11 5.20 Gender egalitarianism (practice scale) 3.09 3.18 Gender egalitarianism (value scale) 4.83 4.06 Assertiveness (practice scale) 4.62 3.92 Assertiveness (value scale) 2.81 3.28 Institutional collectivism (practice scale) 4.30 4.59 Institutional collectivism (value scale) 4.73 5.15 In-group collectivism (practice scale) 4.85 5.59 In-group collectivism (value scale) 5.27 5.45 Power distance (practice scale) 4.95 5.18

85 Power distance (value scale) 2.44 3.09 Humane orientation (practice scale) 3.72 4.11 Humane orientation (value scale) 5.76 5.26 Uncertainty avoidance (practice scale) 5.16 4.34 Uncertainty avoidance (value scale) 3.66 5.31

Table 1: GLOBE cultural dimension values for Austria and Taiwan

Thus, it can be seen that Austria and Taiwan are different from the perspective of cultural dimensions, even though they do not seem to be perfect opposites. It remains to be mentioned that other dimensional concepts (e.g., Hofstede, Schwartz) did also find differences between Austrian and Taiwanese culture (e.g., Hofstede, 2001; Ralston et al., 2011). In total, historical context, geographical situation, and scores on cultural dimensions show that the Austrian and the Taiwanese culture are different indeed. Consequently, it is justified to use these two cultures for trying to shed light on the research questions of this thesis. The next section will deal with the sample.

7.2 Sample The total number of participants for the empirical part of this thesis amounts to eight people. All eight participants are students. These eight students contain four Taiwanese exchange students and four Austrian students. All students had some experience with other cultures either by the means of a stay abroad or via exposure to other exchange students. Of the eight students five were female and three were male, which should offer an acceptable gender balance and also include different perspectives on the topic of nonverbal communication. The recruitment happened via personal contacts, cross-cultural management classes, and a multinational masters program. The eight participants responded to these recruitment calls. All participants were further given a basic questionnaire (Appendix B) to inquire about the basic demographic background of the individual participant. This questionnaire also included a question on whether or not one of their experiment partners is a friend to them. After all this might influence the findings for the affiliative conflict theory (see Section 2.3) since it could result in a closer nonverbal equilibrium and different nonverbal communication patterns as compared to an encounter of strangers. Whenever applicable this piece of information will be considered during the discussion of the findings (see Chapter 9). To also better understand the representativeness of the participants for their respective culture, they were asked about the nationality of their parents, their citizenship, their nation of birth, as

86 well as whether they had already lived for more than six months in a country other than their country of birth. Otherwise, it could have been that influence of a third culture might have unwittingly entered the experimental setting. Indeed, all the participants are of single cultural descent, birth, and citizenship, meaning that they are born in the same country as the citizenship they possess with their parents having the same nationality. Concerning stays abroad, four of the eight participants had already lived in another country for more than six months at the time of the interview. In short, this means that the participants can be regarded as representative for their respective culture, with some of them having already had the opportunity to gather deeper cultural awareness. In the light of this thesis this last facet can arguably be treated as favourable factor when it comes to the elicitation of responses answering the research questions as proposed in Chapter 1. Four of the subjects were participants in the pilot test, whereas the other four participated in a regular discussion round. Since the pilot test was in essence identical to the regular discussion round and led to the discovery of valuable findings, the four pilot test subjects can be treated as equals to the other four subjects. Nevertheless, it has to be mentioned that two of the pilot test participants were only subsequently informed about the actual goal of the experiment (i.e., researching nonverbal communication) while all other participants were asked before the experiment to be aware of the nonverbal behaviour of their partners. This was necessary to check for the influence of this factor on the results. Eventually, it had been decided that informing the participants beforehand better facilitates the accumulation of research findings. Although this led to a smaller quantity of usable material coming from the two deliberately uninformed participants, the quality of their insights can be deemed to be sufficient to satisfy the research requirements of this thesis. To provide a better oversight, Table 3 will summarise the important data on the sample employed for this thesis.

87

Nationality Austria Taiwan Number of participants 4 4 Number of female participants 2 3 Number of male participants 2 1 Average age of participants 25 24.25 Minimum/maximum age of 24/26 21/30 participants Number of participants that has lived in a foreign country 2 2 for more than six months  Energy engineering (1)  International/global  International/global business (2) Participants’ fields of study business (3)  Law (1)  Linguistics, literature & business management (1)

Table 2: Summary of the sample

The following section will delineate the details of the approach taken for conducting the empirical research.

7.3 Procedure In order to investigate the research questions of this thesis, a series of choices had to be made with regard to the many different existing research methods. The first of these choices concerned whether a quantitative or whether a qualitative approach would be best suited for this kind of research. While a quantitative approach certainly has its merits, to tackle these research questions a qualitative approach may be best. It might be true that quantitative methodology could also be applied to some extent (e.g., questionnaires) but it remains utterly questionable whether this would do justice to the social aspects in which the topic of nonverbal communication is necessarily embedded. Therefore, it appeared more reasonable to employ qualitative means. By doing so, this thesis should be able to capture the subjects’ individual understandings of nonverbal communication as well as the fact that creation and sense making might arise as products of interpersonal interaction (Bryman & Bell, 2015). Put differently, qualitative methods should be capable of respecting the potential interpretivist and constructivist elements of nonverbal communication.

88 Having decided for the qualitative approach a certain number of methods deserved consideration. One possible method would have been ethnographic participant observation. With respect to this thesis this would have entailed detailed analysis of the Taiwanese and the Austrians in typical environments, ideally in a covert manner to avoid biasing the behaviour of the people under analysis. However, there would have been two important downsides. In order to conduct thorough analysis of nonverbal communication it would have been best to video record people as an ethnographer might otherwise have been unable to take in all the actions of all the body parts and other nonverbal areas of all the conversation participants at once, which might have led to incomplete conclusions. Even so, video recording others in public spaces may quickly have called forth legal issues, which would have been an unnecessary risk. The second argument against pure ethnographic observation stemmed from Ekman et al. (1974). Although the authors’ arguments centre on the topic of facial expressions their point that a researcher has to know what actual emotions are felt by the analysed subject (i.e., self-observation) may equally apply to every other area of nonverbal communication. After all, without any information about the actual emotional state of a subject determining the meaning of nonverbal signals, especially across cultures, might easily elicit faulty conjectures. Thus, ethnographic participant observation by itself might have been both insufficient and too risky for the purpose of this thesis. Another qualitative method that would have been possible is the focus group. To aid in elucidating the research questions of this thesis, mixed and single culture focus groups would have been thinkable. Even though the emergence of different points could have been of interest, there nevertheless would have been one big disadvantage in the case of this thesis. Focus groups may well give rise to some kind of group think and suppress the opinions of more timid participants (Bryman & Bell, 2015). How strong this tendency of conforming to the dominant opinion of a group can be has been demonstrated by Asch (1951). The topic of nonverbal communication in particular might be susceptible to this phenomenon given its subconscious nature. Thus, wrong perceptions and common sense could have taken over the focus group while oppressing other interpretations of nonverbal signals. Furthermore, focus groups seem to be more suitable for a narrow theme (Bryman & Bell, 2015), which might not have been appropriate for answering the research questions of this thesis. Consequently, this method’s advantages come with at least equally important disadvantages. The third qualitative method that could have helped answering the research questions was the interview. Notwithstanding its flexibility and its ability to delve into the perceptual world of the subject (Bryman & Bell, 2015; Lamnek, 1995), the subconscious nature of nonverbal

89 communication may be such that even an interview might not be able to shed light on all the areas of nonverbal communication without risking influencing the subject due to the input provided by the interviewer. As with the other two methods mentioned before, an interview by itself would have potentially not allowed for satisfactory answers for the research questions at hand. When rethinking the three potential qualitative methods it soon became clear that the research questions posed by this thesis require a combined approach which ideally balances the drawbacks of the different methods employed. Eventually, the specific qualitative methods selected were a combination of observed experiment and semi-structured interview. In spite of the existence of a variety of different interviewing methods (e.g., different degrees of standardisation; Lamnek, 1995) it seems as if the semi-structured interview was most appropriate in dealing with the research questions as it tries to focus on the subject’s perception, which facilitates the exploration of nonverbal communication by allowing the subject to use his or her own words when describing (Ekman et al., 1974), but also allows for guiding questions, which might be essential in navigating through the subconscious elements of nonverbal communication (Bryman & Bell, 2015; Lamnek, 1995). In order to facilitate the exploration of the two research questions, several members of the Austrian and Taiwanese cultures were asked to participate in a video-recorded experiment that involved a paired discussion of about ten minutes. In addition to the camera, I myself was also present in case technical issues would arise. The members were eight in total (four Austrian and four Taiwanese students (see Section 7.2); including the pilot test) and six of them were asked to also pay attention to their conversation partner’s nonverbal communication before the experiment without providing any more detail on that. The subjects discussed a set of five cross-cultural scenarios (taken from Ferraro’s (1994) book; see Appendix C). Since every participant had to discuss twice, two sets were prepared. Each time one print copy of a set was provided to the participants to first read and then discuss. Every scenario presented a puzzling situation to be resolved: first with a member of their own culture and afterwards with a member of a foreign culture. This contrast was deemed to be important to help the subjects better reflect on the topic of nonverbal communication and cultural differences thereof, which might normally be too subconscious for many people to talk about explicitly. The discussion topic itself was not directly relevant for answering the research questions but instead acted as a means to do so. However, the subjects were not informed about this in order to not over-focus them on nonverbal behaviours as the only topic of the experiment. This procedure resulted in two video-recorded observations for each

90 subject. The language utilised during the experiment was English. First of all, this was because English had to act as Lingua Franca between the two different cultures. In addition to this, it also allowed for a better determination of the context (i.e., the issues discussed by the subjects), which is essential when trying to read the subjects’ nonverbal signals (Millar, 2008). The discussion time itself was limited to about ten minutes as this should have been be enough since accurate judgements about nonverbal behaviour may already be possible after a short period of time (see Section 2.2) This observed experiment was then followed up by one-on-one semi-structured interviews with the same participants. The aim of the interview was to allow subjects to reflect on the nonverbal communication differences they had experienced and to probe for the underlying reasons for them. This interview took place only a few days after the experiment. The time that passed between the experiment and the interview was to be kept short in order to keep the memories of the subjects as lively as possible. As an additional aid, the video material of the experiment was used during the interview. This was to draw attention to certain areas of nonverbal communication that could have gone unnoticed by the subject during the experiment, but it also helped to discuss certain nonverbal behaviours that consistently surfaced in other interviews and which benefited from the subject’s opinion in their explanation. Further, it allowed for reliving the memory of the discussion rounds and ascertaining the feelings which accompanied certain nonverbal signals, which takes into account the criticism of Ekman et al. (1974) as already mentioned before. In addition to these points, inviting the interviewee to do some video analysis allowed for better collaboration as called for by Bryman and Bell (2015). The main focus of the semi-structured interview was on the subjects’ elaboration of nonverbal differences in cross-cultural settings, which covers the main research question. An interview guide with the topics of inquiry was placed openly on the table within the interviewee’s sight (see Appendix A). Still, the order of these areas was flexible and there were no a priori formulated questions, as advised by Bryman and Bell (2015). I already successfully used this method of conducting the semi-structured interview in another master thesis of mine (März, 2017). In general, the areas of the interview guide were covered first before turning the attention towards the collaborative video evaluation. Each interview also contained a mini questionnaire (see Appendix B) to collect basic demographic data about the interviewees as well as information about whether they had already established some kind of relationship (i.e., friends) with their discussion partners before the discussion round. The interview locations differed depending on the preferences of the interviewees to accord them as much comfort as possible during the interview.

91 The sub-question regarding the nonverbal equilibrium required the combination of the interviewees’ answers received and the video material. This was deemed to be necessary, since the topic of nonverbal equilibrium might be too abstract to deal with it on the basis of the interviews alone. The experiments provided in total eight video-taped observations (four times same-culture and four times mixed-culture interactions). The total recording time of the videos amounted to 75 minutes and 42 seconds with the average being nine minutes and 28 seconds per observation. The shortest videotaped discussion took six minutes and 25 seconds while the longest took twelve minutes and ten seconds. The collected video material facilitated the making of inferences on the basics of the nonverbal equilibrium for each of the involved cultures when interacting with members of their own culture. The mixed-culture observations then shed light on how the potentially different nonverbal equilibria influence nonverbal communication in intercultural interactions. Moreover, it was regularly used during the interviews. Hence, this combined research design appeared sufficiently elaborate to answer both the main research question as well as the sub-question. The experiments and interviews were undertaken in two rounds to allow for the fine-tuning of the interview guide based to the experience from the first round. As the pilot test already provided usable information, it was enlisted as first round. This provided four interviews with Taiwanese participants and four interviews with Austrian participants, totalling eight interviews. The recorded interview time totalled 9 hours 30 minutes and 17 seconds, which means each interview took on average 1 hour 11 minutes and 25 seconds. The shortest interview recording was 30 minutes and 45 seconds (equipment failure), whereas the longest interview amounted to one hour, 33 minutes, and 15 seconds. After having conducted, transcribed, and coded the interviews, they were analysed together with the videos of the experiments and the most salient points were distilled. One interview, as hinted before, was only partially recorded due to equipment failure. The transcript of this interview was supplemented with post-interview notes only half an hour after the actual interview. For the analysis the template analysis as described by King (1998) was employed. This method uses both predetermined labels as well as labels which emerge from the context for coding the transcripts. This takes into account the constructionist principle (King, 1998), which seems appropriate with regard to nonverbal communication, but also allows for drawing on existing conceptions for coding. As already indicated in the text above, in order to ensure the feasibility and efficacy of this approach, a pilot test had been conducted, which lent support to this method and already provided usable material for the analysis. Table 3 will summarise the numerical data related to the procedure of this thesis.

92

Number of discussion rounds 2 (incl. pilot test = 4 videos and 4 interviews) Number of video recordings 8 (4 single culture & 4 mixed culture) Average video recording time 9:28 Minimum/maximum video recording time 12:10/6:25 Total video recording time 75:42 Number of interviews 8 (4 Austrian & 4 Taiwanese) Average interview time 1:11:25 Minimum/maximum interview time 30:45 (equipment failure)/1:33:15 Total interview time 9:30:17

Table 3: Procedure summary

The subsequent chapter will deal with the findings of this thesis.

8 Findings This section will build the cornerstone for the discussion and its entailing analysis in Chapter 9. Single subheadings will deal with the different topics that have been extracted from the transcripts by applying King’s (1998) template analysis (see Section 7.3). Quotes from the different transcripts will be presented and subsequent text will build on these quotes to further clarify the meaning in the context of nonverbal communication and the affiliative conflict theory. These subheadings will follow relatively closely the labels that could be identified during template analysis. Since an exhaustive coverage of all quotes pertaining to a single subheading would be unnecessarily cumbersome and exceed the confines of this thesis, representative quotes will be selected to allow for adequate description of the underlying material. In addition to the description of the interview content, the video content will also be included. This will be especially the case for the findings on the nonverbal equilibrium. To protect the anonymity of the participants, their names will be estranged. Only the cultural background will be left legible so that better comprehension of the cultural situation described can be facilitated. The Austrian participants will be coded as AP1, AP2, AP3, and AP4, whereas the Taiwanese participants will be coded as TP1, TP2, TP3, and TP4. The findings presented below will be categorised into paralanguage, silence, head and face, smiling and

93 laughing, eye contact, hand gestures, posture, foot movements, distance, mirroring, stereotype influence, and of course nonverbal equilibrium.

8.1 Paralanguage Paralanguage seems to show some dissimilarity between the reference cultures chosen for this research. Although silence can be argued to be an element of paralanguage, it provided sufficient material to merit its own label during the analysis of the transcripts. Hence, it will be treated separately in Section 8.2, despite it being part of paralanguage. The remaining labels for paralanguage mainly deal with divergence in volume and probably pitch, the initiation patterns, and a different, paralinguistic confirmation signal. First, this section will look at the volume and pitch dissimilarities. In this sense, a quote of AP1 will open the stage:

“Yeah, maybe I think that Austrians are a bit louder. Maybe a bit more…Yeah. The Taiwanese are more quiet, mh, like, they have lower volume…”

This quote clearly illustrates the suspicion that the Taiwanese people and Austrian people differ in their paralanguage. The difference is attributed to volume in the sense that the Austrians use a higher volume as compared to their Taiwanese counterparts in the conversation. This opinion is something that could be found across different participants of both discussion rounds meaning that it is not based on the judgement of a single person. It is also not restricted to a single gender but relies on comments of participants from both genders. To corroborate this idea of Taiwanese participants having lower pitch, a look will be taken on a comment of AP2:

“And also I think I did not understand what he was saying, but, because he’s, had such a low tone of voice. So I could not acoustically, ah, understand him.”

AP2 states this after having been asked about communication difficulties in his discussion with his Austrian counterpart and his discussion with his Taiwanese partner. As before, he refers to the low tone of voice as a paralinguistic dissimilarity that he noticed. What is interesting in this context is that he not only mentions it as a difference but actively posits it as a nonverbal factor that obstructed effective understanding between him and his Taiwanese counterpart. Also in the interview, AP2 said that he even perceived this low volume as

94 reminiscent of mumbling making communication cumbersome at times. To also include the Taiwanese perspective, here is a comment of TP2:

“Maybe with Austrian it’s louder. I’m not sure, but maybe. Yes. I think so. I’m not sure but could be.”

Although careful in tone, TP2 proposes the possibility that the Austrians are indeed louder than the Taiwanese. Given that TP2 was an exchange student in Austria at the time of the interview, this suggestion may be further supported by the cultural knowledge he had acquired while living as a Taiwanese in the Austrian environment. TP1 did not make use of the duality of quiet and loud for descriptions of the volume of her discussion partners but described her partners’ volumes in other terms:

“…I think he sounded most of the time more, more confident or more positive in, like, what he said.”

Instead of quiet and loud she uses confidence to explain her perception of her discussion partner’s paralanguage. The quote above refers to her Austrian discussion partner, who sounded more confident to her during the experiment. When putting it into the context of what has been covered so far in this section, it is reasonable to suggest that there is at least the viable possibility that this higher confidence is grounded in a higher volume of her Austrian counterpart. TP1 becomes even more explicit when referring to her Taiwanese discussion partner:

“But I, I definitely sensed that, ahm... oh, and, like, in, in two ways…[Taiwanese discussion partner] was a bit unsure for me…One is, ah, through tone.”

Here she points out that one way to recognise uncertainty in her Taiwanese counterpart was through tone, which might well encompass a lower volume. Thus, her comments can be assumed to point in the same direction that the Austrians use a higher volume when talking than the Taiwanese do. Even so, the participants also introduce personality and situational differences as possible variables for explanation. One quote that does so is coming from AP3 when talking about her Taiwanese discussion partner:

“…when she’s trying to make it indirect I would say she is talking, how to say, more quiet, or like low, in a lower voice tone…Yeah, a lower volume. I would definitely say so than if she’s excited or happy about something her, her voice get like louder…”

95

AP3 offers directness and indirectness of speech as potential influencer of here Taiwanese partner’s volume. In contrast, happiness and excitement are supposedly elevating the volume of her counterpart in the experiment. Support comes from TP4, who described the same Taiwanese discussion partner as displaying more variation in terms of volume and also pitch when excited. TP1 also expresses that the person may have played a non-negligible role in this context:

“…so I guess it really depends on people. And for example I have another Taiwanese friend, who is also here doing an exchange,…and she is as… so loud.”

By referring to a friend who is also of Taiwanese origin, TP1 corroborates what she clearly stated at the beginning of the quote before. In her eyes, volume may be significantly affected by one’s personal characteristics. In a similar vein, AP3 comments:

“that [Taiwanese discussion partner] and my discussion is already quite louder from the voice, don’t you think?...actually I could tell because maybe it’s also because you, I know [Taiwanese discussion partner] and you’re, although I had a really good common ground with [Austrian discussion partner], you, you still don’t know the other person and you still try to like don’t overwhelm this person at the first time, you know?”

With this quote AP3 puts the loudness she experienced with her Taiwanese discussion partner over that of her Austrian discussion partner. Notwithstanding this, an alternative explanation can be found in AP3’s relationship to her Taiwanese discussion partner, which is what AP3 is referring to in the second half of her quote. AP3 and her Taiwanese counterpart are friends, which might be one aspect explaining the higher volume of her Taiwanese friend during the discussion. Rather inconclusive evidence stems from AP4 who first mentioned that her Taiwanese counterpart had a higher volume but then changed her mind and stated that the Austrian discussion partner had a higher volume. Aside from volume, pitch also found brief mentioning by TP1:

“But I really think, like, compared to Hochdeutsch you learn in class, Austrian people have more, like, int, like, ah… like, it sounds like everything [humming sound to demonstrate prosody variations].”

TP1 was learning German in class as can also be seen from the quote above. As such she can contrast the standard way of speaking the language (i.e., Hochdeutsch) with the dialect of

96 German as spoken in Austria. Following her argument, the prosody of an Austrian has a more melodic character compared to a Taiwanese. However, one has to be careful about this finding, as it is only suggested by TP1. Shifting the attention to the initiation pattern differences between both reference cultures, a quote of AP2 will aid in opening this topic:

“There is also this one point where I, I waited for him to initiate a dialog and… then I waited for a long time. It kind of became awkward and I was, like, so… he was just staring at the text and so, well, then I said, yeah, then I have to take the initiative again and start the discussion…”

This comment describes a situation in which AP2 discussed with his Taiwanese counterpart. The situation was marked by AP2 waiting for his partner to commence the discussion after reading one of the scenarios. Trying to incite his counterpart to begin the conversation, AP2 stayed passive, awaiting his Taiwanese partner’s activity. Yet, after waiting for a longer period of time, he abandoned his original idea and went back to actively querying his opposite as exemplified in the next quote of AP2:

“…I tried to use a different approach, I did not… did not state my opinion, but I asked him about him, I tried to get him to say something, tried to get him to speak but then I had, like, one or two sentences and then I had to take over again.”

AP2 tried to adapt his approach to the situation and his conversation partner in order to get more conversation activity from his partner’s side. Even so, the result remained unsatisfactory for AP2. In the first case, his Taiwanese discussion partner seemed unwilling to initiate the discussion himself waiting for AP2 to take the first step. In the second case, replies to AP2’s questions about his opinion were met with short answers. Unsurprisingly then, AP2 rated the conversation he had with his Austrian discussion partner as much smoother than the one he had with his Taiwanese discussion partner. One could now suggest that language might have been a problem here, but the Taiwanese discussion partner later mentioned that it would have been easier in Mandarin but that English was also acceptable in this situation. Nonetheless, TP1 mentions in her interview that AP2’s Taiwanese discussion partner was rather not perceived as an extrovert. Accordingly, personal intricacies could have played a role here. Notwithstanding this, TP4 supports that this unwillingness to take the initiative could be related to culture and offers further explanation of the underlying reasons:

97 “…it’s not that I don’t wanna talk or I don’t wanna get in with people but it’s more like I wanna observe them. Cause I don’t wanna do something rude or something that might considered impolite, but I think this is also why in every courses when teacher mention about Taiwan, they always say Taiwanese students are more quiet or more not willing to talk, but for me I think the truth is not the case. The truth is that we are more, in some way we’re more conservative even when under an unknown situation with those unknown people…”

Thence, it seems as if the Taiwanese may be unlikely to initiate a conversation or talk too much as they may first want to gather more information about a new conversation partner. In this way they apparently attempt to avoid conversational pitfalls and impoliteness. TP4 further talks about how she perceives simultaneous talking:

“It’s the moment that two person are being really aggressive and they talk at the same time and then it’s a little bit like argument instead of debating…”

Referring to the comment above, TP4 presents the concurrent talking of two people as signal of mutual anger. When talking about normal conversation, she rather tends to describe situations of one person talking and the other one being quiet. So it seems as if taking the initiative during a conversation with a barely known person or talking at the same time as one’s conversation partner are both fairly unusual in the Taiwanese culture. To complete the findings about paralanguage, peculiarities with respect to individual nonverbal signals will find mentioning. These were rare overall and also with regard to paralinguistic cues there can only be found one hint coming from TP3:

“…we don’t say ‘Ah, okay’. We say ‘Mhm’ (tone with falling and then rising intonation), yeah”

This piece of talk appeared when talking about nonverbal differences between the cultures during the discussion. TP3 points out that she perceives the Austrians as commonly using “Ah, okay” for showing agreement or confirmation, which she states as not being the case for the Taiwanese people. Instead, they commonly use a sound that may be best described as “Mhm”, which can also be encountered in Austria. But as already said, care should be taken as this was only suggested by one out of eight participants. On the bottom line, the Austrians seemingly prefer a somewhat higher volume compared to the Taiwanese when speaking. The Taiwanese also appear less willing to initiate a conversation, which seems to be especially pronounced in encounters with strangers. Finally, an indication has been given that “Ah, okay” is not used as a confirmation signal by

98 Taiwanese interlocutors who rather resort to a “Mhm” sound with falling and then rising intonation.

8.2 Silence Following Section 8.1 on paralanguage follows this section which explicitly concentrates on silence as a special sub-category of paralanguage. Here as well, differences could be found. First of all it appears as if the Austrians make less use of silence as the following quote of TP1 indicates:

“…there isn’t so much silence that I remember of.”

This quote stems from a comparison of TP1’s Austrian discussion partner with her Taiwanese discussion partner. Accordingly, she experienced more silence with her Taiwanese discussion partner than with her Austrian counterpart. That silence can indeed be perceived as rather negative, or at least unsettling, is mirrored in AP2’s portrayal of a situation that occurred with his Taiwanese discussion partner:

“…this one point where this long pause, this, where this long piece of silence, I was, like, yeah, “should we get on?”, “should I do something?”, it was more, like, yeah, now we’re at a standstill.”

It is the same situation as mentioned already in Section 8.1 when discussing paralanguage. While waiting for his Taiwanese discussion partner to initiate the discourse on the next scenario a longer period of silence unfolded. Also according to the rest of the interview with AP2, his experience of this incident was marked by slight confusion and discomfort, hence the term “standstill” as chosen by AP2. Assuming that there might be a problem causing this silence, he started to think about where this problem could lie. Deliberating further on this behaviour, AP2 also described his impression as being one of passiveness. Intriguingly, his discussion partner mentioned that he himself wanted to make sure that AP2 is really finished too although he also said that part of the pause could be attributed to still reading the text. Another incident happened to AP3 when discussing the scenarios with her Taiwanese counterpart:

“…she just continued, like I was a bit confused first cause I thought, oh, we are not done with it but we are moving on and then she already started reading it, so I thought “okay, then I start reading it too”, so that was maybe a moment when I, a moment of confusion I would say, but, yeah, I mean after all I knew she, she, we

99 couldn’t agree on it and she wanted to continue, but it was something, yeah, even nonverbal I would say because we didn’t really say like, okay, this is done, let’s move on. It was just without words we kind of like continued. So it took me a while, but at the end I understood.”

This occurred when switching from one scenario to the next. Over the course of her interview, AP3 indicated that her Taiwanese discussion partner might have understood silence as a sign of agreement to go on and start the next scenario. This assumption is also mirrored in AP3’s next comment:

“…it could be that maybe [Taiwanese discussion partner] thought it means yes cause we didn’t say anything. But silence I think in our culture is something, so you don’t just end with silence. You can have silence to think about it and then it’s okay…”

Although she accepted the proceeding of her Taiwanese discussion partner during the conversation, it was clear to AP3 that silence would not have been understood this way in Austria. In her comment she even highlighted that such a use of silence might not have had the same effect in the Austrian culture, where silence is not supposed to be the ending point of a conversation. Even though this point appears to be a dissimilarity with concern to the two reference cultures, AP3 went on with asserting that silence as a by-product of thinking processes would be uncontroversial in the Austrian culture. Here, some of the Taiwanese participants voiced a similar understanding of silence. For instance, TP3 experienced some moments of silence with her Austrian discussion partner:

“…like I say the pause, sometimes I will feel like “Didn’t I make myself clear enough so she didn’t understand what I say?” and like it’s like sometimes I will have like feel like I’m confused about like whether she’s real th, really thinking about what I say or she didn’t like understand at all.”

As can be deducted from the aforementioned quote, the frequent silent pauses of her discussion partner also made TP3 feel unclear about the exact reason for the pauses. Even so, both suggestions of TP3 pertain to thinking processes on the side of her Austrian counterpart whether it is contemplating on TP3’s contribution or struggling for understanding. This idea is reinforced by TP3’s next comment:

“…she will have the pause. Like after I say something she will pause for like ten seconds and then like she were like as for my cl, like she will like rephrase the sentence again and ask f, like for my confirmation.”

100 By asking for confirmation, TP3’s Austrian conversation partner displays that she indeed was processing the information received from TP3, thus the silent pause (although ten seconds are an overstatement according to the video material). In this sense TP3s suggestion that the silence was linked to thinking can be seen as justified as the request for confirmation can be understood to be the result of this thinking. The account of TP4 as well lends support to this idea:

“…I think the more silent for me is thinking. And I understand why, I understand that silence has different meanings to different people cause maybe silence means a pause, the person might not be thinking anything, or the silent may, might be angry…”

As before, TP4 sees a connection between silence and thinking. However, she does also open the floor for divergent meanings of silence. These are pause, detachment, or even anger. This might already be due to her exposure to other cultures which could have nurtured this understanding in spite of the absence of explicit mentioning of culture. As the interview went on, she mentioned that the situation should have been considered as well. How the interplay of silence and thinking might work in the Taiwanese cultural context is further elucidated by TP4 when describing her conversation with her Taiwanese discussion partner:

“…when there is a confusing moment or, or, or the difference moment I think we both kind of stop talking a little bit or, or for example like she might stop talking a little bit for like ten seconds but that’s the moment I keep talking or vice versa like, like if I’m thinking, still thinking or considering every de, single detail from the scenario and then she still has, she, her idea and I think that’s the moment I kind of have a silence as well and then she would use the moment, use the silence moment to convince me.”

While again pointing out the thinking factor, she presents it also as an opportunity to convince one’s still thinking interlocutor, who might not yet be fully understanding or willing to accept proposed arguments. However, it will be added that this convincing process has nothing aggressive in it as can be seen from the context of the rest of the interview. On a side note, it is interesting to see that TP4 seems to see silence also as a single sided phenomenon if one person is not actively contributing to an ongoing conversation for some time. That both single sided and mutual silence are perceived as such can be conjectured from TP4’s following quote:

“…there is one type of moment, it’s like, for example, me talking, [Taiwanese discussion partner] silent cause she’s thinking how to debate back or how to deny my idea. And then I think there’s also a second moment like I

101 express my idea, she doesn’t buy it, and then she express her idea and I don’t buy it too and then we both become silent cause we’re both thinking again. Like maybe that, tha, I think that’s the moment that I think “Hm, I cannot deny her idea but I don’t agree with her idea, how I am gonna defend that back” and I think she’s kind of thinking the same. So that’s the moment I think there are both silent.”

Referring to this quote, it can be seen that mutual silence is dominated by intense deliberation processes that are grounded in social and polite evaluations. Hence, both parties have to weigh their next words and arguments. As a result silence ensues, which is of non-aggressive nature. During her interview, TP4 later stated that, all other things being equal, silence is not a negative experience for her. Withal, TP3 does not fully agree on the absence of negative emotion linked to silence. She mentions the following situation:

“…when I talk to like Westerner people, when I like don’t know how to formulate sentences or how to say a specific word in English they will kind of wait for me too. They don’t say anything until I ask them…”

In this situation, silence is again the offspring of thinking processes. This time, however, they are single sided with the other silent party, here a Western person, being in the waiting position. That this experience is a negative one can be understood after examining the next comment of TP3:

“But I feel like embarrassed in some times because I don’t know how to say that in English but like obviously the other side, like the other people is waiting for my answer and there will be like silence and they won’t say anything until I ask them.”

Embarrassment is put forward as the result of these waiting pauses. This situation also occurred during her discussion with her Austrian counterpart during the experiment. TP3 then contrasts this nonverbal behaviour with her Taiwanese discussion partner’s conversation behaviour. She would use the thinking pauses of TP3 to actively support her and suggest what TP3 most probably wants to say. Consequently, embarrassment is prevented for TP3. Nevertheless, it has to be pointed out that TP3 and her discussion partner were friends, making it difficult to evaluate how far this communication pattern can be treated as applicable to other Taiwanese people. Yet, the fact that TP3 has used the term “Westener people” to describe the opposite behaviour makes it somewhat sensible to presume appearance of this pattern also in less intimate relationships. There may also be another way how silence could be utilised by one’s interlocutor as hinted by TP3:

102 “…sometimes I want to like ex, e, ex, like talk more about like Tai, like the cultures in Taiwan like what would happen if this happen in Taiwan but like before like I said it, she were like “Okay, let’s move on”. Then I didn’t, like I have no chance to re-extend the conversation.”

This happened in the conversation of TP3 with her Austrian discussion partner. What seems to have occurred is that TP3 hoped for an opportunity to bring in more information but her Austrian counterpart was quick in closing the case when both reached an agreement, not giving her the silent moment TP3 needed to re-enter the conversation. To bring the topic of silence to an end, thr last point should be presented by drawing on TP4’s interview:

“…then I think silence is always, sometimes silence is always good for me to kind of shortly walk away from the intense atmosphere or communication…”

Here again it can be seen that TP4 has a rather positive disposition towards silence. Referring to this comment, silence is seen as a means to take a step back and calm down if a conversation becomes too consuming. From the material gathered it appears as if the meaning of silence is rather unsettling for the Austrians, whereas it possesses less negative connotations for the Taiwanese. Furthermore, silence can seemingly be one-sided or mutual for the Taiwanese. While both reference cultures apparently concur on silence being related to deliberation processes it might have more different meanings and results in the Taiwanese culture. These seem to be agreement, embarrassment, as well as the understanding of it as an opportunity for the interlocutor to voice his or her thoughts.

8.3 Head and face This subsection will cover nonverbal behaviour which includes the head and the face (e.g., facial expressions) only. It will not encompass smiling, laughing, and eye contact as these will be covered in different sections due to their profound importance. Concerning the head and the face, findings that indicate divergence between the reference cultures are basically absent. Instead, the collected material rather supports the assumption of similar nonverbal communication of these body parts. To present a supporting example, a glimpse will be taken via the following quote of TP1:

“…I kind of do remember [Austrian discussion partner] is, like, touching his head and I thought he was confused. Maybe that’s…”

103

TP1 experienced this situation several times in her discussion with her Taiwanese discussion partner in which she saw him applying what seems to be self-comfort actions (see Section 4.1) to his head. In his interview, her discussion partner confirmed that part of it may be attributed to stress but points out that also tiredness may bear partial responsibility for this behaviour, which also made him support his head. TP1 herself later described that she sometimes plays with her hair in the condition of nervousness. These patterns are reminiscent of self-comfort behaviours as already introduced in Section 4.1 and lie, therefore, in the area of ordinary, nonverbal communication. Also AP2 and AP 3 display similar behaviour. According to their interviews this behaviour may also be related to nervousness (e.g., AP3 stroked her hair when thinking about a word she didn’t know during the discussion) but also thinking processes were mentioned by both AP2 and AP3 (see Section 4.3). Another point where adherence to internationally expected body language can be seen is when following situation happened to TP2:

“Because that kind of make me a little, ah, annoying because he seems he don’t know a, any Arabic person or Arabic people and he still state the point and didn’t look, listen my suggestion, it’s kind of annoying me.”

Here TP2 and his Austrian discussion partner were evaluating a scenario including the Arabic culture. TP2 feels annoyance about his partner’s attitude as becomes evident from the text. When drawing on the interview videos, the material reveals several lip press actions of TP2, which are reminiscent of an anger micro expression and therefore part of the international nonverbal communication canon. Yet, what may be different between the Taiwanese and the Austrians is the amount of attention given to the head and face during interaction. The Austrians provided little evidence for conscious consideration of head and facial movements during the experiment, as can be seen by AP2’s response to the question of whether he had noticed the small amount of head nods he had received from his Taiwanese discussion partner:

“I did not consciously perceive it that much and it didn’t bother me at all.”

This quote shows not only the unconscious nature of the awareness dedicated to AP2’s counterpart but also that an absence of head nodding would not be perceived as discomforting. In general, head and face found somewhat less self-initiated mentioning in the Austrian interviews compared to the Taiwanese interviews, even though comments about this

104 body part were not absent. To contrast this with the Taiwanese awareness pattern, TP1 replied to the question of which body parts were most important to her during the discussion:

“I think I usually just look at the face…and others, maybe I sense it subconsciously…”

Even though it can be argued that the Austrians as well might prioritise the face when it comes to the attention paid to different body parts, TP1’s comment hints that the face is even consciously observed as compared to other body parts which she only subconsciously cares about. The account of TP3 sheds more light on the importance of this body part during conversation:

“…[Taiwanese discussion partner] will nod, like nod, like nod her head, like to te, like telling me like she’s a, she agree with my point of view, whereas [Austrian discussion partner] she were kind of, she were like, I have feeling like she was like hesitating, like she were like have a hesitating, like facial expression when I express my opinion first but I then, then, then she will like agree with me.”

In this comment TP3 delineates how she uses the head and the face as an indicator for agreement. Also when talking about the messages she received during the conversation (i.e., agreement and hesitation) she is quick to mention the head movements and facial expressions of her discussion partners first. As TP3’s interview went on this facial expression of hesitation reappeared in her answers. TP4 further elaborates on how conversational reactions of one’s interlocutor may be read from his or her face:

“…some times when people talk in a sentence they feel, if you listen to their words it’s okay but then the facial expression or with the gesture first of is, it’s kind of the opposite way and then that’s the time I kind of; I will kind of worry if I offended someone or, or I said something that people doesn’t like.”

Here TP4 refers to topics that include emotions and states that facial expressions, and also gestures as mentioned on second place, are being observed to see whether content and nonverbal coating fit. In the case of a misfit TP4 would take it as a signal to worry about whether she had disgruntled her opposite. Apart from emotional subjects, TP4 further talked about agreement, which can be deducted from facial expressions:

“…I don’t really feel [Taiwanese discussion partner] has any hand gestures. So instead it’s more about the facial expression from [Taiwanese discussion partner], like smiling face or, or when she disagree with you she might has a little bit, a little bit serious face.”

105

Although hand gestures could be an option, the absence of hand gestures as used by TP4’s Taiwanese counterpart leads her to focus more on the expressiveness of the face to gauge the degree of agreement. Another facet of this importance of the head and the face for the Taiwanese may be added by TP2 when being asked about his head nodding patterns during the experiment:

“I think the, use more eye contact, so… yes, that may be. Then, we can nod. So we have to make people think, oh, we’re still talking.”

This part indicates that the Taiwanese may not only have a special focus on the head and face when it comes to awareness of nonverbal communication but also hints more usage of these body parts to communicate. The heightened utilisation frequency of head and face for nonverbal communication may make sense under the condition of equally heightened awareness of others in one’s culture. Overall, it appears as if the nonverbal messages related to head and face are rather identical across the Austrian and Taiwanese cultures from what could be elicited in the experiment. One of the examples introduced to the reader is nervousness. Nevertheless, the amount of conscious attention dedicated to these body parts might be higher in the Taiwanese culture than in the Austrian culture. On top of this, the Taiwanese seem more likely to actively utilise this part of their body in communication to send nonverbal messages.

8.4 Smiling and laughing Having dealt with the head and face, more detailed signals of smiling and laughing will be further treated in this section. In general it seems as if the purpose and, therefore, the underlying nonverbal message of smiling and laughing may be different with respect to the two reference cultures. AP3 will begin the process:

“I always do it. I’m always smiling. I think that’s interesting because I know in some cultures if you laugh you’re considered as dumb in a sense and I know that I still couldn’t change it although I know it. I think I still need to laugh but maybe it’s also sometimes, maybe it also, like in my opinion, it helps to break the ice in a sense like to, to warm up a discussion I would say because it’s or as, like at least for me it feels like or it’s, it’s a sign that the other person feels comfortable, is happy and then it’s easier to discuss things, whereas if you think that the other person is like really nervous, really scared or shy.”

106 This statement contains several points. First it highlights AP3’s knowledge of other cultures’ norms, but also her self-assumed inability to change this aspect of her nonverbal communication when confronted with members of other cultures. This seemingly applies to both her smiling and laughing in conversations. She goes on with describing laughing as ice breaker when talking to a stranger to help facilitating the communication from the emotional side. Here she contrasts this facilitating effect with nervousness, being scared, and shyness, all of which seem to be the message of not smiling or laughing. This impression is being reinforced by her next quote:

“I mean if I would laugh a few times and the other person would just stare at me I would feel really awkward I guess because to me it’s a sign that the other person thinks it’s not, it’s not funny at all although I know that with, I mean, I think it depends cause I know, for instance, in Russia, Japan, you don’t laugh so I think if you know that, that this is a, a Russian girl and I laugh and she doesn’t laugh then I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable I guess.”

AP 3 confirms the suggestion raised before and fleshes it out by mentioning that reciprocity is of importance for the process. In other words, one-sided smiling may not be of any use to improve the communication atmosphere but two-sided smiling might well lead to improvements in this aspect. Even so, she puts her words into context by pointing out that her perception of the situation may vary depending on the cultural background of her counterpart and the corresponding cultural knowledge she has accumulated in this regard. An additional aspect of smiling and laughing from an Austrian’s perspective is provided by AP4:

“…maybe it is to like overcome insecurities and we both are aware that like cultural differences and like I think there is the no country in the world where laughing is associated with something negative and maybe that is why we were laughing more together or also because she is warmer than [Austrian discussion partner] was and maybe that’s why we felt more comfortable and laughed together more often.”

AP4 also attributes the overcoming of insecurity to laughing and proposes that it might be a universally positive signal across different cultures. This elaborates on AP3’s idea of laughing establishing a better communication climate. The connection between comfort and laughing can further be noticed in the second half of AP4’s comment. When holding the interview the link between conversation warmth and laughing reappeared, but AP4 did not miss to reveal that she did not consciously perceive it. When it comes to the insecurity element that may be part of the nonverbal message transmitted by laughing and smiling, TP1 hints that this might be similar for Taiwanese people:

107

“… I think when I talk about stereotypes or, like, things that I, I think I should not be, be speaking about, when it’s politically correct…ah, I, I laugh…”

TP1 mentions a moment during the video where she and her partner discussed a scenario in which she brought forward an argument based on a stereotype. From her quote it can be deducted that this is something she perceives as potentially politically incorrect and something people should refrain from talking about. Thence, it might be a situation that induces uncertainty in her. If that is the case, then laughing may similarly be linked to insecurity as mentioned above. When queried about smiling of the Austrians and the Taiwanese TP2 added another aspect to this nonverbal signal:

“…with Austrian, we, I think his smiling may not be that genuine. Yes, his smiling may not be genuine. He’s, like, but not truly felt it…”

After being suggested a few terms, TP2 would think of polite smiling as most appropriate to describe the kind of smiles he received from his Austrian discussion partner during the experiment and senses in the Austrian culture. He further states that smiles with his Taiwanese discussion partner may have been rarer but more genuine. Nevertheless, despite not describing her as a friend he mentioned that he and his Taiwanese discussion partner had met before. When determining smiling frequency TP2 stated the following suggestion:

“Possible that Austrians smiling more, but it could be only because I noticed this smile is not, is kind of, is polite smile, so, like, make it in more impression, so I didn’t really notice but just feel like more polite smile. But generally smiling, I’m not sure.”

Here the level of analysis is being changed. From the experiment a step is taken towards the societal level. This seems possible as TP2 had already spent more than half a year in Austria giving him sufficient opportunity to acquire experience with regard to the Austrian culture. It appears as if the Austrians are perceived to potentially smile more than the Taiwanese but only due to the polite smiles that are allegedly more commonly encountered in the Austrian culture. Notwithstanding this proposition, TP2 states a certain insecurity with regard to this judgement. Another intriguing facet is that TP2 mentioned the eyes in this respect:

“…I think, like, she also smiled but maybe less often, but I’m not sure, if her eyes were open or not, but I don’t, like, feel like, okay, this is a polite smile…”

108

This quote describes the discussion between TP2 and his Taiwanese discussion partner. Apparently, when determining whether his opposite employs a polite or a genuine smile the eyes are used as an indicator by TP2. Especially the degree of openness of the eyes seems to give away a polite smile to TP2, although he is uncertain about the exact expression of his interlocutor’s eyes during the experiment. This is in line with the research presented in Section 4.1.1. Apart from this, TP2’s statement is pointing into the same direction as his other quote before meaning that the Taiwanese might smile less but more genuinely and the Austrians might smile more but more politely. Finally, TP4 offers yet another supposition for smiling in the Taiwanese culture:

“She will further explain it to you and even with the explanation itself, she, she’s always having her smiling face so then you don’t really feel that she’s super against you or super disagree with you…”

The comment explains how TP4 experienced her Taiwanese discussion partner’s nonverbal reaction to disagreement during a debate. Smiling was a part of this in spite of the possibility of sometimes seeing some indications of seriousness as well. The specific function of smiling in this setting seems to be appeasement. This difference in agreement behaviour is further clarified by TP4’s next statement:

“…between me and [Austrian discussion partner] when there is agreement she will smile at me. But [Taiwanese discussion partner], I d, I didn’t, I won’t think she smiled at me when we hit the agreement. It’s more like we have, we already have a mutual, mutual, I don’t know how to say that in English, but it’s like you already know what she’s thinking and she already know what I’m thinking.”

In this quote of TP4 mentions that agreement may elicit a smile in her Austrian discussion partner but not her Taiwanese counterpart. This is different to the condition of disagreement with her Taiwanese discussion partner as delineated above, which appears to lead to a smile. However, it has to be acknowledged that TP4 and her Taiwanese counterpart were good friends. This may in part explain the second half of her comment in which she points at a deep, mutual understanding of each other as a possible factor leading to agreement without smiling. When looking at the material for smiling and laughing, it can be seen that there are some similarities between the Taiwanese and the Austrian cultures. To a limited extent these can be found in insecurity. Nonetheless, the divergence on this topic is by far greater with dissimilar

109 messages transmitted and the kinds of smiles employed in both cultures. The Austrians might link smiling and laughing rather to agreement and breaking the ice of a conversation, whereas the Taiwanese might employ smiling when disagreeing. Moreover, the Taiwanese may potentially smile and laugh less frequently but more genuinely. In contrast, the Austrians may potentially smile and laugh more frequently but often in the context of politeness.

8.5 Eye contact With regards to eye contact there are a few specific differences that can be imputed to culture. To start with, one aspect in which eye contact found application was signalling of when a person was done reading the scenario text during the discussion. Here, the basic signals were similar across the reference cultures and usually of nonverbal nature. Rarely would one participant use words to let one’s counterpart know that he or she is done reading. However, small differences existed in which signals were predominantly perceived as being the responsible indicators. Here is one quote of TP3:

“Because when she, I don’t know, like because when she like put her body up a little bit I know she finished reading.”

TP3 suggests her discussion partners’ body movement as a reading termination signal. From her account, the movement is being described as moving the body into a more upright position. When looking at the transcripts, the Taiwanese participants mostly mention movements of their interlocutor’s body as a sign that reading has been finished. Eye contact finds little mentioning but is not absent. In contrast, eye contact seems to play a more important role for the Austrian participants of the experiment as shown by the following comment of AP2:

“Because if both participants in the discussion read a text, are reading a text then you’re not sure when you’re done or the other one is done to read. I think it’s, mh, as in my opinion it’s, like, you stop looking at the text and start looking at the other to show him that, yeah, you’re done, you’ve made up your mind, you’ve read the text and you’re ready to start the discussion.”

AP2’s statement originates from the experience of his discussion with his Taiwanese counterpart, who used to stay focused on the scenario text for longer periods of time. He suggests eye contact as signal that one person has read the text and is ready to move on to the discourse. What is hinted in this quote and what became also evident from the rest of AP2’s

110 interview is that this absence of eye contact made it harder for him to figure out how to correctly deal with the situation and his discussion partner. Hence, this form of eye contact may potentially obstruct productive behaviour in such a situation. When comparing it to the Taiwanese participants, it seems as if they are more focusing on the movements of the body, while the Austrians rely to a big part on eye contact to determine whether their partners have finished reading. Again, it is not that the Austrians omitted body movement when talking about this matter. However, eye contact appears to be a more important nonverbal sign in this context. One explanation for this intricacy during the interview might be that the Austrians in general could potentially engage in more eye contact than people from the Taiwanese culture. The next comment of TP1 will shed more light on this issue:

“I don’t remember so much, but what I, I, I kept on my mind is that… ahm… [Austrian discussion partner] always looked into my eyes…And, like, compared to [Taiwanese discussion partner]…In fact, they… we, we didn’t have so much eye contact.”

Here TP1 compares the nonverbal element of eye contact across the discussions she had. She emphasises the stronger eye contact between her and her Austrian counterpart as particularly striking. This in turn suggests that she is used to a lower level of eye contact than provided by her Austrian interlocutor. When looking at the Austrian participants, a similar picture is being delivered as can be seen from one of AP1’s statements about his Taiwanese discussion partner:

“…I had the believing that she was looking more at me than she actually was. Because it seems like she was actually, not always looking at me.”

Initially assuming that his Taiwanese discussion partner had engaged in more eye contact with him, AP1 later revised his original supposition after reviewing the video material. This leads him to the realisation that eye contact was scarcer than he had expected. This points in the same direction of Taiwanese having less eye contact than their Austrian partners in the experiment. Another quote of AP2 about his Taiwanese discussion partner may hint what the result of this reduced eye contact could be for an Austrian:

“It was kind of… hard to read him and I kind of felt like he wasn’t really interested in doing it.”

111 After being asked about how this behaviour made him feel, AP2 states it was difficult for him to judge and evaluate his Taiwanese partner’s behaviour during the discussion, which seemingly posed a communicational obstacle for him as can be conjectured from AP2’s entire interview. It also gave him the impression of his Taiwanese partner being uninterested and, as later mentioned in his interview, passivity, even though this behaviour did not actively bother AP2. In line with eye contact as a reading termination signal, AP2 also asserted that eye contact also signifies readiness to him. When probing into the cultural influence, TP1 offered the following explanation:

“…I think we… I think in Taiwan generally we have less eye contact during, like, talking to people. But we are also taught, like, in our education it, it’s said that when you, when you want to respect people you look them in the eye like that… but I think in all people don’t do it as much as people here…”

The connection between eye contact and culture is overtly acknowledged by TP1. Given that she had already stayed for more than six months in Austria at the time of her interview, her opinion can be presumed to be qualified. Interestingly, she limits her statement to the situation of talking. Aside from this, TP1 points out that Taiwanese education apparently encourages people to increase eye contact as a sign of respecting the other person. Even so, the outcome of her assessment is that eye contact is still more prevalent in the Austrian culture than in the Taiwanese culture. TP2 equally elaborates on this point in a very detailed manner:

“…the only thing I noticed is that, because we Taiwanese, we don’t necessarily look at each other’s eyes. So I didn’t really pay attention to them and with Austrians I think that we know you’re looking with talk with eyes and, like, so I think it’s more important for your culture, so I kind of, like, we might, like, say that I have to look at him, not just look at this paper….you have to look at people’s eyes, but sometimes we, I don’t do that and maybe I do even less than some normal Taiwanese but anyway… It’s more cultural because with [Taiwanese discussion partner] I didn’t, like, of course, I look at her, I do, but it’s just not like, oh, I remind myself I have to do it. Like, also with you I kind of do that, the same thing, kind of, sometimes… we also need to eye contact but not as important as, like, we don’t…like, we do… put it like this, you just look away all the time, that is really rude, but it’s not, like, yes not like, ah, have to stay in contact all the time. Yes, yes. And I have, like, we can also look down and you too know Japanese, I think, for people, like, speaking to older people they won’t look directly, they will just look like this [looking down], like, because he’s higher, but yes. So, even though we aren’t that close to Japan but still, I think there’s some kind of similarity with us. As we’re, Taiwan was also colonised…”

This piece of text had been produced after asking several times for clarification. For the sake of readability, the questions have been omitted. TP2 as well had already spent more than six

112 months in Austria when conducting the interview. Hence, his opinion is most likely enriched by the cultural knowledge he could gather during this time. Again TP1 mentions the situation of talking and lends support to the suggestion of TP1 above, meaning that the Austrians use a higher level of eye contact than the Taiwanese people do. He explains that he himself may even use less eye contact than the average Taiwanese person, but also that he actively tries to adapt to the Austrian cultural norm by purposely increasing eye contact with other Austrians. Although eye contact is less in Taiwan, TP1 does not fail to mention that a complete absence of it would also be unacceptable and perceived as rude in Taiwan. Yet, constant eye contact is unnecessary. Another distinctive feature of Taiwanese eye contact patterns may be the looking down in front of a person with higher status. TP1 relates this to the nonverbal communication behaviour of the Japanese culture, which seemingly also had an influence on the Taiwanese culture due to the occupation of Taiwan by the Japanese (see Section 7.1). Nonetheless, it will not be given the wrong impression that eye contact patterns were uniformly experienced as delineated so far. There are also a few incidents that, on first look, seem to disconfirm the aforementioned. One example comes from AP3 when describing the eye contact she experienced with both her Taiwanese and her Austrian discussion partner:

“…in regard to eye contact I would say that it was very similar…”

This very straightforward statement shows that AP3 remembers having equal eye contact with both of her discussion partners. Even so, an explanation for this may be that she called her Taiwanese discussion partner a friend, which might have led to a higher level of eye contact between them. Likewise, other situations where there was seemingly no divergence between Taiwanese and Austrian eye contact behaviour or even an inverse relation with Taiwanese participants displaying more eye contact could be explained by friendship ties amongst the participants. Other countervailing material can be attenuated by including personal characteristics of the experiment participants. AP2 gave one example for this during the interview:

“…I had the feeling that I, there was more eye contact, but looking at the footage again, like, I was, kept staring at the text as well. But I don’t know, it’s just I think that is a intricacy of mine. It’s when I’m in thoughts, a lot in thoughts when I’m thinking I don’t like to look at the people. Ah, but, ahm, like, look at people, it’s just, like, when I focus I need to have a point and then I focus on that. Just like right now [has been looking out of the window].

113 AP2 admits that thinking processes may lead him to shy away from engaging in eye contact with another person. He rather seeks another area on which he focuses his gaze to help him to deliberate intensively about a matter at hand. Later in his interview he mentioned that he had already received negative feedback from interlocutors outside the experiment about this behaviour of him. Another factor that could have had some influence on the amount of eye contact during the experiment can be found in the instructions of the experiment itself. The participants were asked to also pay attention to the nonverbal signals. Here is again a comment of AP2, who explicates how this could have affected the experiment:

“I have to try to remember the situation a lot more because when I have to, when you told me that I have to look out for those details I consciously thought about them, I watched my partners and I took some notes afterwards.”

Due to the request of considering his partner’s nonverbal behaviour, AP2 explicitly puts forward that he put more effort into this part of the conversation, which included observation. Accordingly, eye contact may have been more frequent or prolonged than during an ordinary conversation. Other participants also indicated that this request may lead to more eye contact. To pull everything together, there appear to be noticeable differences with respect to eye contact across both reference cultures. On one hand, the Austrians potentially rely more on eye contact to make sure that their counterparts are done reading, on the other hand, the level of eye contact may be overall heightened in the Austrian culture as compared to the Taiwanese culture. Notwithstanding this, one still has to be cautious since some contradicting findings exist as well, although points such as strong personal ties and personality features can be explaining factors in this context.

8.6 Hand gestures Turning the attention towards hand gestures, the literature review (see Section 4.3) would suggest hand gestures as being relatively prone for cultural variation. Even so, there could hardly be found any differences across the cultures. Almost every signal that seemed to be a potential dissimilarity could either be explained by identifying it as a personal characteristic instead of pertaining to culture, being caused by the outside environment, or relating it to other factors that render it unreasonable to establish a link between the respective behaviour and culture. To give just one example, AP1’s account on his usage of high-fives will shed more light on the meaning of this:

114 “I don’t know. I think I always, when I do something, I always try to brighten up the mood of people, like, to cheer. So I thought, okay, we’re done so that’s just to relax the atmosphere…”

When AP1 finished his conversation with his discussion partners he initiated a high-five in both cases. No other participant displayed this kind of gesture. After being asked about this nonverbal behaviour of him, he provided the statement above. Accordingly, he tried to establish a positive emotional climate with this gesture. Participants of both cultures confirmed that this behaviour is unusual for their cultural context and both had the same impression, which was one of positive feelings and achievement. Hence this behaviour does not qualify as distinguishing gesture between the two reference cultures. In a similar vein, hand gestures could be found to be used as support (e.g., for the head) or for self-comfort in the case of uncertainty, which could be found for both cultures. The hands were also used for reading. The picture does not change much when looking at the amount of hand gestures used during conversation. Both reference cultures had some participants with more hand activity and others who displayed a more passive style with regard to the hands. A statement of AP3 will be considered in this context:

“…she sometimes makes hand movements and maybe like moves around a bit, like shakes her body a bit or, but I think I wouldn’t say it’s about culture with her actually cau, like based on my experience with Taiwanese people…”

AP3 talks about her Taiwanese discussion partner and uses her knowledge about the Taiwanese culture, which she could acquire during a stay in Taiwan. Similarly, other participants agree on the existence of differences in the frequency of hand gesture use during the experiment but equally agree on the particular person as the source of this behaviour. Moreover there are indications that they may vary with the familiarity of the discussion partner and the topic. They further appear to increase when the need for illustration and explanation arises as the following comment of TP2 exemplifies:

“…if I’m talking to, discussing something, maybe it’s not that I gesture, yes. But, yeah, but, ah… I don’t know. It’s, but I recall when I was teaching in Taiwan I think I used some gestures, so maybe when I’m speaking to public, then I’ll do more gesture, but if I’m speaking to individuals I don’t use so much maybe.”

115 By referring to teaching, TP2 mentions that he would resort to more hand gestures than he normally displays in other situations with less people. Since teaching can be safely identified as a profession with a higher need for explanations, illustrating hand gestures may start to appear on a more common basis. AP3 also explicitly mentioned that she used more hand gestures during the discussion round when trying to explain matters to her counterpart. Generally, only TP3 sees a probable connection with culture:

“No, like I think we don’t like use the hand gesture that much as a Westerner people do.”

Although not referring to the Austrians in specific, when questioned about cultural differences in hand gestures, she voices the hypothesis that the Taiwanese might use less hand gestures than Westerners, including Austria, do. After being asked for clarification, she goes on by proposing a connection between the culture’s dominant language’s intonation and the hand gestures displayed by members of that culture:

“Probably intonation. Is like when I went to Italy, because like it’s hardly, like they use a lot of hand gesture I think it’s because of the intonation of the languages.”

As an example she mentions the Italians. This underlying idea is being supported by AP4 and TP1, who separately suspected the same. The only real difference that could be found with respect to specific gestures is the hand shrug in which a shrug is combined with palms facing upwards. TP4 pointed out that this gesture during the experiment left her somewhat confused. It seems as if this gesture can mean a lack of knowledge in the Austrian culture but is not understood as such in Taiwan. According to TP4, the Taiwanese would rather suspect that the person executing the hand shrug does not care about a certain matter. In the end it appears as if the dissimilarities related to hand gestures between the two reference cultures are by far outweighed by the common understanding of this nonverbal vehicle in both cultures. The diverging aspects found are few and have to be considered carefully. The nonverbal signal that hints dissimilarity is the hand shrug. Yet, it is not its dissimilar execution but rather its different interpretation in the two target cultures that is noticeable. The Taiwanese seem to not attribute the hand shrug to uncertainty but instead decode it as meaning indifference. The Austrians may well link both connotations to this nonverbal expression. Furthermore, some participants saw a link between hand gestures and the intonation of the speaker’s original language.

116 8.7 Posture When looking at posture, findings that prove dissimilarities across the Taiwanese and Austrian cultures are practically non-existent. Some findings about posture also relate more strongly to other sections of this thesis. For instance, Taiwanese participants displayed a tendency to bend down in order to match their partners’ height. However, this better fits the theme of mirroring, which is why this issue is being treated in Section 8.10. Similarly, it has already been suggested in Section 8.5 that Taiwanese participants rather look at postural changes in their discussion partner for determining whether or not he or she is done reading, whereas the Austrians seem to emphasise eye contact. Other nonverbal signals related to posture are understood the same way across both cultures. This will be demonstrated by contrasting an upright body versus a crouching posture. TP1 can give one example for this:

“… I said I, I feel, like, [Austrian discussion partner] was more, ahm, experienced in talking, in, like, in cross- cultural situations? I think it’s because, amh, through nonverbal, these nonverbal gestures he didn’t move at all.”

TP1’s discussion partner displayed throughout a very straight body posture which was marked by little unnecessary body movements. This seemingly gave TP1 the feeling of having a very experienced discussion partner, which TP1 later acknowledged herself when viewing the video material. Having asked TP1’s discussion partner for his feeling during the conversation, he confirmed that he felt confident during all of the discussions. In a similar vein, collapsed body postures and more movements were perceived as signs of insecurity and passiveness by the experiment participants. Equally, participants from both cultures stated that a slumped posture may be perceived by them as being bored or uninterested. Sometimes, certain postures could also be explained by outside factors, as suggested by AP3:

“…[Austrian discussion partner] was like always like leaning on her hand all time, like almost the whole discussion round and I’m just thinking if I would have done the same if the table was like high enough for me.”

AP3 describes her Austrian counterpart’s slightly leaning posture including the involvement of her hand and admits that she might have adopted a similar posture would it not have been for the difference in body height. Since AP3 was significantly taller than her partner leaning on the table was apparently not a convenient option for her. In contrast, her Austrian discussion partner suggested that her posture might indeed have been influenced by the

117 experiment table’s height. TP4 also proposed her Taiwanese discussion partner’s leaning on the table as being the result of the table’s height. Moreover, the fact that only one sheet of paper was available to read the scenarios had also been mentioned by several participants as factor that could have forced them into a specific posture. Open and closed postures (e.g., arms covering parts of the body) also did not follow culture- based patterns. They appeared across participants of both cultures. In total, this indicates that the posture by itself may not be a nonverbal danger zone which causes misunderstanding across cultures. Only as a reading termination signal postural changes appear to carry more weight for the Taiwanese than for the Austrians.

8.8 Foot movements The foot movements follow a similar route as the hand gestures when it comes to cross- cultural dissimilarities in the experiment. Nearly all potential differences seem to be related to personal style or the interview setting. Also the video material would not provide any additional hints. In general, feet and legs found little mentioning by the participants. The logical conclusion would be that little attention is paid to the legs and feet of one’s interlocutor in both the Austrian and the Taiwanese culture. Many times questions had to be asked first to elicit related responses. Even so, the responses themselves seem to have little usable content when it comes to cross-cultural differences. As with the hand gestures, both reference cultures had participants who were more active with their legs and feet during the discussion while others barely moved. The explanations are also relatively similar. One understanding of restless legs and feet is nervousness in the sense that nervousness induces more activity in this area of the body, whereas relaxation is related to little movement as can be seen by TP1’s following quote:

“I think when I do, like, that I, I, I’m more relaxed. Yeah, it’s then when I cross the feet…”

As feet crossing immobilises the legs and feet it means that little activity can take place in this situation of relaxation. Sometimes participants said that they moved their legs and feet because standing for a prolonged period of time without moving would make them feel uncomfortable. Another aspect was again thinking. Here may lie the only difference between the cultures that could somewhat be claimed. In the interviews, it was only the Austrian participants who mentioned their leg and foot movements to be related to their thinking processes.

118 Notwithstanding this commonality, the underlying nonverbal patterns were not congruent. AP3 mentioned that immobility would be the result for her:

“When I present or when I, I’m into a topic then I move a lot but here in that case you’re just reading, discuss it and then read again so that’s probably why you’re, I’m focused.”

With this quote, AP3 contrasts her behaviour in more nervous settings like presentations with her focused state in which she experiences reduced activity of her legs and feet. To put it differently, thinking processes are accompanied by static behaviour. The opposite is true for AP4:

“…I think that it is when I’m thinking about something then I tend to switch to another leg or when I like come back to talking, like between thinking and talking. Maybe it’s that, between like standing on one leg and be, standing on two or both legs, both feet and also maybe how comfortable I feel maybe but I’m not sure about that…”

Apart from stating comfort as an additional factor for her leg and foot movements, analysing the experiment video with AP4 made her conjecture that deliberation leads to more movement in her legs and feet in her case. AP2 also brought up this phenomenon when talking about these thinking processes. He stated that usually he would wander around in his room when deeply contemplating about a certain point but due to the camera he restricted himself to remain on one spot during the experiment. This led to continuous movements of his legs and feet during the conversation. Consequently, for AP4 and AP2 thinking processes were accompanied by dynamic behaviour. In brief, the findings about foot movements are probably the most inconclusive of all findings collected for this thesis. Participants of both cultures seem basically unaware of their opposite’s legs and feet during conversation and if aware of them then similarity prevails across both reference cultures. The connection between deliberation processes and leg and foot movements could be one dissimilarity particular to the Austrian culture. Even so, both more as well as less movement in legs and feet could be found to be attributed to thinking processes. Eventually, the findings are inconclusive enough to suggest that this aspect should be met with a critical attitude.

119 8.9 Proxemics This section focuses on the proximity to one’s discussion partner during the experiment and does not include the distance to inanimate objects. Overall, it seems as if the Austrians prefer more distance between an interlocutor and themselves, whereas the Taiwanese are more comfortable with standing a little closer. At the same time, findings exist that contradict this supposition by suggesting that the distance is equal between the reference cultures or the inverse. The comments proposing that the Austrians need more distance will be first. Here is a quote of TP2:

“The, with Austrian is more distance, yes… I can see a little bit, yes. You, okay, like, yes.”

In his statement TP2 agrees that he might have had more distance with his Austrian discussion partner. However, he further mentions that this difference in distance in small. AP3 adds some details to this by talking about why she needs more distance between her and her conversation partners:

“I mean what’s interesting is that, we were, stand at this small table and we didn’t like stand like very close next to each other which I think was very important for me as well because also if it’s a friend I still, like when I think or when I concentrate, I still like to have my space around me. So I would say, I mean of course we could also have stand around the opposite of the table but we, we stood like close to each other but still with room for each other.”

This comment shows that the reason for AP3 needing more space might well be related to thinking. When concentrating on a task, AP3 prefers not to have another person too close to her. What is interesting about it is also that AP3 does include her friends in this request meaning that even her friends have to respect her personal space. Furthermore, she said in her interview that the space between her and her Austrian discussion partner was bigger than the distance between her and her Taiwanese discussion partner. Additional support comes from TP3’s following quote:

“…[Taiwanese discussion partner] is a good friend of mine and like we’re all Taiwanese, so we feel like proximity to each other and we spend a lot of t, a lot of time together, so I feel comfortable, like in terms of dist, like distances.”

120 Her Taiwanese discussion partner had closer distance with TP3. Notwithstanding this, an alternative explanation is being offered by TP3 as she and her Taiwanese counterpart are friends. This may indeed influence the distance she has between her and her discussion partner. Friendship may also be a possible explanation for the distance between other participants. In other instances, outside factors may allow for explanation of distance, such as the table in the account of TP1:

“…it’s, is it possible, is it possibly because we are both… I think we’re basically closer… and having that thing between us is more comfortable.”

“That thing” stands for the table and is considered a factor that could have incited TP1 and her Taiwanese discussion partner to move closer than they would have otherwise been. Later in her interview, TP1 asserts again that she would most likely keep more distance to other people unless some sort of barrier is between them. Equally, TP1 names the paper as a potential influencer. Since there has only been one paper to read the scenario texts, pushing the paper more to one person’s side but maintaining one’s position could lead to a bigger distance when reading. This effect was pointed out by TP1 for her conversation with her Austrian discussion partner. Also height differences were proposed as having an impact on distance behaviour. More findings on the interwoven nature of distance with other nonverbal factors will be presented when dealing with the nonverbal equilibrium in Section 8.12 below. Now it is time to turn towards the contradicting comments which delineate similarity or the opposite relationship between the participants of the different cultural backgrounds. To set the stage, the comment of AP2 will be considered:

“I think the distance was the same actually…”

There is no doubt or possibility of misinterpreting this statement. No big difference could be perceived in the distance AP2 had with his Austrian discussion partner and the distance he had with his Taiwanese discussion partner. AP4’s case is different but still contradicting the link established above:

“…we are not standing that close while reading. I stood closer to [Austrian discussion partner] when rea, while reading than I’m doing with [Taiwanese discussion partner] right now.”

121 Although AP4 limits her assertion to the context of reading, the result is still that she had less distance to her Austrian discussion partner than to her Taiwanese discussion partner. This goes against the so far described relationship in which distance with the Austrians should be bigger than the distance with the Taiwanese. In short, there seems to be a potential relationship between culture and distance in which the Austrians prefer more distance with an interlocutor than the Taiwanese people. Yet, as many times before one should not ignore the limiting and opposing factors that emerged during the presentation of the findings.

8.10 Mirroring In the case of mirroring what becomes more interesting is the similarity instead of the difference. Based on the video material and the interviews, mirroring happened between participants of both cultures and also within the reference cultures. Most instances of mirroring seemed to have happened subconsciously but there were also moments in which the issue of mirroring was raised by the interviewees themselves as the following quote of AP1 demonstrates:

“…I think maybe that, ahm, so when one person was doing something the other person…, like, for example when I was leaning, so you can’t hear now, but from the video, ahm, sound, that there, when I was leaning towards and looking at it, maybe the other person did it as well. So we were both, like, getting together and solving the problem together. Or... when we had, like, some disagreement that we were standing, like, maybe more a bit beside and listening to each other. Like, in the, I think it was like this. Overall, like, mimicking the other’s gestures but ahm… I don’t really remember anything that comes into my mind, any specific thing.”

Although not being able to mention a specific example for mirroring, AP1 credibly describes this phenomenon in his comment and also establishes the link between mirroring and potentially better empathy (also see Section 3.1). Mirroring reappeared several times in the account of AP1 mostly when he tried to explain why he felt a better connection with one communication partner over the other. Notwithstanding this, AP1 had already participated in a seminar which explained mirroring, which could be one reason why it was easier for him to bring up this topic. AP4 also gave an empathy-related answer when asked about the origin of her mirroring-related reply:

“Either because we are like quite comfortable, I though, with each other or that we try to l, how to say, that we try to like fit to the other, you know?”

122 AP4 did not receive any prior information or education on mirroring but clearly her words point in the direction of mirroring being linked to a better communication atmosphere. However, other participants could not make sense of their mirroring behaviour even when this was pointed out to them with the video during the interview. Mirroring might also have had a negative effect during the experiment as TP1 showed:

“…taking his, like, all his nonverbal things noticeable because I feel, like, when, when he give, give me, he gave me signs that of unsure, uncertainty, then I myself feel that of, may, I’m unsure too.”

According to her, her discussion partner’s nonverbal insecurity triggered insecurity in her as well. One of the actions she mentioned during the interview is nervous gestures on her side. Once more it has to be pointed out that TP1 also received no information or training on mirroring beforehand. In spite of the predominant similarity found during the experiment, there is also one peculiarity with respect to the Taiwanese participants’ mirroring behaviour. It seems as if Taiwanese people also try to match the height of their interlocutors during the discussion as can be seen from TP2’s following comment:

“…there’s this thing that I, maybe she’s shorter or someone’s shorter than me, I may do this. So if it’s someone higher then it’s really weird if I do this and then I look up... If it’s, like, the same height I do this and then I can look actually a, at the same place…”

Being taller than his Taiwanese discussion partner, TP2 lowered his body height (e.g., somewhat slumped posture) during the communication to fit his counterpart’s height. He points out that he may do this in general when communicating with people shorter than him but also states the subconscious nature of this behaviour during the interview. Similarly, TP3 could be observed to adopt similar behaviour patterns during her discussions. As a result, both a male and a female Taiwanese participant displayed this behaviour. On the Austrian side, this kind of nonverbal behaviour was not found. In essence, the theme of mirroring lends evidence to a noticeable degree of sameness of nonverbal communication behaviour between participants of both the Taiwanese and the Austrian cultures as in mirroring they utilised similar signals. Nevertheless, Taiwanese participants appear to also include body height in their mirroring patterns leading the taller conversation partner to bend down to match the body height of his or her shorter interlocutor.

123 8.11 Stereotype influence This theme is probably the most unanticipated one and does not relate to a specific element or signal of nonverbal communication but instead poses an influence on the perception of nonverbal communication in its entirety. First of all, evidence will be presented that makes it sensible to presume that stereotypical assumptions, either on an informed or an uninformed basis, existed during the experiment. As an example, a comment of AP3 about clarification behaviours will commence this section’s discourse:

“…with [Austrian discussion partner], I know that in Austria you just ask and I know in Taiwan if you don’t know the other person, I would say I don’t know if I would have reacted the same way as if, as I did with [Taiwanese discussion partner] because I know her and I know that she feels comfortable with, like our way of talking and our directness.”

In this quote one can find stereotype-related statements with concern to AP3’s own culture. However, it has to be pointed out that AP3’s stereotypes are most likely formed on an informed basis as she has experience with both reference cultures and further spent time in other cultures, which most probably accorded her the opportunity to reflect on her own cultural background. In her opinion, the Austrians are very direct in their communication style. This is also seen by her to apply to the way the Austrians ask question, which is in a straightforward manner. These assumptions already imply the counter-assumption of indirectness for the Taiwanese culture. Grounded in these stereotypes, AP3 asserted that she would have adapted her behaviour would her Taiwanese discussion partner have been a stranger to her. Hints of underlying stereotypes could be found in the accounts of some of the participants but not for everyone. Stereotypes influenced the participants in two ways. Perhaps the more expectable effect of them was that they led the participants to certain expectations about their discussion partners when coming from a different culture. AP4 exemplifies this point with the subsequent quote:

“For me it was really interesting to see because with a focus on nonverbal communication I was surprised because the Taiwanese girl I talked with was not as shy as I expected her to be. She was like more open than I expected and also she was like sometimes like taking kind of, have like the leading role in the conversation what I totally didn’t expect because I also know some other like girls from Taiwan and they’re usually quite shy at, at least I think that…”

In an explicit manner, AP4 suggests that she had expected more shyness and passivity from her Taiwanese counterpart. She then was surprised to find her Taiwanese partner being more

124 extroverted than she had anticipated (i.e., openness, leading role). Again, her stereotype can be seen as informed due to personal experience with members of the Taiwanese culture. Similarly, TP4 had cultural expectations that did not prove correct during her discussion:

“…I thought there’s gonna be a cultural differences based on the result or based on the rec, reaction we have towards the scenario but surprisingly we kind of think the same.”

TP4’s assumption was on a more general level but basically corroborates the same point. Before the actual discussion her expectations for her communication with her Austrian counterpart was one of different mindsets. Even so, during the conversation TP4 realised that substantial similarity existed. Hence, her stereotype-based expectations were not verified. As before, this aspect surfaced in the accounts of some experiment participants but not of every single participant. The second way in which stereotypes exerted influence on the experiment participants was via interference with their memories about the nonverbal behaviour of their counterparts. To clarify the exact meaning of what is meant by this, a comment of AP4 about her Taiwanese discussion partner can be found below:

“…I thought that she is like talking more quiet than I am. But she is not, like she is talking louder than I am. That is, that is cool… Maybe I was stereotyping or, I don’t know, that would be like the explanation for myself, that I was stereotyping.”

When trying to remember the nonverbal communication patterns of her Taiwanese counterpart, AP4 thought that her partner had a lower volume. Withal, when examining the videos of her discussions she reached the conclusion that she must have misremembered the nonverbal signals of her interlocutor. As an explanation she openly offers stereotyping. There is also a second time when AP4 uses stereotyping as the potential reason for misremembering her Taiwanese discussion partner’s nonverbal signals:

“…it’s like totally the way around. Yeah, that’s fun. I really don’t know. Maybe because I assumed that I, like due to stereotypes, I assumed that [Taiwanese discussion partner] is more shy than [Austrian discussion partner] and that’s why I attributed to her that she has a lower volume and is not using gest, that many gestures and all these things, but I don’t know.”

125 In this case, AP4’s memories on her Taiwanese counterpart’s hand gesture usage had been the opposite of what the video material unveiled to her. Stereotypes are again put forward as the probable culprit. Possibly the same happened to AP1:

“Now I, I see that I had a completely different perception. Like, I thought we, we were mirroring each other, even at the beginning, but actually now as I look at the whole video interview, we don’t do at all. Like, we have totally different, ahm, gestures and body movements. So, I, I perceived that maybe different. I thought I was also… standing like this but I wasn’t, so it’s interesting.”

Even though it cannot be entirely ascertained whether or not this retrospect misperception of his Austrian counterpart’s nonverbal signals stems solely from stereotypes, it may at least be reasonable to presume that AP1 had assumed similar nonverbal behaviour due to identical cultural background. Thus, it is justified to include his quote here. Yet, what should be noted in his quote is that AP1 also mentions his own nonverbal communication patterns as targets of this misremembering. To capture the main points of this section, stereotypes interfered with the participants’ perceptions of nonverbal communication by raising expectations regarding their interlocutors’ nonverbal behaviours and by distorting their memories of their interlocutors’ nonverbal signals. Nevertheless, care has to be taken with these findings as stereotypes and the like were not mentioned by all participants and, when mentioned, most frequently by Austrian participants.

8.12 Nonverbal equilibrium Nonverbal equilibrium is the outcome of the affiliative conflict theory as introduced in Section 2.3. To recap, it relies on several nonverbal factors to determine the overall level of affiliation or intimacy between two conversation partners. Therefore, it is necessary to include several nonverbal elements in this section as only their interplay can be argued to create the nonverbal equilibrium. It is also in this section where the analysis of the video material will find its highest usage. Looking at the interviews it can be confirmed that the nonverbal- equilibrium emerged during the experiment. One of the many supporting quotes originates from AP4:

“Maybe because when I’m reading, like, we’re like both on the same level and when we’re talking, like you want to have like a little bit space. Because maybe we have arguments and I myself am more comfortable when I’m standing and not like leaning like when I was reading and also when I can like see, like look my opposite like

126 directly in the eyes. I, I prefer that than like when we were reading we were standing like next to each other and we would have looked, wouldn’t have been like standing straight opposite of each other, not like, like more next to each other. So I, I mean when I’m talking to a friend about like something meaningless or something I don’t care if I’m sitting like next to each other but if I’m talking about serious things I also prefer to sit like really in the opposite of each other to like, that I can really, it, it sounds like maybe a bi, bit weird but observe the other person better…”

Here AP4 made a statement to a common phenomenon that appeared during the experiment. When reading participants uniformly moved closer together only to establish more distance as soon as they start their discourse on the scenario text. AP4 confirms one of the basic postulates of the affiliative conflict theory namely that there is a trade-off between eye contact and distance meaning that closeness incurs reduced eye contact and vice versa (see Section 2.3). This confirmation can also be found in the last part of her comment in which she brings up the issue of observing her interlocutors during conversation, which necessitates eye contact. Intriguingly, she also points out that even with friends she would adopt the same behaviour unless their talk would be of a more meaningful nature. Of course, the nonverbal equilibrium also found acknowledgement from the Taiwanese side of the experiment as the following statement of TP1 shows when talking about her discussion distance:

“…I think it’s a more comfortable distance for me, when we are discussing. Yeah. Because I feel, like, if we’re, like, this close [reduces distance to reading distance] then it’s gonna be, maybe when I, when I’m, when I use my hand, I will… kind of hit you in the face. Yeah, I think it’s probably that. And it’s also, it’s also possible… that’s the, that’s, yeah, that’s the distance I’m comfortable with. Like…not too close, but, like, you, when, every now and then you, you can look them in the eye and not too far, it’s not too far away.”

As before, TP1 reconfirms the existence of the nonverbal equilibrium by equally referring to the two dimensions of distance and eye contact. On top of this, she brings in hand gestures by putting forward the idea that the active use of her hands might be restricted when being too close. In addition to this, TP1 goes one step further and states that there might not only be too little distance but also too much distance in a conversation, which again is in line with the affiliative conflict theory (see Section 2.3). During her interview she complemented these points with the element of volume, which she understands as being perceived more strongly in the condition of close proximity. Also AP3 mentions volume in a way in which it could be indicative of being linked to nonverbal equilibrium in the experiment. Another facet that factored in during the experiment was the angle of the discussion partner’s body as AP2 highlights:

127 “…it’s different if you see his body posture. Even if we’re that close together it’s, there’s no connection I would say. [Austrian discussion partner] just kept facing me and we talked, and we talked and so on and he [Taiwanese discussion partner] was more turned towards the table than towards me. It’s, like, the same on a subworth, subway, you just pass people by, I mean there’s, like, few inches away from you but there’s no connection.”

The distance between both of AP2’s discussion partners was relatively similar. Still, he clearly felt a better connection to his Austrian counterpart than to his Taiwanese partner. Here, he names body angle as a reason. His Austrian discussion partner faced him with his body whilst his Taiwanese counterpart had his body angled away from AP2. However, not only the direction in which one’s partner’s body points can affect the felt nonverbal equilibrium. AP1 speaks about how the openness of his interlocutor’s posture has influenced his impression:

“And now he is talking, but he has his hands always, like, closed behind, ah, in front of him. That’s also a sign that he’s a bit distant…When, even when he was talking to me he even had a bit, always had a bit one hand, like, covering his body.”

AP1 introduces the closedness of his Austrian discussion partner’s posture to explain why he felt more distant to his Austrian counterpart compared to this Taiwanese interlocutor. By seemingly protecting the body with the hands, AP1’s Austrian partner gave him a less positive feeling in the experiment than his Taiwanese partner, which materialised itself several times during the interview. TP2 also enlists smiling as agent of nonverbal equilibrium with more smiling meaning a closer equilibrium. Another aspect that merits attention is the influence of the table. This is the experience of TP1:

“…we basically, we were like this [reducing distance] a lot and we had the table between us… and if, if there has been no table I don’t think I would ahm… be that close to people.”

According to TP1’s interview, the table was a factor which mostly was important when discussing with her Taiwanese discussion partner. She perceived the distance between herself and her Taiwanese counterpart as relatively close but did apparently not feel uncomfortable, which can be attributed to the presence of the table standing between them. As her interview went on TP1 grew increasingly sure that she would only enter a relatively close distance to an unknown person if there was a physical barrier between them. The whole set of interviews further hints that mirroring (see Section 3.1) may be an aspect that might be part of the

128 nonverbal equilibrium. Findings that specifically target mirroring have already been covered in Section 8.10. In spite of the large amount of corroborating findings, there are also a few points which are rather disqualifying. One of these factors is the disagreement of TP3 on distance variations:

“No, I didn’t notice it. Like you mean like we are closer w, when we are reading than talking?... Really? I never, I didn’t notice that actually.”

In TP3’s case questions about the distance variations between reading and discussion stage met with disbelief. She was not convinced that the distance changed. Withal, changes in distance were indeed hard to notice when looking at the video, although this will not take away from the critical note which this comment represents. Apart from disagreement, outside elements did also play a role. As already highlighted in Section 8.9 when looking into the distance behaviour between the two cultures, the same issue applies to the nonverbal- equilibrium as well since distance is a crucial component of it. Another quote of TP3 will bring this back to mind:

“…because while reading, we are reading a piece of paper, so we are sharing a paper. So probably that’s why we’re closer and when we’re talking because we want to look at each other’s face, facial expression, so we tend to like pull ourselves out a little bit, so, a bit, I mean that, probably that’s the reason.”

Given that there was only one piece of paper for the discussion participants to work with, they might have moved closer not because the process of reading would call for a change in nonverbal equilibrium expressions but simply because they had to read the same paper. Now, unless one of the participants would have been willing to read the paper upside down or the like, the two participants had to move closer to each other. This factor was mentioned not only by TP3 but also other participants. Notwithstanding this shortcoming, it does not eliminate the affiliative conflict theory in the experiment. After all, having finished reading, it can be argued that the participants moved back into a position that best corresponded with their felt nonverbal equilibrium pattern as is also indicated by the quote above. From an analytical standpoint it seems as if there are many more participants in favour of the nonverbal equilibrium during the experiment, but unanimity is absent. When it comes to the actual levels of nonverbal equilibrium it seems as if a positive nonverbal equilibrium may be easier reached than expected. The following statement of TP1 will be drawn on to better explain this point:

129 “…we were outside chatting. Yeah. So we were chatting, like, quite, I think it was a nice with, nice chat and we were talking about his experience, experience in Taiwan, my experience in Austria. Yeah, so when I, when, I think when we come in, came into the room and started the discussion, which is also about culture. So I think it, it, it was, like, not that abrupt for us, to get into, like, our relaxed mode, yes.”

Between the discussion rounds the experiment participants were waiting in a common area. They frequently used the waiting time to start small talk about things that connected them. In the comment of TP1 this is shared experiences in each others’ country. This is why TP1 was already able to chat with her Austrian discussion partner, who was a complete stranger to her, before their actual discussion. This has apparently ameliorated their relationship to the point at which it positively affected their nonverbal equilibrium. This is hinted by what TP1 calls “relaxation mode”. In a similar vein, AP3 experienced the same kind of bonding with her Austrian discussion partner before the interview:

“So although I didn’t know [Austrian discussion partner], we kind of like, yeah, found this common ground and, and from my opinion, in my opinion it was, it really helped to make the whole interview smooth and that’s why I think we didn’t really have any difficulties and if so we just asked each other.”

Likewise AP3 mentions commonalities that could be found between her and her Austrian discussion partner. In their case it was the participation in a similar study program. The potential improvement of their nonverbal equilibrium is expressed by AP3 via smoothness. Moreover, she explains that mutual questioning was possible whenever some challenges arose but also that significant difficulties were absent in their discussion. It is now great time to fully turn the attention to the video material. Apart from verifying a few points mentioned in the interviews and, most importantly, using it as support to extract more profound findings during the interviews, the video material will now be directly evaluated in the context of the affiliative conflict theory. To start with, signals that emerged during the discussion rounds and that could be related to the nonverbal equilibrium were eye contact, distance, angle and openness of body posture, physical barriers (i.e., the table), smiling and laughing, the appearance of mirroring, and the volume of the voice. Considering these elements when focusing on the actual level of nonverbal equilibrium between the different participants and cultures, it can be said that no big differences exist. Two of the discussions seemed especially close in terms of the affiliative conflict theory but this closeness could be resolved by looking at the friendship ties that existed between the partners of the two discussions. It seems as if the nonverbal equilibrium in the discussions of the two

130 Austrian pairs was slightly more distant than that of both the Taiwanese and the mixed culture pairs. Notwithstanding this, the difference is relatively small. Furthermore, the frequency of usage of the different nonverbal signals mentioned above was also relatively similar. It appears as if Taiwanese participants were a little more likely to present a frontal display to their interlocutors, whereas the Austrians seemingly preferred a more angled stance. Moreover, when controlling for friendship ties, the Austrians preferred more eye contact and more distance than their counterparts. Other than these, variation in usage frequency did not follow any culture-specific pattern that could be noticed during the analysis. Personality cannot be ruled out as a potential cause. To summarise on the content of this section, the affiliative conflict theory could be found in the material of this thesis. Yet, dissimilarities in the level or bodily expression of the nonverbal equilibrium are few and of weak nature. Additionally, the low number of participants and the possibility of personality as a factor of influence render these findings highly tentative. It is suggested that the Austrians seemingly prefer a more distant nonverbal equilibrium than their Taiwanese counterparts. Moreover, they appear to give more priority to eye contact in this context. In contrast, the Taiwanese seem to rather rely on a lower distance and more frontal body displays in expressing their nonverbal equilibrium.

9 Discussion Building on the findings of Chapter 8 this chapter will now come back to the research questions as stated at the outset in Chapter 1. The two research questions will be dealt with one by one commencing with the main research question:

What kind of role do body language, proxemics, and voice play as obstacles in nonverbal communication across cultures and what are potential reasons for this?

From the findings (see Chapter 8) it can be seen that there of course exist differences in nonverbal communication and that some of them were proactively labelled as hindrances to effective communication by the participants during the interviews. However, it equally has to be acknowledged that there were many similarities in this respect. When looking at the interviews it even seems as if the common understanding prevails over the differences identified together with the participants. The found behaviours basically conform to the information presented in the literature review (see Chapters 2 to 6). A quick summary of all

131 the diverging aspects of nonverbal communication for the reference cultures of Austria and Taiwan can be found in Table 4.

Findings of the empirical part (for the reference cultures)  Austrians may speak with higher volume  Taiwanese less likely to initiate the conversation with Paralanguage strangers  “Ah, okay” not used as a confirmation signal in Taiwan  Some potential variation in meaning o Austria: Thinking processes, unsettling o Taiwan: Thinking processes, rather neutral, agreement, embarrassment, opportunity to re-enter the Silence conversation  Duality of silence for Taiwanese o Single sided: One person talks, the other person is silent o Mutual: Both people are silent  Nonverbal signals seem to be similar across the reference cultures Head and face  More conscious utilisation and awareness of nonverbal signals of the head and face by the Taiwanese  Potentially different meaning of smiling and laughing o Austria: Insecurity, agreement, ice breaker o Taiwan: Insecurity, disagreement Smiling and laughing  Potentially different frequency of smiling and laughing o Austria: more common but rather polite o Taiwan: less common but rather genuine  Different emphasis as reading termination signal (more Eye contact pronounced for Austrians)  Potentially more eye contact by Austrians  Potentially linked to a language’s intonation  Divergent understanding of hand shrug Hand gestures o Austria: Uncertainty, indifference o Taiwan: Indifference  Different emphasis as reading termination signal (more Posture pronounced for Taiwanese)  Little attention paid to legs and feet by participants of both cultures Foot movements  Potential link between deliberation processes and leg and foot movements for Austrians (both, more and less movement

132 possible) Proxemics  Seemingly slightly more distance for Austrians  Mirroring across cultures is possible Mirroring  Taiwanese may also adapt their body height to their conversation partner  Raised expectations of nonverbal behaviour Stereotype influence  Interfered with memories of nonverbal behaviour  Quick improvement possible  Some support for Austrians having a slightly more distant nonverbal equilibrium than Taiwanese Nonverbal equilibrium  Some support for slight culture-specific variations of expressing the nonverbal equilibrium o Taiwanese: More frontal displays, less distance o Austrians: More eye contact

Table 4: Summary of the findings (based on Chapter 8)

As already emphasised several times in the findings, these points have to be understood as being tentative as there was not always unanimous support amongst the participants and as other factors (e.g., personality, experimental setting) most likely had an influence on the outcomes of the experiment. Nonetheless, they should suffice to form a satisfying answer for the research questions of this thesis. Grounded in the details of Table 4, it is safe to say that differences could be found in the participants’ body language, proxemics, as well as voice. What is most intriguing in this respect is that nonverbal communication obstacles are apparently not stemming from certain nonverbal expressions or behaviours prevalent in one culture but completely unknown in another. Instead, it rather seems as if these nonverbal behaviours do exist across cultures but are decoded as having different meaning depending on the cultural background of the decoder. This results in misunderstanding as the original message sent cannot be correctly deciphered by the receiver, but worse, might most likely even be misunderstood. Amongst the findings of this thesis, the areas which may be most prone to give rise to this kind of nonverbal barriers are so far suggested to be found in silence, smiling and laughing, as well as eye contact as these were discovered to have a special tendency to carry different meaning or to lead to the unsettlement of interlocutors of at least one culture. In spite of the aforementioned it will be pointed out that many more communalities exist between the two significantly different cultures studied in this thesis. This is in line with the introduction of nonverbal universality and specificity in Section 3.2 and further demonstrates

133 that nonverbal universality may be more prevalent in cross-cultural communication than nonverbal specificity. A good example for this which emerged during the experiment is mirroring (see Section 8.10). During the experiment, participants of different cultures engaged in mirroring several times (see Table 4). However, for mirroring to be possible, the underlying nonverbal communication has to be sufficiently similar. Having participants of dissimilar cultures mirror each other hints a high degree of similarity in their nonverbal behaviour. In addition to this, the interviews delivered many accounts which hint that nonverbal communication has not been perceived as utterly obstructing factor when communicating with participants of other cultures, despite the dissimilarities found and presented in Table 4. Four explanations are thinkable for this. One of them is that the nonverbal differences found are very small and, therefore, are not perceived to be stark enough to endanger the communication between the participants. The second potential explanation could be that nonverbal communication in general did not pose an overly important factor in the experiment. A third explanation would be that the participants already possessed sufficient cultural intelligence (see Section 3.3) so that they were capable of adapting to or tolerating the other culture’s behaviour or that they even already got used to it to some extent. The fourth explanation might be that the participants could have downplayed differences or subconsciously not perceived them as utterly negative. The reasons that would make this suggestion a viable one are that there were no stakes for the participants (i.e., nothing to win or lose), the experiment was of short duration, and it was clear that it would be a one-time encounter between the participants during the experiment. Whatever the case may be, it might be reasonable to suggest that the role of nonverbal behaviour in cross-cultural misunderstandings during communication could be overstated. Of course, one could still attempt to argue that the Austrian and Taiwanese cultures are too similar. However, the information presented in Section 7.1 renders this highly unlikely which is why such claims can be discarded. Another element that could be identified as obstructing smooth nonverbal communication appears to be stereotypes. As surfaced during the cases, stereotypes had an impact on both the memory as well as expectations of other cultures’ nonverbal expressions. This may eventually lead to misperceptions of a person and consequently bias the communication. To give an example, stereotyping a culture as rather emotionally detached but then encountering a member of this culture displaying nonverbal behaviour livelier than expected may lead to the misperception that the person at hand is especially lively in his or her cultural environment. Yet, this person may in the end simply adhere to the common nonverbal conduct of his or her

134 culture whereas the stereotype conveyed an incomplete or even incorrect assumption with regard to nonverbal communication. On the bottom line, nonverbal communication apparently plays a small role when it comes to cross-cultural communication. The reason behind this limited importance is that similarities seem to prevail and that the differences in many cases do not seem to hinder productive discourse, as suggested by the experiment participants. The cause for the few instances of confusion based on differences in nonverbal communication could be related to interpretation differences of signals known to participants of both cultures but not to specific nonverbal behaviour that existed in one reference culture but was absent in the other reference culture. While the particular nonverbal details summarised in Table 4 may pertain mostly to the Austrian and Taiwanese cultures, the big picture perspective of this paragraph may hold true for other cultures as well.

What differences are there in affiliative, nonverbal equilibrium levels with concern to body language, proxemics, and voice across cultures?

Having discussed the main research question, the sub-question still demands answering. This will put the affiliative conflict theory and the resulting nonverbal equilibrium (see Section 2.3) into the focus of the paragraphs to follow. As can be seen from the last part of Table 4 and in more detail in Section 8.12, the nonverbal equilibrium between both reference cultures seems to be relatively similar. The interviews and the video material lend support to the supposition that the Austrians have a more distant nonverbal equilibrium than the Taiwanese, but this support is of weak nature. Moreover, also the way of expressing the nonverbal equilibrium shows only a few differences with the Taiwanese potentially preferring more frontal displays and less distance, whereas the Austrians seem to work with more eye contact. Again, these differences as well are based on relatively weak support. Hence, differences seem to be overall of negligible importance. They appear to be very small and even these small dissimilarities deliver feeble support. There are a few possible explanations for these points. One is of course that it is simply like that and that there does not exist any form of stark divergence with concern to nonverbal equilibrium between the reference cultures. Another explanation could be that, as mentioned before, the experiment participants possessed a significant level of cultural intelligence (see Section 3.3) which allowed them to successfully tune into each others’ nonverbal codes including the nonverbal equilibrium. That mirroring across the participants of the different

135 cultures was possible may be a hint that the two explanations mentioned so far might have some foundation (see Section 8.10). A third potential reason can be found in the findings themselves. These suggest that it may be possible to establish a closer nonverbal equilibrium in a relatively short period of time. These opportunities were present during the experiment and could have led to the diminishment of the originally existing differences in nonverbal equilibrium. The other limitations of the experiment (see Section 10.2) might also have had an effect here. One more explanation might be found in the makeup of the nonverbal equilibrium. It has already been stated in Section 2.3 that the nonverbal equilibrium is best to be understood not as a point but rather as a range. When assuming that both the Austrians and the Taiwanese have a certain range in their base nonverbal equilibrium, it might be possible for them to have a point of intersection. If this is true, then both reference cultures may still stay in their usual range of nonverbal equilibrium but move within this range to find common ground with their counterpart from another culture, avoiding any communicational friction. What might be interesting in this respect is to deliberate on whether there could also be cultures that do not have such an intersection point, but this already pertains to the call for further research (see Section 10.2). In short, there are differences when it comes to the nonverbal equilibrium as well as its expression. Even so these are very small and found weak backup in the empirical material making it reasonable to assume that they are negligible. It is difficult to say whether this is limited to the cultures of Austria and Taiwan or can be applied to a wider set of cultures. So far, the findings underlying this part do not specifically suggest that the similarity of nonverbal equilibrium across cultures is limited solely to the reference cultures of this thesis. Hence, it might be sensible to presume that significant dissimilarities in nonverbal equilibrium should be absent across cultures. As a consequence, nonverbal equilibrium should not become an obstacle that hinders successful intercultural communication.

This concludes the discussion. As can be seen above, satisfying answers for both, the main as well as the sub research question could be found. The last parts and the final conclusion will follow.

10 Implications, limitations, and call for further research This chapter includes the implications for academia and practitioners, the limitations of this thesis, as well as the request for further research. The implications will pose the first section.

136 10.1 Theoretical and practical implications When looking at the implications for researchers of the field, this thesis offers a more detailed insight in how much of an obstacle nonverbal communication really is when members of different cultures converse. Reading the literature about nonverbal communication and how it is being connected to cross-cultural situations, one can easily adopt the idea that nonverbal communication is full of lurking misunderstandings and can become a major obstacle for the members of two cultures to engage in fruitful dialogue. Also when looking at the literature, many times examples are chosen that delineate a significant blunder due to nonverbal misunderstandings which then results in missed business opportunities and negotiations gone wrong. As also stated in this thesis, the conversations were not always smooth between the participants of the two cultures for which nonverbal signals can be named the causes. Nevertheless, in the light of the findings of this thesis, the chosen examples seem as somewhat extreme and could lead to a biased impression about the severity and frequency of nonverbal misunderstandings. This may be especially true when looking at the prevalence of nonverbal understanding that could be found between the experiment participants of the two different cultures. A second implication for scholars is that the focus should probably be laid more on the research on interpretational differences of similar nonverbal signals across different cultures instead of unique gestures that are present in one culture but unknown to other cultures. The reason for this suggested shift can be found in the obstructing effect of these nonverbal misinterpretations. In general, the participants of this thesis had no problem with any hitherto unfamiliar nonverbal expressions. What is more, such expressions did not even emerge during the experiment. In contrast, the few confusing or unsettling moments for the participants usually originated from the sort of misunderstanding delineated before. Even if formerly unknown nonverbal behaviour would have surfaced and bothered a conversation partner, it can be argued that in a real life setting the respective interlocutor would have been able to retrospectively use online and offline material to resolve and better understand the situation whereas this might be more difficult if nonverbal misunderstanding based on culture-related misinterpretation remains hidden due to the false assumption of understanding. It is easier to investigate what we see than what we are blind to. One example for already existing research that goes into this direction is the seminal work of Paul Ekman on micro expressions (see Section 4.1.1) who took a set of facial expressions and tried to verify whether they elicit the same understanding across different cultures.

137 Implications also exist for practitioners. Even though nonverbal dissimilarities were not unveiled to be critical obstacles of intercultural communication, it can still be argued that trying to avoid potential misunderstandings in this area can only be of benefit when conducting business. Therefore, business professionals are commended to focus on the aspects mentioned in the discussion to ensure the smooth procedure of their culture-crossing undertakings, since these will incur most probably some kind of face-to-face communication. They should be particularly aware of the concealed nature of dissimilar interpretations of identical nonverbal signals. The reason for this has already been mentioned above. If a nonverbal signal in a new cultural environment is the reason for confusion, most practitioners will relatively easily be able to look up the meaning. Yet, if the nonverbal signal is recognised and wrongfully interpreted by the practitioner it may be hard to become aware of this misunderstanding as everything seems clear. This might be especially important in the context of today’s international business conduct. Some assignments send a business professional into a different country for a longer period of time. This procedure can be seen as more favourable for being able to notice these divergent interpretations of familiar nonverbal behaviours in the new cultural environment. Nevertheless, many assignments with international contact include short trips to another country for doing business or even the visit of a foreign business partner at one’s domestic base, which equally leads to the crossing of cultural boundaries. In this second case business practitioners may not have the opportunity of prolonged exposure to the new culture’s environment which renders the discovery of interpretational differences difficult at best. One way to circumvent this could be the utilisation of intercultural training that teaches the trainee how to adopt the perspective of different cultures (e.g., culture assimilator) as this could also help identifying these nonverbal pitfalls. Thus, keeping the results of this thesis in mind may prove useful to make intercultural training more effective and to support enhanced mutual understanding and productive dialogue. In a similar vein, building partnerships and networks across various nations may benefit as well from communication ameliorated by the findings of this thesis. Aside from the general findings of this thesis, also the particular details as summarised in Table 4 may be of use for those who are often confronted with a communication setting in which the Austrians and the Taiwanese participate. In spite of the small sample, they should give a fairly good insight on the nonverbal intricacies that might arise in communication between the Austrians and the Taiwanese. Given that they are comparatively small nations, trade on an international level is important for both of them, making such encounters at least somewhat likely.

138 10.2 Limitations and request for further research Until now, it has been indicated at several places that the empirical research of this thesis has its drawbacks and that the findings of it should, therefore, be considered with due care. Indeed, there are several limitations and they will not be hidden from the reader. Most of them can be related to the features of the sample or the experimental setting. Probably the most important limitation is the small sample size. There were a total of eight people. While they sufficed to provide useful findings, the insights would most likely have been greater in number with a bigger sample. This was mainly caused by a shortage of participants available in the time window in which the research took place and could, therefore, hardly be influenced. As a consequence, the findings of this thesis cannot be generalised, which is why caution is required. Concerning the characteristics of the participants, language proficiency becomes an issue. Neither the Austrians nor the Taiwanese were communicating in their mother tongues and variations in their levels of English were apparent during the experiment. During the interviews the participants sometimes even mentioned that the language was a factor making the discussion somewhat more difficult. This might have changed the participants’ emotional states (e.g., nervousness) and, thereby, affected their nonverbal behaviour. Another limitation which is especially pertinent with regard to the affiliative conflict theory (see Section 2.3) is that it was not possible to effectively control the affiliation level between the participants. The relationship strength between the different participants varied at times significantly as some were strangers and others were close friends. At the same time, participants had bonding opportunities during the experiment, which most likely also had an impact on their nonverbal equilibrium (see Section 8.12). The analysis tried to take this varying strength of these interpersonal ties into account but whether this was perfectly possible remains open for discussion. Participants with equal affiliation levels would have been ideal. Apart from the nature of the participants’ interpersonal relationships, also their level of cultural intelligence might have varied. The amount of their exposure to other cultural influences was not the same and some of their study subjects probably included anthropological knowledge more than others. As a result, the different levels of cultural intelligence might have helped some participants to better adapt to and make sense out of their discussion partners coming from the other culture as well as their nonverbal behaviours. The bodily conditions of the participants can also pose potential limitations. Personal illnesses or injuries, like the hay fever and slipped disc of one of the participants, might have

139 introduced a bias into their nonverbal signals. Additionally, some of the participants seemed to have been more affected than others by the fact that they had to stand during the ten minutes of the discussion. They mentioned tiredness and discomfort due to prolonged standing as causes for some of their nonverbal reactions. Shifting the focus to the experimental setting, providing only one piece of paper with the scenario texts and one pen for two participants to read and write on the paper might have introduced significant bias into the participants’ nonverbal behaviours. The paper in particular found frequent mentioning by the participants. It would have been ideal if each participant had received a piece of paper and a pen for him- or herself. Also the physical equipment might be a limitation. The table height was mentioned several times as a reason why certain participants adopted a certain posture and others not, which was usually related to the participants’ body heights. The second factor here was the camera. Its impact was twofold. Firstly, it induced a certain nervousness in some of the participants at the beginning, since they needed some time to accommodate to the fact that they are being recorded, while others would have liked to move more but decided against it as they were afraid that they would leave the recording frame when doing so. Secondly, the quality of the video recording was a little lower than expected. Likewise, the quality of the first round’s audio recording was low due to the use of old equipment. These factors might have contributed to disturbances in the nonverbal signals of the participants as well as somewhat lowered the quality of the material used for analysis. The demands of the experimental setting can equally be named as limitations of this thesis. One point that has been brought up during some of the interviews is that eye contact could have been heightened because of the requirement that the participants should also observe the nonverbal communication of their counterparts. Hence, a bias for eye contact could have existed. The context of the discussion may also be a limitation for this thesis. Similar to what had been pointed out in Chapter 9, the subjects participated in a discussion on cultural scenarios without any sort of pressure. It could be that their behaviour changes in casual situations or a competitive situation in which the winner gains a reward and which, therefore, increases the stakes (e.g., negotiations). Maybe these situations would provide different findings than the ones obtained from the actual setting used in the experiment of this thesis. Additionally, the experiment participants knew that their conversations with their discussion partners would be one-time encounters of short duration. This could equally have induced a bias in their behaviour.

140 The limitations can be directly linked to the requests for further research. First and foremost replication studies will be needed. Future research may better be able to provide a bigger sample with more equal features and a better experimental environment. What would also be important to see is whether the findings can be replicated when using reference cultures that are different from the ones treated in this thesis. When looking specifically at the nonverbal equilibrium, one explanation that has been put forward to explicate the absence of any significant differences across the reference cultures was that both cultures may have a range that could intersect at some point (see Chapter 9). Both cultures may then settle at this point to enable effective communication. Researchers may want to investigate if and how this is possible and what happens if cultures without an intersection point collide. This may improve the field’s understanding of the nonverbal equilibrium with regard to culture. Another aspect that appears worthwhile to explore is related to stereotypes. The influence of stereotypes on the area of nonverbal communication was indeed an unexpected finding of this thesis. Researchers may want to build on this contribution and look into the specific interplay of stereotypes and the perception of nonverbal signals as well as potential moderating variables. Enlisting the aid of psychological theories and frameworks may be worthwhile. This could enhance the specific understanding of the impact of stereotypes on perception and communication.

11 Conclusion This thesis set out to gain insight on the role and differences of nonverbal communication across cultures. Special emphasis was laid on the affiliative conflict theory and the resulting nonverbal equilibrium. The rationale for this endeavour lay in the insufficient coverage of these areas by existing literature. In order to gain a more detailed understanding of these points, a special research procedure has been developed for inquiry. This procedure was based on qualitative methodology and combined video recorded discussion rounds with subsequent semi-structured interviews. Basic data was collected by the means of a short questionnaire at the beginning of the interviews. This dual approach of observation and interview was able to capture the opinions and perspectives of the participants while also allowing for the bringing to mind of the subconscious elements of nonverbal communication.

141 The findings proposed that nonverbal behaviour plays a smaller than expect role in intercultural communication. At least in the context of this particular study and taking into consideration the limitations as listed in Section 10.2, similarity prevailed over difference. Even so, the complicating factors with regard to communication could be found not in single nonverbal expressions that were known in one cultural context while unknown in another but in nonverbal signals that were known to both reference cultures yet interpreted in a different manner (e.g., silence). This is salient as it may hinder quick identification of the source of a potential misunderstanding since both interlocutors wrongly assume correct interpretation of the nonverbal signal at hand. Furthermore, stereotypes were revealed to not only form expectations of nonverbal behaviour but also to distort memories of a conversation partner’s nonverbal signals to fit the stereotype. As for the nonverbal equilibrium, dissimilarities across the reference cultures were discovered to be negligible. Potential differences exist with the Austrians seemingly preferring a slightly more distant nonverbal equilibrium than the Taiwanese. Moreover, the Taiwanese apparently rely on more frontal postures and less interpersonal distance whilst the Austrians rely a little more on eye contact. However, as already pointed out these differences are minor and the empirical support is weak. A set of limitations has been presented of which most can be categorised as referring to the experimental setting or the sample. Probably the strongest limitation stems from the small sample size employed for the empirical part of this thesis. Implications for scholars and practitioners have been delineated and request for further research has been voiced.

142 Reference List

Adler, N. J., with Gundersen, A. (2008). International dimensions of organizational behavior (5th ed.). Mason, OH: Thomson South-Western. Aiello, J. R., & Jones, S. E. (1971). Field study of the proxemic behavior of young school children in three subcultural groups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 19(3), 351–356. Albert, R. D., & Ha, A. (2004). Latino/Anglo-American differences in attributions to situations involving touch and silence. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 28(3–4), 253–280. Aliakbari, M., Faraji, E., & Pourshakibaee, P. (2011). Investigation of the proxemics behavior of Iranian professors and university students: Effects of gender and status. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(5), 1392–1402. Allgeier, A. R., & Byrne, D. (1990). Attraction toward the opposite sex as a determinant of physical proximity. The Journal of Social Psychology, 90(2), 213–219. Al-Omar, D., Al-Wabil, A., & Hosny, M. (2013). Using pupil size variation during visual emotional stimulation in measuring affective states of non communicative individuals. In C. Stephanidis & M. Antona (Eds.), Universal access in human-computer interaction: User and context diversity – Part II (pp. 253–258). Berlin Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag. Ambady, N., LaPlante, D., Nguyen, T., Rosenthal, R., Chaumeton, N., & Levinson, W. (2002). Surgeons’ tone of voice: A clue to malpractice history. Surgery, 132(1), 5–9. Ambady, N., & Rosenthal, R. (1992). Thin slices of expressive behaviour as predictors of interpersonal consequences: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 111(2), 256–274. Ambady, N., & Rosenthal, R. (1993). Half a minute: Predicting teacher evaluations from thin slices of nonverbal behavior and physical attractiveness. Journal of Personality and social psychology, 64(3), 431–441. Anderson, D. E., DePaulo, B. M., Ansfield, M. E., Tickle, J. J., & Green, E. (1999). Beliefs about cues to deception: Mindless stereotypes or untapped wisdom? Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 23(1), 67–89. Anecdotes, Antidotes, and Anodes (2011). Wordless Wednesday: Char-wee’s pout face! Retrieved Mai 16, 2016 from http://anecdotes.typepad.com/anecdotes_antidotes_and_a/2011/04/wordless-wednesday- char-wees-pout-face-.html ANLP International CIC (2016). Welcome to ANLP. Retrieved March 1, 2016, from http://www.anlp.org/what-is-nlp Apicella, C. L., Feinberg, D. R., & Marlowe, F. W. (2007). Voice pitch predicts reproductive success in male hunter-gatherers. Biology Letters, 3(6), 682–684. Apple, W., Streeter, L. A., & Krauss, R. M. (1979). Effects of pitch and speech rate on personal attributions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37(5), 715–727. Argyle, M., & Dean, J. (1965). Eye-contact, distance and affiliation. Sociometry, 28(3), 289– 304.

143 Asahina, M., Suzuki, A., Mori, M., Kanesaka, T., & Hattori, T. (2003). Emotional sweating response in a patient with bilateral amygdala damage. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 47(1), 87–93. Asch, S. E. (1951). Effects of group pressure on the modification and distortion of judgments. In H. Guetzkow (Ed.), Groups, leadership and men: Research in human relations (pp. 177–190). Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Press. Ashkanasy, N., Gupta, V., Mayfield, M. S., & Trevor-Roberts, E. (2004). Future orientation. In R. J. House, P. J. Hanges, M. Javidan, P. W. Dorfman & V. Gupta (Eds.), Culture, leadership, and organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 societies (pp. 282–342). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Ashraf, A. B., Lucey, S., Cohn, J. F., Chen, T., Ambadar, Z., Prkachin, K. M., & Solomon, P. E. (2009). The painful face – Pain expression recognition using active appearance models. Image and Vision Computing, 27(12), 1788–1796. Atschko, G., Benvenutti, F., Birsak, L., Wendel, H., & Zeugner, K. (1995). Hölzel Atlas 5/8. Wien, W: Ed. Hölzel Ges. m.b.H. Austrian Press & Information Service in the United States (2016). History – Overview. Retrieved March 18, 2016, from http://www.austria.org/history/ Aviezer, H., Trope, Y., & Todorov, A. (2012a). Body cues, not facial expressions, discriminate between intense positive and negative emotions. Science, 338(6111), 1225– 1229. Aviezer, H., Trope, Y., & Todorov, A. (2012b). Holistic person processing: Faces with bodies tell the whole story. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103(1), 20–37. Bahns, A. J., Crandall, C. S., Gillath, O., & Wilmer, J. B. (2016). Nonverbal communication of similarity via the torso: It’s in the bag. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 40(2), 151– 170. Bailenson, J. N., Blascovich, J., Beall, A. C., & Loomis, J. M. (2001). Equilibrium theory revisited: Mutual gaze and personal space in virtual environments. Presence, 10(6), 583– 598. Bailey, A. H., & Kelly, S. D. (2015). Picture power: Gender versus body language in perceived status. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 39(4), 317–337. Barger, P. B., & Grandey, A. A. (2006). Service with a smile and encounter satisfaction: Emotional contagion and appraisal mechanisms. Academy of Management Journal, 49(6), 1229–1238. BBC (2016). Taiwan profile – Timeline. Retrieved March 18, 2016, from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-16178545 Bedi, R. P. (2006). Concept mapping the client’s perspective on counseling alliance formation. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 53(1), 26-35. Bello, R. S., Brandau-Brown, F. E., Zhang, S., & Ragsdale, J. D. (2010). Verbal and nonverbal methods for expressing appreciation in friendships and romantic relationships - A cross-cultural comparison. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 34(3), 294–302. Benitez-Quiroz, C. F., Wilbur, R. B., & Martinez, A. M. (2016). The not face: A grammaticalization of facial expressions of emotion. Cognition, 150, 77–84.

144 Bennett, R., Aston, A., & Colquhoun, T. (2000). Cross-cultural training: A critical step in ensuring the success of international assignments. Human Resource Management, 39(2&3), 239-250. Berger, S. E., Friedman, R., & Polis, M. C. (2011). The role of locomotor posture and experience on handedness and footedness in infancy. Infant Behavior & Development, 34(3), 472–480. Briggs, N. E., & Harwood, G. R. (1982). Training personnel in multinational business: An inoculation approach. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 6(4), 341–354. Briñol, P., Petty, R. E., & Wagner, B. (2009). Body posture effects on self-evaluation: A self- validation approach. European Journal of Social Psychology, 39(6), 1053–1064. Bryman, A., & Bell, E. (2015). Business research methods (4th ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press Inc. Buccino, G., Binkofski, F., & Riggio, L. (2004). The mirror neuron system and action recognition. Brain and Language, 89(2), 370–376. Burgoon, J. K., Buller, D. B., Hale, J. L., & De Turck, M. A. (1984). Relational messages associated with nonverbal behaviours. Human communication research, 10(3), 351–378. Burgoon, J. K., & Walther, J. B. (1990). Nonverbal expectancies and the evaluative consequences of violations. Human Communication Research, 17(2), 232–265. Carey, M. E., Barakat, L. P., Foley, B., Gyato, K., & Phillips, P. C. (2001). Neuropsychological functioning and social functioning of survivors of pediatric brain tumors: Evidence of nonverbal learning disability. Child Neuropsychology, 7(4), 265– 272. Carl, D., Gupta, V., & Javidan, M. (2004). Power distance. In R. J. House, P. J. Hanges, M. Javidan, P. W. Dorfman & V. Gupta (Eds.). Culture, leadership, and organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 societies (pp. 513–563). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Carney, D. R., Cuddy, A. J. C., & Yap, A. J. (2010). Power posing: Brief nonverbal displays affect neuroendocrine levels and risk tolerance. Psychological Science, 21(10), 1–6. Cashdan, E. (1998). Smiles, speech, and body posture: How women and men display sociometric status and power. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 22(4), 209–228. Chen, A. S.-Y., Lin, Y.-C., Sawangpattanakul,, A. (2011). The relationship between cultural intelligence and performance with the mediating effect of culture shock: A case from Philippine laborers in Taiwan. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 35(2), 246–258. Christie, R., & Geis, F. L. (Eds.). (1970). Studies in Machiavellianism. Waltham, MA: Academic Press. CIA (2016a). The world factbook – Austria. Retrieved March 19, 2016, from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/au.html CIA (2016b). The world factbook – Taiwan. Retrieved March 19, 2016, from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/tw.html Collet, P. (2003). The book of tells: How to read people’s minds from their actions. London: Bantam Books. Collings, D. G., Scullion, H., & Morley, M. J. (2007). Changing patterns of global staffing in the multinational enterprise: Challenges to the conventional expatriate assignment and emerging alternatives. Journal of World Business, 42(2), 198–213.

145 Collins, S. A. (2000). Men’s voices and women’s choices. Animal Behaviour, 60(6), 773–780. Collins, S. A., & Missing, C. (2003). Vocal and visual attractiveness are related in women. Animal Behaviour, 65(5), 997–1004. Costa, M., Menzani, M., & Bitti, P. E. R. (2001). Head canting in paintings: An historical study. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 25(1), 63–73. Dabbs, J. M. Jr., & Mallinger, A. (1999). High testosterone levels predict low voice pitch among men. Personality and Individual Differences, 27(4), 801–804. De Gelder, B. (2006). Towards the neurobiology of emotional body language. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 7(3), 242–249. Den Hartog, D. N. (2004). Assertiveness. In R. J. House, P. J. Hanges, M. Javidan, P. W. Dorfman & V. Gupta (Eds.). Culture, leadership, and organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 societies (pp. 395–436). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Dixson, B. J., & Brooks, R. C. (2013). The role of facial hair in women’s perceptions of men’s attractiveness, health, masculinity and parenting abilities. Evolution and Human Behavior, 34(3), 236–241. Dovidio, J. F., & Ellyson, S. L. (1982). Decoding visual dominance: Attributions of power based on relative percentages of looking while speaking and looking while listening. Social Psychology Quarterly, 45(2), 106–113. Duncan, S. (1972). Some signals and rules for taking speaking turns in conversations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 23(2), 283–292. Earley, C. P., & Mosakovski, E. (2004). Cultural intelligence. Harvard Business Review, 82(10), 139-146. Eid, M., & Diener, E. (2001). Norms for experiencing emotions in different cultures: Inter- and intranational differences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(5), 869– 885 Ekman, P. (2003a). Darwin, deception, and facial expressions. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1000, 205–221. Ekman, P. (2003b). Emotions revealed: Recognizing faces and feelings to improve communication and emotional life. New York, NY: Times Books. Ekman, P. (2009). Telling lies: Clues to deceit in the marketplace, politics, and marriage (4th ed.). New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company. Ekman, P., & Frank, M. G. (1996). Physiologic effects of the smile. Directions in Psychiatry, 16(25), 1-7. Ekman, P., Friesen, W. V. (1969). Nonverbal leakage and clues to deception. Psychiatry: Journal for the Study of Interpersonal Processes, 32(1), 88–106. Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1971). Constants across cultures in the face and emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 17(2), 124–129. Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1975). Unmasking the face: A guide to recognizing emotions from facial expressions. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1978). Facial action coding system: Investigator’s guide. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press, Inc.

146 Ekman, P., Friesen, W. V., & Ellsworth, P. (1974). Gesichtssprache: Wege zur Objektivierung menschlicher Emotionen. Graz: Hermann Böhlaus Nachf. Gesellschaft m. b. H. Ekman, P., Friesen, W. V., & Malmstrom, E. J. (1970). Facial behavior and stress in two cultures. Unpublished manuscript. San Francisco, CA: Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute. Ekman, P., Friesen, W. V., & O’Sullivan, M. (1988). Smiles when lying. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(1), 414–420. Ekman, P., Friesen, W. V., & Tomkins, S. S. (1971). Facial affect scoring technique: A first validity study. Semiotica, 3(1), 37–58. Elfenbein, H. A., & Ambady, N. (2002). On the universality and cultural specificity of emotion recognition: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 128(2), 203–235. Elias, L. J., Bryden, M. P., Bulman-Fleming, M. B. (1998). Footedness is a better predictor than is handedness of emotional lateralization. Neuropsychologia, 36(1), 37–43. Emrich, C. G., Denmark, F. L., & Den Hartog, D. N. (2004). Cross-cultural differences in gender egalitarianism. In R. J. House, P. J. Hanges, M. Javidan, P. W. Dorfman & V. Gupta (Eds.). Culture, leadership, and organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 societies (pp. 343–394). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Etcoff, N. L., Ekman, P., Magee, J. J., & Frank, M. G. (2000). Lie detection and language comprehension: People who can’t understand words are better at picking up lies about emotions. Nature, 405(139), 139. Exline, R. V., Thibaut, J., Hickey, C. B., & Gumpert, P. (1970). Visual interaction in relation to Machiavellianism and an unethical act. In R. Christie & F. L. Geis (Eds.), Studies in Machiavellianism (pp. 53–76). Waltham, MA: Academic Press. Fadiga, L., Fogassi, L., Pavesi, G., & Rizzolatti, G. (1995). Motor facilitation during action observation: A magnetic stimulation study. Journal of Neurophysiology, 73(6), 2608– 2611. Faure, G. O., & Ruby, J. Z. (Eds.). (1993). Culture and negotiation: The resolution of water disputes. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Faure, G. O., & Sjöstedt, G. (1993). Culture and negotiation: An introduction. In G. O. Faure & J. Z. Ruby (Eds.), Culture and negotiation: The resolution of water disputes (pp. 1– 13). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Ferraro, G. P. (1994). The cultural dimension of international business (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Fischer, M. H. (2008). Finger counting habits modulate spatial-numerical associations. Cortex, 44(4), 386–392. Fisher, J. D., Rytting, M., & Heslin, R. (1976). Hands touching hands: Affective and evaluative effects of an interpersonal touch. Sociometry, 39(4), 416–421. Foley, C., Edwards, D., & Schlenker, K. (2014). Business events and friendship: Leveraging the sociable legacies. Event Management, 18(1), 53–64. Formosan Association for Public Affairs (2016). Taiwan’s history: An overview. Retrieved March 18, 2016, from http://www.fapa.org/generalinfo/Taiwan's_history.htm

147 Galati, D., Sini, B., Schmidt, S., & Tinti, C. (2003). Spontaneous facial expressions in congenitally blind and sighted children aged 8–11. Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 97(7), 418–428. Gélat, T., Coudrat, L., & Le Pellec, A. (2011). Gait initiation is affected during emotional conflict. Neuroscience Letters, 497(1), 64–67. Gelfand, M. J., Bhawuk, D. P. S., Nishii, L. H., & Bechtold, D. J. (2004). Individualism and collectivism. In R. J. House, P. J. Hanges, M. Javidan, P. W. Dorfman & V. Gupta (Eds.). Culture, leadership, and organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 societies (pp. 437–512). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Geschwind, N., & Behan, P. (1982). Left-handedness: Association with immune disease, migraine, and developmental learning disorder. PNAS, 79(16), 5097–5100. Gillespie, D. L., & Leffler, A. (1983). Theories of nonverbal behavior: A critical review of proxemics research. Sociological Theory, 1, 120–154. Givens, D. B. (2016). The nonverbal dictionary of gestures, signs & body language cues. Retrieved February 23, 2016, from http://center-for-nonverbal-studies.org/6101.html#top Gordon, R. A., Baxter, J. C., Rozelle, R. M., & Druckman, D. (1987). Expectations of honest, evasive and deceptive nonverbal behavior. The Journal of Social Psychology, 127(2), 231–233. Graham, J. L. (1985). The influence of culture on the process of business negotiations: An exploratory study. Journal of Business Research, 16(1), 81–96. Grammer, K. (1990). Strangers meet: Laughter and nonverbal signs of interest in opposite-sex encounters. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 14(4), 209–236. Granhag, P. A., & Strömwall, L. A. (Eds.). (2004). The detection of deception in forensic contexts. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Grant, E. C. (1969). Human facial expression. Man, New Series, 4(4), 525–536. Gregoire, C. (2016, March 31). This facial expression is a universal sign that you’re just not into it. Retrieved Mai 16, 2016 from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/not-face- disapproval_us_56fbfc53e4b0a06d580449bc Gross, M. M., Crane, E. A., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2012). Effort-shape and kinematic assessment of bodily expression of emotion during gait. Human Movement Science, 31(1), 202–221. Gupta, N. (2013). Effective body language in organizations. Journal of Soft Skills, 7(1), 35– 44. Halbe, D. (2012). Who’s there? Differences in the features of telephone and face-to-face conferences. Journal of Business Communication, 49(1), 48-73. Hall, E. T. (1982). The hidden dimension (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Anchor Books. Harbecke, D. (Director). (2014, September 2). Die Macht der Stimme [Television series episode]. In WDR (Producer), Quarks & Co. Cologne, NW: WDR. Hardyck, C., & Petrinovich, L. F. (1977). Left-handedness. Psychological Bulletin, 84(3), 385–404 Hariri, A. R., Bookheimer, S. Y., & Mazziotta, J. C. (2000). Modulating emotional responses: Effects of a neocortical network on the limbic system. NeuroReport: For Rapid Communication of Neuroscience Research, 11(1), 43–48.

148 Harrigan, J. A., Oxman, T. F., & Rosenthal, R. (1985). Rapport expressed through nonverbal behavior. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 9(2), 95–110. Heller, E. (2011). Wie Farben wirken: Farbpsychologie, Farbsymbolik, kreative Farbgestaltung (6th ed.). Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt Verlag GmbH. Henley, N. M. (1973). Status and sex: Some touching observations. Bulletin of the Psychonometric Society, 2(2), 91–93. Hess, U., Blaison, C., & Kafetsios, K. (2016). Judging facial emotion expressions in context: The influence of culture and self-construal orientation. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 40(1), 55–64. Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s consequences (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Holland, M. K., & Tarlow, G. (1975). Blinking and thinking. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 41(2), 403-406. House, R. J., Hanges, P. J., Javidan, M., Dorfman, P. W., & Gupta, V. (Eds.). (2004). Culture, leadership, and organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 societies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Hutt, L. D., & Anderson, J. P. (1967). The relationship between pupil size and recognition threshold. Psychonomic Science, 9(8), 477–478. Janconvic, M.-A., Devoe, S., & Wiener, M. (1975). Age-related changes in hand and arm movements as nonverbal communication: Some conceptualizations and an empirical exploration. Child Development, 46(4), 922–928. Jankowiak, W. R., Volsche, S. L., & Garcia, J. R. (2015). Is the romantic-sexual kiss a near human universal? American Anthropologist, 117(3), 535–539. Janssen, D., Schöllhorn, W. I., Lubienetzki, J., Fölling, K., Kokenge, H., & Keith, D. (2008). Recognition of emotions in gait patterns by means of artificial neural nets. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 32(2), 79–92. Javidan, M. (2004). Performance orientation. In R. J. House, P. J. Hanges, M. Javidan, P. W. Dorfman & V. Gupta (Eds.). Culture, leadership, and organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 societies (pp. 239–281). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Jones, Q. R., & Moyel, I. S. (1971). The influence of iris color and pupil size on expressed affect. Psychonomic Science, 22(2), 126–127. Kabasakal, H., & Bodur, M. (2004). Humane orientation in societies, organizations, and leaders. In R. J. House, P. J. Hanges, M. Javidan, P. W. Dorfman & V. Gupta (Eds.). Culture, leadership, and organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 societies (pp. 564–601). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Kahlbaugh, P. E., & Haviland, J. M. (1994). Nonverbal communication between parents and adolescents: A study of approach and avoidance behaviors. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 18(1), 91–113. Karg, M., Kühnlenz, K., & Buss, M. (2010). Recognition of affect based on gait patterns. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics – Part B: Cybernetics, 40(4), 1050–1061. Kim, Y. Y. (2015). Achieving synchrony: A foundational dimension of intercultural communication competence. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 48(1), 27– 37.

149 King, A. S. (1972). Pupil size, eye direction, and message appeal: Some preliminary findings. Journal of Marketing, 36(3), 55–58. King, N. (1998). Template analyisis. In G. Symon & C. Cassell (Eds.). Qualitative methods and analysis in organizational research (pp. 118–134). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Kleinsmith, A., De Silva, P. R., Bianchi-Berthouze, N. (2006). Cross-cultural differences in recognizing affect from body posture. Interacting with Computers, 18(6), 1371–1389. Knight, D. J., Langmeyer, D., & Lundgren, D. C. (1973). Eye-contact, distance, and affiliation: The role of observer bias. Sociometry, 36(3), 390–401. Kock, N. (2005). Media richness or media naturalness? The evolution of our biological communication apparatus and its influence on our behavior toward e-communication tools. IEEE Transaction on professional communication, 48(2), 117–130. LaBarbera, J. D., Izard, C. E., Vietze, P., & Parisi, S. A. (1976). Four- and six-month-old infants’ visual responses to joy, anger, and neutral expressions. Child Development, 47(2), 535–538. Lamnek, S. (1995). Qualitative Sozialforschung: Band 2 – Methoden und Techniken (3rd ed.). Weinheim: Psychologie Verlags Union. Leffler, A., Gillespie, D. L., & Conaty, J. C. (1982). The effects of status differentiation on nonverbal behavior. Social Psychology Quarterly, 45(3), 153–161. Lesko, W. A. (1977). Psychological distance, mutual gaze, and the affiliative-conflict theory. The Journal of Social Psychology, 103(2), 311–312. Lewicki, R. J., Saunders, D. M., & Minton, J. W. (Eds.). (1999). Negotiation: Readings, exercises and cases. Boston, MA: Irwin/McGraw-Hill. Lin, Y.-C., Chen, A. S.-Y., Song, Y.-C. (2012). Does your intelligence help to survive in a foreign jungle? The effects of cultural intelligence and emotional intelligence on cross- cultural adjustment. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 36(4), 541–552. Lindemann, O. (2011). Finger counting habits in Middle Eastern and Western individuals: An online survey. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 42(4), 566–578. Lomax, C. M., Mapplebeck, S. E., Bates, J. L., & Brownlow, S. (1994). Proxemics in public: Space violations as a function of dyad composition. Paper presented at the 40th annual Meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association. Marsh, A. A., Elfenbein, H. A., & Ambady, N. (2003). Nonverbal “accents”: Cultural differences in facial expressions of emotion. Psychological Science, 14(4), 373–376. Marsh, A. A., Elfenbein, H. A., & Ambady, N. (2007). Separated by a common language: Nonverbal accents and cultural stereotypes about Americans and Australians. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 38(3), 284–301. März, H. (2017). How cultural intelligence is perceived and trained in multinational enterprises? Unpublished Master thesis. Matsumoto, D., & Kishimoto, H. (1983). Developmental characteristics in judgements of emotion from nonverbal vocal cues. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 7(4), 415–424. McCall, C., Blascovich, J., Young, A., & Persky, S. (2009). Proxemic behaviors as predictors of aggression towards black (but not white) males in an immersive virtual environment. Social Influence, 4(2), 138–154.

150 McCaskey, M. B. (1979). The hidden messages managers send. Harvard Business Review, 57(6), 135-148. McClave, E. Z. (2000). Linguistic functions of head movements in the context of speech. Journal of Pragmatics, 32(7), 855–878. McClintock, C. C., & Hunte, R. G. (1975). Nonverbal indicators of affect and deception in an interview setting. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 5(1), 54–67. Mehrabian, A. (1967). Orientation behaviors and nonverbal attitude communication. Journal of Communication, 17(4), 324–332. Mehrabian, A. (1969). Some referents and measures of nonverbal behaviour. Behavior Research Methods & Instrumentation, 1(6), 203–207. Mehrabian, A., & Friedman, S. L. (1986). An analysis of fidgeting and associated individual difference. Journal of Personality, 54(2), 406–429. Michalak, J., Troje, N., Fischer, J., Vollmar, P., Heidenreich, T., & Schulte, D. (2009). Embodiment of sadness and depression – Gait patterns associated with dysphoric mood. Psychosomatic Medicine, 71(5), 580–587. Millar, J. (Producer/Director/Writer). (2008). Secrets of body language [Motion Picture]. United Kingdom: ITV Productions Ltd. Montepare, J. M., Goldstein, S. B., & Clausen, A. (1987). The identification of emotions from gait information. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 11(1), 33–42. Montepare, J. M., & Zebrowitz, L. A. (1993). A cross-cultural comparison of impressions created by age-related variations in gait. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 17(1), 55–68. Morgan, N. (2001). The kinesthetic speaker: Putting action into words. Harvard Business Review, 79(4), 112-120. Morris, D. (1971). Intimate behaviour. London: Jonathan Cape Ltd. Morris, D. (1977). Manwatching: A field guide to human behaviour. Oxford: Elsevier International Projects Ltd., London: Jonathan Cape Ltd. Morris, D. (1986). Körpersignale: Bodywatching. Munich: Wilhelm Heyne Verlag GmbH & Co. KG. Nacewicz, B. M., Dalton, K. M., Johnstone, T., Long, M. T., McAuliff, E. M., Oakes, T. R., Alexander, A. L., & Davidson, R. J. (2006). Archives of General Psychiatry, 63(12), 1417–1428. Navarro, J. (2011). Menschen lesen: Ein FBI-Agent erklärt wie man Körpersprache entschlüsselt. Munich: mvg Verlag. Navarro, J. (2014). 9 truths exposing a myth about body language. Retrieved March 13, 2016 from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/spycatcher/201410/9-truths-exposing- myth-about-body-language Navarro, J., & Schafer, J. R. (2001, July). Detecting deception. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, 9–13. O’Connor, J., & Seymour, J. (1990). Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Psychological skills for understanding and influencing people. London: The Aquarian Press.

151 O’Sullivan, M., & Ekman, P. (2004). The wizards of deception detection. In P. A. Granhag & L. A. Strömwall (Eds.), The detection of deception in forensic contexts (pp. 269–286). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Palestine Facts (2016). Camp David 2000: What took place at Camp David in 2000? Retrieved March 5, 2016 from http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_1991to_now_campdavid_2000.php Patterson, M. L. (1973). Compensation in nonverbal immediacy behaviors: A review. Sociometry, 36(2), 237–252. Pell, M. D., & Leonard, C. L. (2003). Processing emotional tone from speech in Parkinson’s disease: A role for the basal ganglia. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 3(4), 275–288. Peterson, R. T., & Leonhardt, J. M. (2015). The complementary effects of empathy and nonverbal communication training on persuasion capabilities. Administrative Issues Journal: Connecting Education, Practice, and Research, 5(1), 77–88. Pucker, Purse? [Forum discussion] (2012). Retrieved Mai 16, 2016 from https://www.englishforums.com/English/PuckerPurse/bcwqdb/post.htm Ralston, D. A. & 50 co-authors (2011). A twenty-first century assessment of values across the global workforce. Journal of Business Ethics, 104(1), 1–31. Recreational Scuba Training Council, Inc. (2005). Common hand signals for recreational scuba diving. Retrieved March 5, 2016 from http://www.neadc.org/CommonHandSignalsforScubaDiving.pdf Rezlescu, C., Penton, T., Walsh, V., Tsujimura, H., Scott, S. K., Banissy, M. J. (2015). Dominant voices and attractive faces: The contribution of visual and auditory information to integrated person impressions. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 39(4), 355–370. Rizzolatti, G. (2005). The mirror neuron system and its function in humans. Anatomy and Embryology, 210(5), 419–421. Roether, C. L., Omlor, L., Christensen, A., & Giese, M. A. (2009). Critical features for the perception of emotion from gait. Journal of Vision, 9(6), 15.1–32. Sakaguchi, K., & Hasegawa, T. (2006). Person perception through gait information and target choice for sexual advances: Comparison of likely targets in experiments and real life. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 30(2), 63–85. Sauter, D. A., Eisner, F., Ekman, P., & Scott, S. (2010). Cross-cultural recognition of basic emotions through nonverbal emotional vocalizations. PNAS, 107(6), 2408–2412. Scherer, K. R. (1995). Expression of emotion in voice and music. Journal of Voice, 9(3), 235– 248. Scherer, K. R., & Wallbott, H. G. (1994). Evidence for universality and cultural variation of differential emotion response patterning. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66(2), 310–328. Sergey, F. (1999). Global negotiating: Vive les differences! In R. J. Lewicki, D. M. Saunders, & J. W. Minton (Eds.), Negotiation: Readings, exercises and cases (pp. 390-396). Boston, MA: Irwin/McGraw-Hill. Shipps, E. M., & Freeman, H. R. (2003). Handshake: Its relation to first impressions and measured personality traits. Psi Chi Journal of Undergraduate Research, 8(4), 144–148.

152 Sol, M. (2016). Body language: Eyes. Retrieved July 31, 2016 from http://lonerwolf.com/body-language-eyes/ Stanford University (2016). The Arabic alphabet – Chart. Retrieved March 12, 2016 from http://web.stanford.edu/dept/lc/arabic/alphabet/ Stephanidis, C., & Antona, M. (Eds.). (2013). Universal access in human-computer interaction: User and context diversity – Part II. Berlin Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag. Stewart, G. L., Dustin, S. L., Barrick, M. R., Darnold, T. C. (2008). Exploring the handshake in employment interviews. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(5), 1139–1146. Strack, F., Martin, L. L., & Stepper, S. (1988). Inhibiting and facilitating conditions of the human smile: A nonobtrusive test of the facial feedback hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(5), 768–777. Sully de Luque, M. S., & Javidan, M. (2004). Uncertainty avoidance. In R. J. House, P. J. Hanges, M. Javidan, P. W. Dorfman & V. Gupta (Eds.). Culture, leadership, and organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 societies (pp. 602–653). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Surakka, V., & Hietanen, J. K. (1998). Facial and emotional reactions to Duchenne and non- Duchenne smiles. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 29(1), 23–33. Suvilehto, J. T., Glerean, E., Dunbar, R. I. M., Hari, R., & Nummenmaa, L. (2015). Topography of social touching depends on emotional bonds between humans. PNAS, 112(48), 13811–13816. Symon, G., & Cassell, C. (Eds.). (1998). Qualitative methods and analysis in organizational research (pp. 118–134). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Tamietto, M., Geminiani, G., Genero, R., & De Gelder, B. (2007). Seeing fearful body language overcomes attentional deficits in patients with neglect. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19(3), 445–454. Tiedens, L. Z., & Fragale, A. R. (2003). Power moves: Complementarity in dominant and submissive nonverbal behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(3), 558–568. Tidd, K. L., & Lockard, J. S. (1978). Monetary significance of the affiliative smile: A case for reciprocal altruism. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 11(6), 344–346. The Psychology of Attractiveness Podcast (2015). Head tilt and allure, with Danielle Sulikowski. Retrieved Mai 16, 2016 from http://psychologyofattractivenesspodcast.blogspot.co.at/2015/10/danielle-sulikowski-on- head-tilt-and.html Thomas, D. A., & Ely, R. (1996). Making differences matter: A new paradigm for managing diversity. Harvard Business Review, 74(5), 79–90. Thomas, D. C. (2006). Domain and development of cultural intelligence. Group and Organization Management, 31(1), 78-99. Tracy, J. L., & Matsumoto, M. (2008). The spontaneous expression of pride and shame: Evidence for biologically innate nonverbal displays. PNAS, 105(33), 11655–11660. Travis, A. (2015). 20 ways to offend the locals when you’re traveling. Retrieved Mai 16, 2016 from http://guff.com/20-ways-to-offend-the-locals-when-youre-traveling

153 Vienna City Administration (2016). February 1934 – Austrians take up arms. Retrieved March 18, 2016 from https://www.wien.gv.at/english/history/commemoration/february- 1934.html Voepel-Lewis, T., Zanotti, J., Dammeyer, J. A., & Merkel, S. (2010). Reliability and validity of the face, legs, activity, cry, consolability behavioral tool in assessing acute pain in critically ill patients. American Journal of Critical Care, 19(1), 55–61. Vollmar, K. (2012). Das grosse Buch der Farben (4th ed.). Krummwisch bei Kiel: Königsfurt-Urania Verlag GmbH. Walter, K. D., Brownlow, S., Ervin, S. L., & Williamson, N. (1998). Something in the way she moves: The influence of shoe-altered gait on motion and trait impressions of women. Psi Chi Journal of Undergraduate Research, 3(4), 163–169. Watson, O. M., & Graves, T. D. (1966). Quantitative research in proxemic behaviour. American Anthropologist, 68(4), 971–985. Waxer, P. (1974). Nonverbal cues for depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 83(3), 319–322. Wilson, J. H., Stadler, J. R., Schwartz, B. M., & Goff, D. M. (2009). Touching your students: The impact of a handshake on the first day of class. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 9(1), 108–117. Winkielman, P., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2001). Mind at ease puts a smile on the face: Psychophysiological evidence that processing facilitation elicits positive affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(6), 989–1000. Wiseman, R., Watt, C., Ten Brinke, L., Porter, S., Couper, S.-L., & Rankin, C. (2012). The eyes don’t have it: Lie detection and Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Plos One, 7(7), 1– 5. Wood, J. A. (2006). NLP revisited: Nonverbal communications and signals of trustworthiness. Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, 26(2), 197-204. Xie, A., Rau, P.-L. P., Tseng, Y., Su, H., & Zhao, C. (2009). Cross-cultural influence on communication effectiveness and user interface design. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 33(1), 11–20. Yee, N., Bailenson, J. N., Urbanek, M., Chang, F., & Merget, D. (2007). The unbearable likeness of being digital: The persistence of nonverbal social norms in online virtual environments. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 10(1), 115–121.

154 Appendix A: Interview guide with topics of inquiry

The following points were printed on a sheet of paper and placed on the table within the sight of the interviewee during the semi-structured interview.

 Experience?  (Nonverbal) similarities?  (Nonverbal) differences?  Difficulties & misunderstandings?  Puzzling moments/behaviors?  Closeness/warmth

155 Appendix B: Mini questionnaire

The questionnaire below has been handed out to the subjects at the beginning of their interview to collect basic demographic data. It further inquires about whether the participants had known their discussion partners before the discussion rounds.

Interview Questionnaire

Surname:

Given name:

How old are you (in years)?

What is you gender (female/male)?

What country were you born in?

What is your country of citizenship?

What is your parents’ nationality? Have you ever lived for more than 6 months in another country than your country of birth?

What is your subject of study? Would you consider any of your discussion partners a friend? If yes, who would that be?

156 Appendix C: Discussion scenario set 1 & 2 Selected from Ferraro’s (1994) book without any changes made.

Set 1: 1 – Uruguay

Stan Gorelick, an engineer for a Chicago-based international construction company, was working on a two-year building project in Montevideo, Uruguay. After several months on the job, Stan attended a cocktail party reception his firm was hosting for some of the local subcontractors. Upon entering the formal cocktail party about thirty minutes after it started, Stan greeted several groups of people with a cheerful “Hola!” (Hello) and headed for the bar. Soon, Stan noticed that some of the local people seem to be upset with him.

What did he do wrong?

Has an agreement been reached for this scenario?

YES NO □ □

2 – Italy

Don Bynum, a Boston banker, was assigned for several weeks as a troubleshooter in the Rome office. To facilitate his adjustment to the Italian banking system and to assist with translation, the branch manager had assigned Don to work with Maria Fellini, a bilingual employee of the bank. Maria, like Don, was single and in her early thirties, and she lived with her widowed mother. Maria invited Don to her mother’s home for dinner. When Don arrived, he brought a large bouquet of chrysanthemums for Maria’s mother as a token of his appreciation for her hospitality. Maria answered the door, greeted Don, and took the flowers into the kitchen. But for the entire evening neither Maria nor her mother mentioned anything about the flowers. Don felt that perhaps he had done something inappropriate, or maybe they were just not appreciative.

What went wrong?

Has an agreement been reached for this scenario?

YES NO □ □

157 3 – Mexico

As an organizational consultant from Philadelphia working with a Mexican company, Dan shaver has been traveling to Mexico City every other week for months to help his client develop more-effective management systems. On this occasion, Dan scheduled a three-day trip, during which he planned to meet with a number of employees. But on the first day of scheduled meetings, Dan was informed that everyone would be leaving work at 2:00 P.M. because it was a fiesta day. Dan was furious because he had come all the way to Mexico just to have his first day of work cut short. As it turns out, Dan’s Mexican colleagues failed to understand why he was so angry.

What was behind this misunderstanding?

Has an agreement been reached for this scenario?

YES NO □ □

4 – Portugal

Fred Gardener, a thirty-one-year-old sales manager for a small boat-building firm in Connecticut, decided to stop off in Lisbon to call on several potential clients after a skiing trip to Switzerland. Having set up three appointments in two days, he arrived for the first two scheduled meetings at the appointed times but was kept waiting for over a half-hour in each instance. Based on these two experiences, Fred assumed that the Portuguese, like other “Latin” types, must not be particularly concerned with punctuality. With this in mind, he was not particularly concerned about arriving at his third appointment more than forty minutes late. However, Fred sensed that the Portuguese businesspeople were quite displeased with his tardiness.

How would you explain this reaction?

Has an agreement been reached for this scenario?

YES NO □ □

158 5 – Bolivia

While on a business call in Bolivia with a potential client, Ken Quilty, a software salesperson from Seattle, was becoming increasingly frustrated because his meeting was constantly being interrupted. First, Ken’s client took a five-minute phone call. Then his assistant walked into the office with several questions. Then, he excused himself for another five minutes in order to take some papers to a colleague down the hall. Ken was beginning to wonder if he really was interested in doing business.

Is there another explanation?

Has an agreement been reached for this scenario?

YES NO □ □

Set 2: 1 – Argentina

While on a three-week business trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina, Nick Pace was invited to the home of his Argentine business associate for dinner. Nick decided to bring his associate and his wife a present. Having been told that red meat is a dietary staple in Argentina, Nick decided to take as a gift a beautiful set of steak knives. Upon opening the gift, however, Nick’s Argentine host and hostess seemed quite upset.

What did Nick do wrong?

Has an agreement been reached for this scenario?

YES NO □ □

159 2 – France

Betty Carpenter, president of a cosmetics firm headquartered in Chicago, decided to spend several days in Paris, talking to some potential distributors of their more popular product lines. Upon arrival she felt quite confident with her proficiency in French (based on several years of French in college) in getting from the airport and checking into her hotel. The next morning she met with Monsieur DuBois, vice president of a large French department store chain. Although their initial conversation went quite well, when the subject turned to business, Betty felt that she was not communicating very effectively with DuBois. He seemed to be getting mildly annoyed and showed little interest in continuing the discussion.

What was Betty’s problem?

Has an agreement been reached for this scenario?

YES NO □ □

3 – Saudi Arabia

Bill Nugent, an international real estate developer from Dallas, had made a 2:30 P.M. appointment with Mr. Abdullah, a high-ranking government official in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. From the beginning things did not go well for Bill. First, he was kept waiting until nearly 3:45 before he was ushered into Abdullah’s office. When he finally did get in, several other men were also in the room. Even though Bill wanted to get down to business with Abdullah, he was reluctant to get too specific because he considered much of what they needed to discuss sensitive and private. To add to Bill’s sense of frustration, Abdullah seemed more interested in engaging in meaningless small talk rather than dealing with the substantive issues concerning their business.

How might you help Bill deal with his frustration?

Has an agreement been reached for this scenario?

YES NO □ □

160 4 – Belgium

Jon Starrett, a senior executive working in his company’s office in Brussels, wanted to make a good impression on his Belgium staff. In order to facilitate good relations with his staff, Jon decided to do several things. First, he arrived at the office early in the morning so he could visit with his subordinates over coffee. Second, he initiated an “open-door” policy so that everyone would feel free to stop by and chat. However, in spite of his best efforts, Jon ended up alienating his subordinates.

What did he do wrong?

Has an agreement been reached for this scenario?

YES NO □ □

5 – Colombia

Jeff Huberman, an organizational consultant, had been sent to work on a project with a client company in Bogotá, Colombia. To demonstrate his good intentions, he gave each of his three Colombian colleagues and expensive box of beautifully wrapped, imported chocolates. Jeff’s three Colombian colleagues, however, merely nodded in appreciation and put their gifts aside without even opening them. In fact, Jeff was bothered that after an entire week his Colombian colleagues still had not thanked him for the chocolates.

Did Jeff do something wrong?

Has an agreement been reached for this scenario?

YES NO □ □

161