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The Interaction of Sex, Verbal, and Nonverbal Cues in Same-Sex First Encounters

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Abstract

This experiment examined sex differences in responses to various combinations of verbal and nonverbal content during a same-sex interaction. Fifty men and thirty women participated in a same-sex interview task with a confederate posing as another participant. Confederates disclosed either superficial or emotional information, and they faced away from or toward the participant, when answering questions. Results revealed that men attended to verbal information to evaluate the appropriateness of their own personal disclosure, whereas women attended to both verbal and nonverbal cues to evaluate the conversation partner and the appropriateness of their own personal disclosure.

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Notes

  1. A power analysis was conducted based on the effect sizes obtained from similar laboratory experiments. Because no experiments examined the proposed three-way interaction, the effect size was estimated as moderate (0.30). Results of this analysis indicated that a sample size of 80 would provide sufficient power for all hypothesized effects (betas for all effects > 0.80).

  2. We ensured that participants were reacting to the independent variables and not to the characteristics of a given confederate in two ways. First, by recruiting two males and three females as confederates for this experiment, we had multiple instances of a stimulus category (termed stimulus sampling by Wells and Windschitl 1999). This is particularly recommended for interaction experiments involving standardized stimuli and confederates (see Guerrero and Le Poire 2005 for a review). Second, we conducted a series of One-way ANOVA with the five confederates as levels of the independent variable and all outcome measures as the dependent variables. These analyses yielded no significant differences among confederates (all ps > 0.10), suggesting that participants were reacting to the manipulated variables of the experiment and not to unique characteristics of the confederates.

  3. The other five questions served as fillers. They were, “How well did you get to know this person?” “What are your overall impressions of this person?” “What are your overall impressions of Philosophy majors?” “How similar is this person to other college students?” and “What are some other things you would have liked to learn about this person?”.

  4. The MANOVA revealed significant main effects of Sex and Topic, as well as a Topic × Style interaction effect (ps < 0.05). The Sex Main Effect revealed that men’s perceptions of the conversation were more positive than women’s perceptions. The Topic Main Effect revealed that participants in the Emotional Disclosure condition reported engaging in more emotional disclosure themselves, and rated the conversation more positively, than participants in the Superficial Disclosure condition. The Topic × Style interaction effect revealed that confederates who engaged in superficial disclosure and a nonverbally distant style were rated the least positive. Participants also engaged in more personal disclosure when the confederate disclosed emotional information with an intimate nonverbal style than when he or she was distant.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Eastern Kentucky University, 127 Cammack Building, 521 Lancaster Ave, Richmond, KY, 40474, USA

    Jonathan S. Gore

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Correspondence to Jonathan S. Gore.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Example Scripts for Superficial Disclosure Answers

  • Question #1: “Tell me about yourself”

  • Answer: “I’m a senior Philosophy major here at ISU, and I’m planning on graduating in May. Although most of my classes have been in philosophy, I’ve also taken some Psychology courses, like the introductory course and the social psych course. I think of myself as smart and inquisitive, but also someone who likes to go out and have fun from time to time. I am _____ feet _____ inches tall, I have _____ eyes, and _____ hair (note: this information varied based on the confederate), as you can see. I’m 21-years-old. I grew up in Omaha, and came to Ames in 2001, so I’ve basically stayed in the Midwest my whole life.”

  • Question #2: “Tell me about your family”

  • Answer: “Like I said before, I grew up in Omaha, which is where my family is now. I’m the oldest of 3 kids. I have a brother, Jake, who is 17, and getting ready to graduate from high school, and a sister, Sue, who is 13 and getting ready to start high school. I guess you can say my family is middle class. My mom is an elementary school teacher (she teaches fifth grade), and my dad works in administration at the post office. They’ve been together for about 25 years, and they both are from Omaha, so they’ve basically been there their whole lives.”

Appendix 2: Example Scripts for Emotional Disclosure Answers

  • Question #1: “Tell me about yourself”

  • Answer: “I’m a senior Philosophy major here at ISU, and I’m planning on graduating in May. I’m trying to narrow down what I want to do with my degree, so I’m really at a transitional part of my life. I try to stay on top of my schoolwork so that I can get a good job, but I also try to balance my work with my friends and my family, and my girlfriend/boyfriend. It’s not always easy, but I think it’s important to try to balance those things out so that you can be well-rounded and happy with your life. I grew up in Omaha, so I am still really close to my family.”

  • Question #2: “Tell me about your family”

  • Answer: “Like I said before, I grew up in Omaha, which is where my family is now. My family has had their ups and downs, but overall we’re very supportive of each other. I’m the oldest of three kids, and I’m the first in my family to graduate from a 4-year university (including my parents), so I really want to make them proud and do something worthwhile with my degree. My parents grew up in Omaha and are very close, which I would like to have for my marriage (when the time comes). Sometimes I wonder if I can live up to that standard, though.”

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Gore, J.S. The Interaction of Sex, Verbal, and Nonverbal Cues in Same-Sex First Encounters. J Nonverbal Behav 33, 279–299 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-009-0074-1

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