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Spokespersons’ Nonverbal Behavior in Times of Crisis: The Relative Importance of Visual and Vocal Cues

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Abstract

When a chief executive officer or spokesperson responds to an organizational crisis, he or she communicates not only with verbal cues but also visual and vocal cues. While most research in the area of crisis communication has focused on verbal cues (e.g., apologies, denial), this paper explores the relative importance of visual and vocal cues by spokespersons of organizations in crisis. Two experimental studies have more specifically examined the impact of a spokesperson’s visual cues of deception (i.e., gaze aversion, posture shifts, adaptors), because sending a credible response is crucial in times of crisis. Each study focused on the interplay of these visual cues with two specific vocal cues that have also been linked to perceptions of deception (speech disturbances in study 1; voice pitch in study 2). Both studies show that visual cues of deception negatively affect both consumers’ attitudes towards the organization (study 1) and their purchase intentions (study 2) after a crisis. In addition, the findings indicate that in crisis communication, the impact of visual cues dominates the outcomes of vocal cues. In both studies, vocal cues only affected consumers’ perceptions when the spokesperson displayed visual cues of deception. More specifically, the findings show that crisis communication messages with speech disturbances (study 1) or a raised voice pitch (study 2) can negatively affect organizational post-crisis perceptions.

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Funding

This work was supported in part by a grant from the Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology in Flanders (IWT) (Grant Number 141414).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Media Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, KU Leuven, Parkstraat 45, 3000, Louvain, Belgium

    Aurélie De Waele, An-Sofie Claeys & Gijs Fannes

  2. Department of Communication Sciences, Center for Persuasive Communication, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Ghent University, Korte Meer 7-9-11, 9000, Ghent, Belgium

    Verolien Cauberghe

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  1. Aurélie De Waele
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  2. An-Sofie Claeys
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  3. Verolien Cauberghe
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Correspondence to Aurélie De Waele.

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De Waele, A., Claeys, AS., Cauberghe, V. et al. Spokespersons’ Nonverbal Behavior in Times of Crisis: The Relative Importance of Visual and Vocal Cues. J Nonverbal Behav 42, 441–460 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-018-0284-5

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