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Is There a Correlation Between the Use of Representational Gestures and Self-adaptors?

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Abstract

There are individual differences between people in their production of representational gestures, hand movements that represent the referent. In the present study, we test whether there is a correlation between the production of gestures and the production of self-adaptors. Self-adaptors are self-touching movements, often thought to function as a method of self-soothing. People high on neuroticism produce a lot of self-adaptors. One previous study showed that people high on neuroticism produced a lot of representational gestures. Using data from Punjabi-English bilinguals that had been collected for other purposes, we coded both self-adaptors and representational gestures. The bilinguals had been asked to perform an origami task, once in Punjabi and once in English. The results showed that the more self-adaptors the bilinguals produced, the more representational gestures they produced in both languages. We found a weak relationship between proficiency in each language and gesture use. We argue that there is likely an underlying variable that leads to production of both gestures and self-adaptors, such as neuroticism. Further studies are needed to test that interpretation.

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Funding

This study was supported by a Discovery Grant to the first author from the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (#2018-04978).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, 1147 Research Way, Kelowna, BC, V1V 1V7, Canada

    Elena Nicoladis

  2. University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

    Ashmeen Aneja, Jasmine Sidhu & Avnit Dhanoa

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  1. Elena Nicoladis
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  2. Ashmeen Aneja
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  3. Jasmine Sidhu
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  4. Avnit Dhanoa
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Correspondence to Elena Nicoladis.

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Nicoladis, E., Aneja, A., Sidhu, J. et al. Is There a Correlation Between the Use of Representational Gestures and Self-adaptors?. J Nonverbal Behav 46, 269–280 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-022-00401-w

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