Understanding and Assessing Nonverbal Expressiveness: The Affective Communication Test.

The concept of nonverbal emotional expressiveness was explored through the development of a 13-item self-report Affective Communication Test (ACT). Studies reported here show the ACT to be a reliable and valid measure of individual differences in expressiveness or what is sometimes called "charisma." In the course of the validation, expressiveness was shown to be a likely element of social influence in face-to-face interaction, a logical extension of past approaches to a basic element of personality (exhibition), and a valuable construct in approaching current problems in nonverbal communication research. The measure (and the concept it represents) suggests a new approach for personality research on emotional expression, studies of individual differences in nonverbal communication, and research on the process of face-to-face interaction.

[1]  Gordon W. Allport,et al.  Pattern and growth in personality , 1961 .

[2]  M. Dimatteo,et al.  A study of the relationship between individual differences in nonverbal expressiveness and factors of personality and social interaction , 1980 .

[3]  R. Buck.  Nonverbal communication affect in children. , 1975, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[4]  Sandra S. Smith-Hanen.  Effects of Nonverbal Behaviors on Judged Levels of Counselor Warmth and Empathy. , 1977 .

[5]  J E Ware,et al.  The Doctor Fox Lecture: a paradigm of educational seduction. , 1973, Journal of medical education.

[6]  D. Jackson.  Personality research form manual , 1974 .

[7]  H. Eysenck,et al.  Personality Structure and Measurement , 1968 .

[8]  J. Rotter.  Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. , 1966, Psychological monographs.

[9]  H. Friedman.  The interactive effects of facial expressions of emotion and verbal messages on perceptions of affective meaning , 1979 .

[10]  R. Rosenthal,et al.  Pygmalion in the classroom , 1968 .

[11]  M. Hoffman,et al.  Sex differences in empathy and related behaviors. , 1977, Psychological bulletin.

[12]  R. Rosenthal.  Sensitivity to Nonverbal Communication: The PONS Test , 1979 .

[13]  R. Buck.  Nonverbal communication of affect in preschool in children: relationships with personality and skin conductance. , 1977, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[14]  Shelley Masion Rosenberg.  Bodily Communication , 1978 .

[15]  C. Darwin,et al.  The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals , 1872 .

[16]  J. Taylor,et al.  A personality scale of manifest anxiety. , 1953, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[17]  R. Rosenthal,et al.  Encoding and decoding nonverbal cues of emotion. , 1975, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[18]  Judith A. Hall,et al.  Encoding and decoding of spontaneous and posed facial expressions. , 1976 .

[19]  E. Goffman.  The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life , 1959 .

[20]  M. Cunningham,et al.  Personality and the structure of the nonverbal communication of emotion. , 1977, Journal of personality.

[21]  N. Smelser.  Theory Of Collective Behavior , 1963 .

[22]  R. Buck,et al.  Sex, personality, and physiological variables in the communication of affect via facial expression. , 1974, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[23]  M. Knapp,et al.  Nonverbal communication in human interaction , 1972 .

[24]  S. Coopersmith,et al.  The antecedents of self-esteem. , 1969 .

[25]  Ruth Scheeffer.  Toward effective counseling and psychotherapy , 1971 .

[26]  J. Singer,et al.  Cognitive, social, and physiological determinants of emotional state. , 1962 .

[27]  Stanley Schachter,et al.  The Psychology of Affiliation: Experimental Studies of the Sources of Gregariousness , 1959 .

[28]  R. Sitgreaves.  Psychometric theory (2nd ed.). , 1979 .

[29]  M. Snyder.  Self-monitoring of expressive behavior. , 1974 .

[30]  M. Snyder.  Cognitive, Behavioral, and Interpersonal Consequences of Self-Monitoring , 1979 .

[31]  Judith A. Hall,et al.  Accuracy of nonverbal communication as determinant of interpersonal expectancy effects , 1978 .

[32]  J. Titchener.  Experimenter Effects in Behavioral Research. , 1967 .

[33]  Donald B. Rubin,et al.  Interpersonal expectancy effects: the first 345 studies , 1978, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[34]  Robert Rosenthal,et al.  Experimenter effects in behavioral research, Enlarged ed. , 1976 .

[35]  E. Frenkel-Brunswik.  Personality: A biosocial approach to origins and structure. , 1948 .