Jon Grahe

The Importance of Nonverbal Cues in Judging Rapport

This study examined the relative impact different channels of communication had on social perception based on exposure to thin slices of the behavioral stream. Specifically, we tested the hypothesis that dyadic rapport can be perceived quickly through visual channels. Perceivers judged the rapport in 50 target interactions in one of five stimulus display conditions: transcript, audio, video, video+ transcript, or video+audio. The data demonstrated that perceivers with access to nonverbal, visual information were the most accurate perceivers of dyadic rapport. Their judgments were found to covary with the visually encoded features that past research has linked with rapport expression. This suggests the presence of a nonverbally based implicit theory of rapport that more or less matches the natural ecology, at least as it occurs within brief samples of the behavioral stream.

The Scarlet Letter Study: Five Days of Social Ostracism

Abstract Over the course of 5 consecutive days, each author agreed to be ostracized for a day at work by the other four coauthors. All coauthors’ offices were in close proximity and were located solely on a single floor and wing of their academic building. Each morning, the name of that days ostracized individual was drawn, and a scarlet letter “O” was placed above that individuals office door. Ostracizers were instructed to ignore the “Os” by not looking at them, speaking to them, or responding to anything they said. Open-ended individual event-contingent diaries were kept to record participants’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors each time they were reminded of the ostracism. Despite foreknowledge and consent, attributional confusion surfaced and strong aversive reactions were reported. Findings are framed in terms of Williamss (1997) model of ostracism

Nominal and Interactive Groups: Effects of Preinstruction and Deliberations on Decisions and Evidence Recall in Complex Trials

Two studies assessed the effects of preinstruction on decision making in simulated civil trials. In Study 1, substantive instructions were presented before the evidence, after the evidence, before and after the evidence, or not at all to nominal jurors who did not deliberate and to interactive jurors who did deliberate. Preinstructed nominal jurors differentiated among the plaintiffs in awarding damages, whereas postinstructed nominal and interactive jurors did not. Group discussion and preinstruction augmented damage awards and improved recall of evidence only for preinstructed jurors. Study 2 suggested that substantive preinstruction engaged a proplaintiff bias when trial evidence was technically difficult but enhanced systematic processing when the evidence was presented in less complex language.

Self-Awareness of Judgment Policies of Rapport

Social perceivers are believed to report their perceptions in terms of subjective cues (e.g., warmth, agreeableness, etc.) more than objective cues (e.g., gestures, head nods, etc.). The authors examined perceivers’ awareness of and control over both types of cues when making social judgments. Consistent with past theorizing, Study 1 demonstrated that perceiver judgments were influenced by both types of cues but perceivers were more aware of their subjective cue use. Studies 2 and 3 confirmed this and suggested that perceiver judgment policies changed more when receiving objective cue instructions. Surprisingly, judgment policies (i.e., cue use) did not always improve as a result of these changes. Thus, manipulated changes in judgment policy did not necessarily lead to increased accuracy.

Teaching Experimental Methods While Bringing Smiles to Your Students' Faces

In this article, we illustrate a simple field experiment that facilitates student understanding of several important methodological issues, including random assignment, equalizing the strength of manipulations, and experimenter bias. The basic hypothesis of the field experiment is that people respond to smiles with smiles but fail to reciprocate frowns. Several classroom replications have demonstrated that this effect is reliable, although the processes underlying the findings are still unknown and consequently generate useful theoretical discussions by students. An evaluation of the demonstrations effectiveness showed that students increased their understanding of experimentation and attributed much of their learning to the field experiment.

Measuring School Spirit: A National Teaching Exercise The School Spirit Study Group

We developed a novel variation on classroom data collection by having students conduct a national research project. Students at 20 different colleges and universities measured “school spirit” at their institutions according to several operational criteria (school apparel wearing, car stickers, alumni donation rate, ratings by a major sports publication, and questionnaire measures). Instructors then combined this information into one large dataset, allowing students to analyze and compare trends measured at their school with those measured at other schools. We discuss the process of organizing a national study (recruitment of faculty participants, dissemination of instruments, compilation of data), aspects of the project that instructors thought were most educationally valuable, and substantive results of the study (how well the different measures of school spirit correlated).