Linda Tickle-Degnen

The Nonverbal Expression of Negative Emotions: Peer and Supervisor Responses to Occupational Therapy Students' Emotional Attributes.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the preclinical and clinical consequences of occupational therapy students emotional attributes. When students conducted interviews in pairs with one another, their feelings and behavior were associated with their attributes of negative emotionality and nonverbal expressiveness. When the student with a higher degree of negative emotionality within a dyad was the more expressive one, both students within that dyad reacted with less positive feelings and nonverbal behavior than when the student with the lower degree of negative emotionality was the more expressive one. Furthermore, during level II fieldwork experiences, expressive negatively emotional students were evaluated by their clinical supervisors as less clinically skilled than individuals who were expressive yet non-negatively emotional. Processes of emotional contagion and social impression formation may have mediated the associations that were found.

Effect of Dyadic Context on Judgments of Rapport: Dyad Task and Partner Presence

The present studies investigated the effects of dyadic context on judgments of nonverbal behavior associated with rapport. As predicted, the task performed by a dyad, the visible presence or absence of both dyad members, and the sex of the observer affected observer judgments of responsiveness, friendliness, dominance, critical scrutiny, polite sympathy, and high status. The results suggest that dyadic context affects judgments of dyad members facilitation of rapport by both constraining dyad behavior and affecting observer perception: (a) Dyad members received higher judgments on person-focused behaviors when engaged in a discussion as compared to a puzzle; (b) Visible presence of an interaction partner led observers to see a dyad member, on the whole, as inhibiting rapport in the interaction; and (c) Female observers perceived dyad members to exhibit more rapport-facilitating behavior. These results have major implications for the way rapport and person perception research is conducted and for understanding interpersonal perception in everyday life.

The Behavioral and Cognitive Response of Brain-Damaged Patients to Therapist Instructional Style.

Two instructional styles, one task-oriented and one patient-oriented, were investigated for their effect on the nonverbal behavior and immediate cognitive performance of patients with brain damage. A repeated measures design was used to address the hypotheses that the patient-oriented style relative to the task-oriented style would create greater patient nonverbal positivity and self-directiveness and result in better patient performance on a block design task. Twenty-eight patients received two instructional periods from one of seven therapists who used the same style or alternate styles during the two periods. As predicted, during the patient-oriented style of instruction the patient displayed more nonverbal positivity and self-directiveness than during the task-oriented style. On the other hand, the task-oriented style during the first instructional period led to higher scores on the subsequent block design task while the patient-oriented style during the second period led to higher scores.