Taylor Pinckney

Nonverbal Scrapbook
COMM 322
Professor Dunn

Deception Detection Class One Reflection:

Our assignment was to have six volunteers, who felt that
they were good liars, come to the front of the room and
participate. I volunteered, thinking that I was not a bad
liar. Professor Dunn gave us file folders that contained an
ad inside and the ad could be anything. One person had

an ad of a couple in some setting. Meanwhile the rest of

the liars had random ads without couples. We all had to
describe the ad to the class as if we all had ads that
contained a couple. Unfortunately, I was the first one up.
My ad was flowers but I described the setting as a couple
sitting side by side on a park bench. This initial lie worked
and the follow ups but I made a mistake by saying that
the race of the couple seemed to mixedhalf Asian, half
not and then I said that the couple was wearing headto-toe matching outfits. My body language and laughter
gave me away as a liar. The class all knew that I was lying
because I could not focus long enough to be able to come
up with a good lie, with so much pressure. I realized that I
was not a good liar because I focused on wanting to make
a good lie so much that I could not create a good story.

Bar Observation:
While I searched for a couple to observe, there were no
couples alone in the bar. The next best thing was a group
of 6, made up of two couples and two girlfriends. The
females in the group used a lot of hand gestures,
especially when talking with their significant others. I
noticed that one of the women used a gesture to
symbolize to your point by gesturing towards other
people in the group. The other woman she was speaking
to often responded with a similar gesture and then looked

at her significant other to include him in the conversation.

The women used a lot of eye contact and prolonged eye
contact to show listening. The men in the group used far
less eye contact and gestures than the women. I noticed
that at times the men in the group date seemed to be
bored when listening to the women chatter for a while,
one man even seemed to flash a smile that seemed to be
not really genuine. He seemed to be smiling to show that
he was listening. The women in the group were far more
expressive with more hand gestures throughout the
observation. The guys continued to seem bored, except
at times where they appeared more interested in the
conversation. One male did use the hand to chin
gesture to show that he was listening to the speaker and
receiving the message. While this did show that he was
receiving the message but not intently, with a hand to the
chin and nodding would have shown intense listening.
The women talked more throughout the evening and
often used prolonged eye contact to wait for answers as
well as signals for when they could become involved in
the conversation. A girl in the group lightly held her ear
while another woman was speaking which could have
been an open gesture to show her listening to the other.
Another girl was lightly touching her chin in a resting
stance with direct eye contact, which appeared to show
intense listening to a longer speech from another girl in
the group. Another girl showed surprise in response to
something that a man in the group said by opening her
jaw for at least two minutes. One man in the group was
checking his cell phone while one of the women was

speaking with him. This appeared to me to show that he

was not heavily involved in the conversation. The
proxemics of the group affected the tone of the
conversation as the group was sitting at a circular table in
close proximity. This made the environment more open
which made conversation seem to flow more naturally,
from an outsiders point of view. One of the couples of the
group was sitting in very close proximity in the personal
zone side-by-side. They were also touching arms and face
at times. At one point they hugged while at the table.

LIE-Q results
The deception detection quiz that I found online included eighteen questions that attempted to
test how accurate I was at detecting lies. These questions included analysis of nonverbal
behavior, patterns of deception, facial features, and word choice. My results were a 6 correct out
of 18 questions, with only a 33% score.
The test stated that vocal quality is the least reliable indicator of deception, which is why it is
hard to simply tell whether or not someone is lying merely by their tone of voice.
I was also surprised to find that liars often do not avoid eye contact, as many assume that liar will
not look at you directly in the eye. Good liars are able to do this very well to fake you into
believing that they are telling you the truth. I also never realized that liars often use phrases like
To be honest to make you believe that they are telling the truth. As we mentioned in our class
lecture, liars often provide their listeners with a lot of insignificant details in order to trick the
other person into believing that they are telling the truth. A liar would mention what they ate,
what color they were wearing or how bright the room looked, while none of these details provide
sustenance to the event that is being detailed. These useless details are helpful in detecting lies
because this could mean that they are working hard to get you to believe their story. While I find
it easy to spot a fake smile, I had trouble detailing why the smile seemed fake to me. Now I

realize that the muscles directly around the eyes are dead giveaways that someone is lying
because it is hard to fake the way your eye muscles tense when you are genuinely smiling. I was
also surprised that when liars tell stories they often dont detail their emotions because they are
not telling the truth. When you are telling the truth you remember the emotions that you felt
when you recount the event, yet liars do not feel this way because these events did not actually
occur. The test also stated that liars are less likely to use gestures because these are often natural
occurrences, whereas liars are too focused on concealing their nonverbal giveaways that they are
lying to be able to also carefully select appropriate gestures.

As the book notes, some cues to deception are not 100% accurate, which
would also account for why it would be confusing to choose the correct
answers in this IQ survey. I find it easier to trust your intuition when
determining whether or not someone is lying to you but these indicators
seem more helpful. My score for the deception detection test was only
33%, which is similar to books score. People are not often accurate at
determining whether or not someone is lying. Strangers were only 50-60%
accurate in identifying lies.
4. Touch Activity
In our classes touch experiment; I was pretty uncomfortable most of the time. I am not
generally a touchy person with people that I am not comfortable with. I have to be close
with you to want to exchange friendly touches with you. The activity required us to rate
our comfort levels with the various activity that we had to do. The hand holding was by
far the easiest. Females often feel that
First activity holding hands
Second activity side-to-side pat My partner and I decided to join with two other girls to
make a group of four side by side. This made this activity less awkward for us and put
less pressure on the two pairs, since we became a group of four. I think that this was a
smart move but it also showed how uncomfortable we were with touching individuals
that we did not have relationships with for two minutes.
20. Cuddling Touch Car Touchy Feely Response
I am not a touchy person usually but on Sleep in
2. Identify a situation where you believe verbal behavior was clearly more important to
the outcome than nonverbal behavior.

Verbal behavior was more important to the outcome than nonverbal behavior in the
situation with my
5. Accent Class Reflection
In one of classes we listened to various peoples voices in the Mystery Voice activity,
where we heard five people speak and we attempted to determine various things about
them. We had to determine whether or not they were male or female, their age, whether
they were outgoing or reserved, or dominant or submissive, or had a Type A or Type B
personality. I was surprised at how inaccurate I was at guessing the personalities, age,
and place of origins of the participants. While I knew most of the Southern accents and
guessed that these people were from Southern states, but I was very off with guessing
the actual states that they were from. I found it extremely difficult to determine whether
they had a Type A or Type B personality solely based on their voices. I am not sure of
how attentive I am to peoples voices but I think that I could be more accurate at
attempting to learn more about a person based on their voice. I think that this is a very
useful skill to develop because voices are important.

6. Research suggests that men in our society are more averse to same-sex touch
than women, Why do you think this is the case and does it represent a problem
that should (or could) be solved?
It seems true that in our society men are often more averse to same-sex touch than
women. I think this is because our society is more comfortable with the female body in
general. While we remain more averse to showing both the naked male and female
form, in adds and in terms of beauty, the female body is utilized more and idealized. I
think that from young ages women are taught to be more comfortable with other women
than with the opposite sex. Men tend to be more closed off and I notice that the male
body is rarely used in the same way, for advertisements, that the female body is.
Men feel more comfortable with opposite sex touching.
7. Conversational Skills Guide REFLECTION
I participated in the conversational skills guide with one of my close friends, Katie. It was
interesting to analyze her conversational skills because we are very close and she
knows me better than a lot of people do. Our conversations are really natural and often
flow very well since we have been friends for two years now, but it was interesting to
analyze her as opposed to someone who I was not close friends with. In analyzing this
conversation, I feel that her conversational skills may not have rated as strongly with
someone that she is not close with. She is generally shy at first, while she is friendly, so

I feel that these results could be impacted by our level of friendship. I think that when we
are close with someone it does make it easier for us to communicate well with them. We
often know them so well that we are able to better analyze how they will respond to the
conversation that we are having.
8. Touch norms and practices seem to vary across cultures and subcultures.
Think of one or two cultures which you are personally familiar and describe your
opinion of their touching behavior. Now, do some research online (or consult
your text) to see if you are correct. Does their touching behavior differ from, or
agree with, other findings about the cultures touching norms?
Swiss
USA
9. For 3 days to a week long period, do a concentrated observation on status and
differences in touch. Keep a touch log and record who initiated the touch, the
frequency of the touches, the type of touch and the status of the individuals
involved. Discuss to what extent such touch may reflect privileges, duties or
strategies on the part of both participants.
10. Suppose you were hired as a consultant to advise incoming first-year college
students (either adult or traditional aged) on what nonverbal behaviors they should
enact in order to impress their professors. What advice would you give?
11. Cup slamming response
12. People have been refused employment or have been fired from their jobs because
of perceived problems with their height, weight, odor, skin color, clothing, hairstyles or
general attractiveness. Under what conditions (if any) do you think such characteristics
are legitimate reasons for not hiring a person or firing them?
I think that the only legitimate reasons for not hiring a person or firing them would be if
these characteristics would negatively affect the performance of the organization. It
would seem just if you mentioned to an employee that there was a very distinctive body
odor resonating from them that was negatively affecting the consumers or other
employees of a business. By mentioning this to employee you would give them the
opportunity to address the situation. If they then continued not to address the odor
problem then you would be just in firing the employee because others had complained
about the issue and you gave that employee the opportunity to address the problem. I
think that this only works in situations that the employee can control. It would not be fair
to fire someone based on height, skin color, or general attractiveness because these
are all factors beyond their control. As we discussed in class, it seems unfair to hire

candidates based on attractiveness. This would be considered unjust discrimination. I

think that weight would be an extremely tricky issue, but if the persons weight exceeded
a level that the person required two chairs, then I think discussing this problem with the
employee would be just prior to any appropriate further action, however, it would be
unfair to fire someone just because they were overweight or underweight. I think that
clothing, hairstyles and general attractiveness should be appropriate to the employee
handbook manual and appropriate for the assigned work environment. I think that
nothing outrageous should be tolerated but I also think that the boss should not unfairly
discriminate in this area by creating elaborate restrictions or preferences. As the book
asserts, Some of the personal attributes communicated by dress include sex, age,
nationality, relation to a companion, socioeconomic status, identification with a specific
group, occupational or official status, mood, personality, attitudes, interests, and values.
13. Do you think there are any moral/ethical issues related to the decoding and
encoding of nonverbal cues? Why or why not? If so, what are they?
I think that there can be ethical or moral issues related to the decoding and
encoding or nonverbal cues.
14. It has been argued that abilities to send and receive nonverbal expression may be
inversely related, in part due to the expressiveness norms within families. Is your own
family high or low on expressiveness? How do you think your familys expression norms
might have influenced your encoding and decoding skills? If you still have contact with
your family of origin, watch them closely throughout this semester. Are they good
encoders or decoders? Why or why not?
My family is highly expressive.
15. Women exceed men in ability to understand nonverbal cues in nearly all countries
and cultures where the skill has been measured. Why do you think this is so? Do you
think this is an answer to the age-old questions of female intuition?
Females naturally are more emotional and analytical than men. This comes into
play with analysis of nonverbal behavior. Women also typically have higher
attention spans and are more attentive than men.
16. Clothes questionnaire RESPONSE
Based on my answers to the clothes questionnaire, my exhibitionism score was a 15,
my practicality score was an 8 and my designer leanings score was also an 8. My
score was not considered high in the exhibitionism category but it was one point away.
High females in this category are considered radical, have high moral and ethical selfconcepts, and are generally detached in their relationships. My score of an 8 in the

practicality category was two points away from being considered low, which would
make me borderline low female. Low females are self-centered and independent. They
are oriented to the establishment of friendship relationships. In the designer leanings
category, my score was considered high. High females in this category are generally
irrational, confused, uncritical, quick and expressive. My clothing consciousness score
of a 33 indicated that I belonged with the high females. High females are generally
inhibited, loyal, anxious, kind, sympathetic, and loyal to friends. These types can also be
conforming.
17. Turn talking RESPONSE
The objective was to alert students to ways in which people manage conversation using
nonverbal cues.
Conversation One: I continued to talk/hold control of conversation. I held my
conversational turn even when the friend that I was having a conversation with tried to
obtain the floor to speak. I did not let her have a turn to talk for a really long time. I gave
up after she tried a few times because I really did not want to be rude for any longer.
This felt unnatural to me because I would normally just yield the floor when a friend
wanted to talk. I usually am more conscious of this because I do not want to hog the
floor or appear that I just love to hear myself talk.
Conversation Two: While having a conversation with another friend, when she was
trying to get me to talk by yielding the floor to me, I refused to talk. This was extremely
awkward and uncomfortable. It was obviously my turn to talk but I chose not to and we
sat in awkward silence for a while.
Conversation Three: In this conversation, while my friend was talking about something, I
interrupted her before she had finished her statement. I talked over her in order to
obtain the floor and while she tried to finish her thought, I began talking about my own
opinions. This seemed extremely rude to me and I could tell that she seemed frustrated
with not being able to finish her own thoughts.

18. Interpersonal Interactions and Space RESPONSE

Assignment was to imagine the situation was in the school cafeteria and that this is the
only table not occupied.

A young man to whom you are physically attracted and whom you would like to
date but to whom you have never spoken to. Placed him directly across from
me

A person whom you find physically unattractive and to whom you have never
spoken Placed him catty corner adjacent to the right and myself to the left
directly facing the person across from me
A person you dated once and had a miserable time with and whom you would
never date again I placed him directly at the left next to someone and myself at
the head. We are diagonally across from each other at an angle but with so many
other people at the table, this spot would minimalize our eye contact or chances
of conversation, unless intended (which I would not do).
A person you have dated a few times and would like to date again I placed him
in the seat directly next to me and myself in the seat directly beside him. We
would be physically closer so that we could talk side by side with one another.
An instructor who gave you an undeserved F in a course last semester and
whom you dislike intently I placed the teacher across from me on a diagonal so
that I would not appear to be trying to distance myself, but I hoped this spot
would require minimal eye contact/interaction with the professor at this angle.
Your favorite instructor, whom you would like to get to know better I sat catty
corner to the professor by sitting to the right of her adjacent. I would not want to
sit directly by or across from the professor. I feel that would require too much
interaction, which could be nerve wrecking because of the power distance
between teacher and student. While I like this professor a lot and want the
opportunity to talk with them more, I would be more comfortable sitting adjacent
to him/her. This spot would still give me the opportunity to talk with him/her and
get to know him/her better, without too much pressure by closer personal
proximity.

The book found that paper-and-pencil preferences were overruled by environmental

factors and the persons sex and his/her acquaintance with the other person does have
an effect on his or her actual and preferred seating preference. This reigned true with
my seating preferences in this activity because I considered the environment and shape
of the table, if the table were square, my seating preferences would have been affected
by this external factor, while my motivations would remain the same.
Discussion Questions:
1. Why did you select the positions you did? For example, how does the positions
you selected better enable you to achieve your purpose?
2. Assume that you were already seated in the position marked X. Do you think that
the person described would sit where you indicated you would (assuming that the
feelings and motives are generally the same)? Why? Are there significant sex
differences? Significant status differences? Explain.
3. What does the position you selected communicate to the person already seated?
In what ways might this nonverbal message be misinterpreted? How would your

subsequent nonverbal (and perhaps verbal) behavior reinforce your intended

message? That is, what would you do to ensure that the message you intended
to communicate is in fact the message communicated and received?
19. The Communication Environment RESPONSE
Chapter 4
The objective of this assignment was to illustrate how environmental aspects influence
perceptions of (in)appropriate behaviors. You may want to have students perform this
exercise before reading Chapter 4 to obtain nave ratings.
For this activity, I decided to visit Brazwells Premium Pub on Montford Drive near
campus. The area, often referred to by Queens students as Montford is a street where
several bars are located. These bars are really popular amongst Queens students
because they are nearby and it only costs $4 to get back to campus by a cab. While I
had visited other bars on Montford, I had never gone to Brazwells. My only other
experience with Brazwells was when I considered visiting on a Wednesday night with
friends and we noticed only older people inside and decided that it would not be the
perfect environment for us. For this experiment, however, my friend and I decided to
visit on a Saturday evening. This time the environment seemed very different. There
was a line to get inside right at the front door. I waited in line for five minutes in the cold
and then the bouncer told us that they were now letting people in through the side
entrance instead. I went to the side entrance and once inside, there were people
everywhere. All of the tables were occupied and my friend and I just got our drinks
quickly and then found a less crowded area to stand. I perceived the environment as
very informal giving it the second most formal rating because many people were
dressed casually but a little nicer than class apparel. The environment was neither
warm nor cold because with so many people inside it felt slightly closed off because
people often bumped into one another. It was also slightly warm because people were
more friendly because of the fact that it was a bar atmosphere. This bar was very public
because so many people were inside and the doors were also open for more to come.
This environment was right in the middle of free-constraining and distant-close because
so many people were inside at once. While I had never been to this bar, it seemed very
familiar to me because once youve been to one bar; they all seem the same because
they are a similar experience. This is also why I ranked Brazwells as very simple and
certain because the atmosphere was very predictable. I think that I probably would have
ranked Brazwells differently if I would have visited on the night where I could see
through the window that it was not crowded and much older people were inside. As we
discussed in our lecture, the environment can affect our mood and have symbolic
meaning tied to our interactions. The loud music in Brazwells served to create a mood

of an upbeat environment. This was also the function that the dark lighting served.
People would have felt less comfortable to dance or cheer in a well-lit environment.