Verbal and Nonverbal Communication Cues in Daily Conversations and Dating

Effective social interaction assumes the ability to communicate one's own level of interest and to gauge the other person's state accurately. In this investigation of beliefs about communication cues that convey interest and lack of interest, the responses of 50 male and 34 female Canadian adults to a structured interview concerned with expressing and interpreting others' verbal and nonverbal communication were examined. Cues were grouped as follows: verbal, nonverbal visual, nonverbal touch, and nonverbal paralinguistic cues, unclassifiable behaviors, and intangible signals. Subjects reported decoding more nonverbal cues than they expressed. This trend was reversed for verbal cues, suggesting that subjects paid particular attention to their own verbal cues and to others' nonverbal behaviors. Intimate and nonintimate interactions were characterized by different balances between interest and lack-of-interest cues. Communication cues with ambiguous meanings were noted, and cues that comprised interest and lack-of-interest schemata in both dating and daily conversation contexts were identified.