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Running Head: Norm Breaker
Nonverbal communication defines over 50% of our communication in everyday
settings while according to Mehrabian, only about 7% of communication takes place just
strictly verbal. According to dictionary.com, “ those aspects of communication, such as
gestures and facial expressions, that do not involve verbal communication but which may
include nonverbal aspects of speech itself”. Basically any gesture in your face, a twitch,
leaning your body a certain way, and even whether your forehead has wrinkles in it or
not. The most interesting part according to Fatik Mandal, “We use body language without
being aware of it, perceive and interpret other people's body language”. (p. 417)
Nonverbal communication is important for two reasons first off whether you know it or
not, its how you interpret what people are saying whether they are being serious or
sarcastic. Its also a science for some people, with enough practice and understanding you
can begin to make assumptions as to whether people are lying or not or what their real
intentions are.
For my experiments I'm going to be focusing on proxemics and Kinesics. To start,
Proxemics according to dictionary.com is “ the study of spatial requirements of humans
and animals and the effects of population density on behavior, communication, and social
interaction”. To get a better understanding of proxemics it’s the idea that how close you
are to someone is what setting you are in zero to two feet is intimate while two to four
feet is personal talking to each other distance. But this also depends on what cultural you
are in different cultures believe in different special awareness.
Kinesics is a part of my other experimentation part; kinesics is the study of body
movements, facial expressions, and gestures. Its trying to differentiate what they are
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saying vs. what they really mean using both Nonverbal and spoken communication. A
good example of this type of nonverbal communication is when a person is looking up an
away with a kind of dumbfounded look on their face, which for he most part means that
they are thinking or thinking a little to hard. Its these verbal queue that gives you an idea
of what people are thinking or doing without even talking to them making it known
whether to go talk to a person or whether its better not.
For my first experiment I will be using kinesics and calling the experiment the
Terry Crews its based of the movie White Chicks in which Terry Crews turns up the song
A million Miles and proceeds to sing it while over indulging hand gestures while also
singing quite loudly. To do this I drove around with my windows down accompanied by
my roommates on the tease of a Saturday that Minnesota gave us before plunging back
into the cold agony Minnesota is. We drove around and whenever we were stopped next
to someone at a stoplight or stop sign we would crank the song and overexaggerate our
hand movements while also lip singing the song. I expect the outcome do be a
combination between shock and think what in the hell are they doing.
For my second and third experiment I will be using both Proxemics the first of
which involves my roommates, I got the idea from the example in class when people
would sit in other peoples spots in class, but my idea is sort of the same instead of being
at school I starting sitting next to my roommates on the couch when there is easily a more
comfortable and generally better spot. I did this almost immediately starting after class
and did up until I needed their help for my first experiment. I expect the results to be a lot
of sarcastic answers and slight anger towards me.
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My third experiment involving proxemics is analyzing how customers react when I'm
working and I stand a bit to close to them when I am trying to help them find something
or when they are asking a question. Whenever a customer approached me I would simply
take an extra step forward more than I usually would. I expect combinations of both the
customer taken a little aback and the customer also taking a step back.
The first experiment was an adventure in itself, we did the experiment five times
in different places around Mankato driving around and blasting the song and signing
along while also doing the hand gestures. The results were far more mixed then I thought
they would be, the first person we attempted this on preceded to sing along and do the
exact same thing we were, but was also much younger and probably had seen the movie.
The second and third were more of the reaction I thought I would get with the people
being more stoned faced and made a quizzical look as to what we were doing. The last
two were the most interesting to me the first of which was a very shocked expression and
the person seemed to be taken a little aback, While the last person literally drove away
looked at us then turned right and drove away.
For the second experiment involving my roommates for four days I continually
and purposefully sat right next to my roommates while blatantly ignoring a much more
comfortable spot. The first two days were a mixture of sarcastic responses and looks at
me as too what I was doing but nothing serious beyond that. On the third day though I sat
down right next to my roommate he looked right at me and said “ why the fuck do you
keep doing this” to which I responded just doing it for shits and giggles, I did later tell
them why I was doing to which they responded that’s stupid.
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My third experiment involving customers at work went for the most part as I
expected, I approached customers and stood to close to them three times it became
awkward and I had to stop after three. What I observed did in every situation the
customer would give me taking a step back and resuming our conversation follow a
quizzical look.
Throughout my experiments I basically got the results I was assuming I was going
to receive many people feel uncomfortable when you invade their personal space, people
become fidgety and want to get further away from the situation. People also don’t really
prefer to have other people sing to them as they are driving. What I could do to further
my experiment is to get a bigger sample size to gather more results. I could also look to
try different ways in which I could approach people and alter their personal space maybe
by standing too far away. I would also work on trying maybe different music in my first
experiment crossed against different generations of people. Throughout this process their
were some very awkward moments mostly just with my roommates who have now
learned to expect the unexpected. This is a type of communication I will look more into
and realize more when having conversation with other people now that I am more aware.
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Norm Breaker
References
Mandal, F. (2014). Nonverbal Communication in Humans. Retrieved March 03, 2016,
from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/ref/10.1080/10911359.2013.831288
(n.d.). Retrieved March 03, 2016, from http://dictionary.reference.com/