The Effects of Stress and Gender on Nonverbal Decoding Accuracy in Kinesic and Vocalic Channels

Abstract

Stress has the potential to impair accurate decoding of others' communicntion. This expm'ment tested the effects of stress, induced through the S t m p Color-Word Test, on the accurate decoding of kinesic and vocalic emotional expressions. Respondents (N = 372) viewed or heard 30 emotional expressions interspersed with multichannel color stimuli that were redundant with one another (lour stress) or conflicted with oneanother (high stress). Analyses of accuracy scores across three triuls supported three of four hypotheses. Stress debilitated accuracy primarily in the vocalic channel and nt the onset of stress. The kinesic facial channel also produced consistently higher accuracy than the vocalic channel, and females achieved higher accuracy than males, but this superiority dissipated by the third trial. ndividuals commonly experience stress in their daily interactions in response to such factors as interpersonal conflicts, I role expectations, work pressures, and school demands.Scientific research on stress includes studies dealing with psychological and physiological responses, the causes of stress, and methods for coping with it. Well over 120,000 books and articles have been written on stress-related topics (Selye, 1979)) yet few have addressed the impact of situational stress on communication. Of these few communication-related writings, most have focused on the role of Maureen Keeley-Dyreson is an Instructor at the University of Texas-Pan-American. J u d e K. Burgoon is Professor and William Bailey is Lecturer of Communication at the University of Arizona.

Nonverbal support giving induces nonverbal support seeking in depressed patients

“…Attunement requires the ability to accurately decode social stimuli. Experimental evidence suggests that decoding abilities are negatively affected by stress and depression (e.g., Keeley-Dyreson et al, 1991;Gur et al, 1992). This decreased ability may have affected the patients' competence to attune their support seeking behavior to the support giving behavior in the present experiment.…”

The “Big Idea” That Is yet to Be: Toward A More Motivated, Contextual, and Dynamic Model of Emotional Intelligence

“…However, most of the research assessing predictive validity (in meta-analyses controlling for other important factors) has focused on specific measures of EI, whether as integrated EI abilities or self-report trait or "mixed" models. tion recognition (Keeley-Dyreson, Bailey, & Burgoon, 1991).…”

A Comprehensive Observational Coding Scheme for Analyzing Instrumental, Affective, and Relational Communication in Health Care Contexts

“…Comprehensive coding of relational information depends heavily on coder nonverbal sensitivity, which is highly variable, often resulting in low intercoder reliability (Keeley-Dyreson, Burgoon, & Bailey, 1991). However, communication researchers have shown that coding single nonverbal cues (e.g., smile, eye contact) is less meaningful than coding clusters of cues that suggest an affective quality (e.g., affiliation, dominance) (D.B.…”