ENCODING OF ATTITUDE BY A SEATED COMMUNICATOR VIA POSTURE AND POSITION CUES

Requested 48 undergraduates to imagine themselves in situations involving different kinds of addresses and to sit in the ways in which they would if they were actually interacting with these addressees. The 4 independent factors in the experiment were encoder-communicator attitude, addressee status, addressee sex, and encoder sex. The dependent measures were eye contact, distance, head orientation, shoulder orientation, leg orientation, arm openness, leg openness, and hand, foot, and trunk relaxation. Findings suggest that the most important variables for the communication of positive attitude are small backward lean of torso, close distance, and more eye contact. Also, there is less sideways lean and more eye contact in communications with high-status as compared to low-status addressees. In addition, for female encoders, less arm openness is an indicator of a higher status of the addressee. (21 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1969 American Psychological Association.