Application Paper

This weekend, I took a trip to the Mall and conducted a field study. By sitting in the food court, I was able to observe how people interacted with one another. I focused solely on their nonverbal communication and watched how they were able to enhance their conversations with things such as gestures, behavior, and tone or volume. O’hair and Wieman state that there are times when no dialogue is needed to have a conversation and communicate (128). Through my field study, I found this to be very true and observed several interactions between many people and I was able to understand what their situation was by simply watching them communicate nonverbally. “Studies show that nonverbal behavior carries more importance than verbal behavior when we express spontaneous feelings, assess the motives of others and how they present themselves, express rapport with others, and figure out others’ meanings when there are not many other behaviors to observe” (130). One couple I saw, seemed to be arguing about something and he did not seem to have any interest in what she was saying. First, I could easily assume they were a couple by the way they acted. They sat very close together, they were sharing a drink, and she often grabbed his hand to get his attention. Her grabbing his hand is an example of body movements called kinesics which are the aspects of gestures and body movements that send nonverbal messages (135). It also indicated a love-intimacy touch. The nonverbal message being sent was that they’re together, she cares, and is trying to resolve things. Him, on the other hand was speaking with his eyes. “Oculesics is the study of the use of the eyes to communicate, and it covers the importance of the eyes in communication across the lifespan” (137). The fact that he was not making eye contact and constantly rolling his eyes every time she was trying to talk to him gave off the message that he doesn’t care about what she has to say and he’s most likely annoyed with her.