Temporal Closeness Promotes Imitation of Meaningful Gestures in Face-to-Face Communication.

The present research investigated how temporal distance affects imitation of gestures during a conversation. According to construal level theory, psychological closeness (vs. distance) leads to preference for more pictorial and embodied (vs. symbolic and amodal) forms of communication as well as to...

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Published in:Journal of Nonverbal Behavior Vol. 41; no. 4; pp. 415 - 432
Main Authors: Wessler, Janet, Hansen, Jochim
Format: Article
Published: Springer Nature Dec2017
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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      dt: Dec2017
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      pub: Springer Nature
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        10.1007/s10919-017-0256-1
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        atl: Temporal Closeness Promotes Imitation of Meaningful Gestures in Face-to-Face Communication.
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          Wessler, Janet
          Hansen, Jochim
        affil:
          Department of Psychology , Saarland University , Campus A2 4 66123 Saarbruecken Germany
          Department of Psychology , University of Salzburg , Salzburg Austria
      su:
        Conversation
        Interviewing
        Nonverbal communication
      sug:
        subj:
          Conversation
          Interviewing
          Nonverbal communication
      keyword:
        Communication
        Construal level theory
        Embodiment
        Gestures
        Psychological distance
        Communication
        Construal level theory
        Embodiment
        Gestures
        Psychological distance
      ab: The present research investigated how temporal distance affects imitation of gestures during a conversation. According to construal level theory, psychological closeness (vs. distance) leads to preference for more pictorial and embodied (vs. symbolic and amodal) forms of communication as well as to greater context sensitivity. We thus hypothesized that people are more sensitive to the contextual meaning of gestures and show more imitation of meaningful (vs. meaningless) gestures when primed with temporal closeness (compared to distance). Participants ( N = 91) were assigned to the role of a job interviewer for an internship that would begin in 1 week (vs. in 1 year) and interacted with an ostensible applicant who displayed various meaningful and meaningless gestures. When the internship was to start in 1 week, participants imitated meaningful gestures more often than meaningless gestures. When the internship was to start in 1 year, participants imitated both gesture types equally frequently. This finding indicates that people are more likely to embody verbal statements of an interaction partner when feeling psychologically close to the subject of the conversation.
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    language: English
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