How Long? How Many? How Much? Evidence of Convergent Validity Among Thin-Slice Behavioral Coding Metrics.

Despite the ubiquity of thin-slice coding for behavioral measurement, there exists relatively little systematic research into the convergent validity of thin-slice coding metrics for nonverbal behaviors when using human coders. This study utilized five previous datasets to measure four commonly-meas...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Nonverbal Behavior Vol. 49; no. 3; pp. 307 - 324
Main Authors: Murphy, Nora A., Ruben, Mollie A., Stosic, Morgan, Renier, Laetitia A., Schlegel, Katja, Hall, Judith A., Schmid Mast, Marianne, Marroquín, Brett
Format: Article
Published: Springer Nature Sep2025
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
Description
Summary:Despite the ubiquity of thin-slice coding for behavioral measurement, there exists relatively little systematic research into the convergent validity of thin-slice coding metrics for nonverbal behaviors when using human coders. This study utilized five previous datasets to measure four commonly-measured nonverbal behaviors (gaze, gestures, nods, smiles) using three different coding metrics (duration, frequency, rating) coded in 2 or 3 min slices. Convergent validity was measured by comparing a given behavior coded with at least two different metrics. Meta-analytic assessments across studies, behaviors, and metrics indicated strong convergent validity for various metrics for each behavior. Results provide confidence to researchers on the validity of using these thin-slice coding metrics for nonverbal behaviors.