Annotated Bibliography

Guerrero, Laura K, and Kory Floyd. Nonverbal Communication in Close Relationships. Mahwah, N.J:  

   

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2006. Print.

This book provides research on nonverbal communication focusing on close relationships of friends, family, and romantic partners.  The book goes through an overview of six nonverbal theories and shows how each are related to sociocultural perspectives.  The book focuses on the various functions of nonverbal communication and emphasizes mostly on relationships.  Nonverbal Communication in Close Relationships makes an important contribution to the development of our understanding not only of relationship processes but also of the specific workings of nonverbal communication. It is intended for scholars and advanced students in personal relationship study, social psychology, interpersonal communication, nonverbal communication, family studies, and family communication. This book also serves as a helpful resource for researchers, clinicians, and couples searching for a better understanding of the complicated roles that nonverbal cues play in relationships.  I believe this book will be a great source for me to use because it talks about all the topics I would like to cover in my paper such as nonverbal expressions of emotion, sex differences in power cues, and nonverbal conflict behaviors. I look forward to going through this book and analyzing all the information because it’s really going to help me develop my argument.

La France, M., & Mayo, C. (1979). “A Review of Nonverbal Behaviors of Women and Men.”

Western Journal of Speech Communication: WJSC, 96-107. Print.

            The article presents a research on sex-role differences in nonverbal communication and details on the socio-emotional aspects of human relationships.  The article goes into detail about how a woman's face may be less reflective of her own inner state than of the inner states of those with whom she is interacting because sex-role expectations call for women to be reactive and responsive. In contrast, men are expected to be proactive, that is, they are expected to be active, independent, self-confident, objective and decisive. They are expected to be less affected by the socio-emotional aspects of human relationships and more concerned with getting the job done.  The article included great examples of the differences of how men and women handle communication and it also gave similarities as well.  I like this article because it presented information for both sides of my argument so my research paper won’t come across as biased.

Prinsen, T & Punyanunt-Carter, N. M. (2010). “The Difference in Nonverbal Behaviors and How It

Changes in Different Stages of a Relationship.” Texas Speech Communication Journal, 1-7.

Print.

This article discusses the importance of nonverbal communication in romantic relationships but it also takes a look at the differences among different relationship stages.  In the article 145 college students filled out a questionnaire regarding nonverbal communication in romantic relationships.  The results showed that there is a difference in nonverbal communication between gender and different relationship stages.  Each one of these stages has there own expectations about how a couple should be communicating nonverbally and what their body language should be like in that stage. The differences between men and women vary in each of these stages and are very diverse which is also very common in this kind of communication.  I really like this article because it goes into detail about relationships and the different stages and how the communication changes within each stage.  This will be a very useful source for my research paper because of it being a little bit more informative then any other source I have found.

“What does that smile mean? The meaning of Nonverbal Behaviors in Social Interaction”

Social Psychology Quarterly, pp. 92-102. Print.

            This journal contains a report of two studies investigating them social meanings of nonverbal behaviors.  The first study measures affective meanings of lots of nonverbal behaviors independent of any situational context. In the second study they systematically pair the nonverbal behaviors with other behaviors to see how they combine in respondents' perceptions to create new affective meanings. The main findings of the two are that single nonverbal elements have distinct meanings and create distinct impressions among observers; that nonverbal behaviors are combined with other predicted behaviors to create impressions of the events; and the role played by nonverbal behaviors is as important as the role of other behaviors in forming overall affective responses.  This journal article was very informative with the results that were found in the study.  I like how the study was conducted between men and women because that’s mainly what my research paper will focus on.  Overall, I don’t believe I will use this as a source for my final paper because the results were kind of confusing and hard to read.  If I do decide to use a case study in my research paper it will be one that focuses more on the differences in nonverbal cues between men and women.