The imprint of psychological differentiation on kinetic behavior in varying communicative contexts.

Abstract

Kinetic behavior was evaluated by a scoring system of object- and body-focused hand movements and observed in 24 female college students, 12 field independent (F-I) and 12 field dependent (F-D). The 5s were observed under three videotaped interview conditions: cold association, warm association, and warm interchange. Gestural behavior distinguished F-I and F-D groups within each of the three conditions: during cold association, F-D 5s engaged in more hand-to-hand body-focused movements (p <.05); during warm association, F-D-5s again had more such movements (p <.005); and during warm interchange, they had more objectfocused motor-primacy gestures (p <.025). Certain nonhand-to-hand bodyfocused movements were unrelated to psychological differentiation, yet were induced by negative interpersonal contact (cold condition). Certain forms of kinetic behavior are governed by cognitive style; others may reflect the unverbalized experiences of the relationship. As research in the field of kinetic behavior becomes more sophisticated, there also emerges a certain polarization of theoretical issues. The interest in kinetic behavior has been guided by the prospect that movements of the body constitute a language of implicit communication and that they may be used to define analogic aspects of interpersonal relationships (Watzlawick, Beavin, & Jackson, 1967); that they deploy a signal system rooted in the culture (Birdwhistell, 1952; Scheflen, 1963); and that they are methods by which one person seeks to influence another (Goffman, 1964). Moreover, according to these views, the immediate determinant of motor expression is the situation or context defined by ethnographic rules and implemented by the participants in a transaction, be it interviewer, E, or therapist. Yet, there are data to indicate that kinetic behavior is not only communicative but also representational; that it not only is concerned with the transmission of information but also points to the body's participation in the 'The authors are indebted to Arthur Rifkin and

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 84 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.