Psych 100 - Nonverbal Communication Lab

In this lab, your ability to make judgments about people based upon Nonverbal behaviors alone will be tested. Research indicates that the ability to “read” nonverbal cues varies from person to person and that personality traits such as extraversion and your sex (women, on the average, outperform men on tasks of this kind) are important variables.

In this lab, you will answer several questions about the data that is gathered and you will write a brief essay which will be a subjective reaction to your performance on the test.

1. Begin the lab by looking over the answer sheet and getting a sense of the types of information you will be asked to judge. Before viewing the videotape, give your best estimate of how many questions you expect to get correct out of 15. Record this estimate on the front of the answer sheet.

2. After you have responded to all of the videotaped situations, give a second estimate of how many you think you got correct. Record this estimate in the space on the back of the answer sheet.

3. Your lab assistant will read the correct answers to you so that you can compute an ACTUAL score for your performance.

4. Your lab assistant will then compute separate average scores for the males and the females in the class.

In your lab report, write a brief essay (no more than two pages) in which you describe your performance on the task and your personal reactions to it. In the course of your essay, be sure to answer the following questions:

Did you overestimate or underestimate how well you would do?

Did you feel more confident about your performance BEFORE you actually saw the videotape or AFTER?

How did your score compare to the averages for your group?

Did females in your lab section have a higher average number correct than males?

Which situations did you think were the easiest to read? Which ones were the most difficult? Why do you think some seemed more difficult than others?

Overall, did you think that this was a difficult or easy task? Did it generally seem easier or more difficult than the situations you encounter in your day-to-day life?

Did you find the task enjoyable or did you think it was tedious and boring? What was it about this type of task that made it pleasant or unpleasant?