<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt was a bit of a surprise to find that using verbal and nonverbal techniques together backfired,\u201d Novotny said. \u201cIn hindsight it was probably seen as forced or too much, making the interviewee feel that any rapport that resulted was fake. The bottom line is that using one technique or the other is better than neither or both.\u201d<\/p>\n During the experiment, Novotny performed one-on-one interviews with 80 participants involving their personal histories. He practiced active listening\u2014using simple indicators of agreement (e.g., \u201cuh-huh,\u201d \u201cI see\u201d), that encouraged the subject to continue\u2014with all participants, but used four different strategies.<\/p>\n With one group, Novotny used verbal commonalities, disclosing information about his own life (both real and fabricated) to establish common ground. Previous research indicates that people tend to like and feel similar to those who disclose information to them.<\/p>\n With a second group, Novotny used a nonverbal technique called mirroring, the largely nonconscious imitation of another person\u2019s body postures and movements, a strategy that has long been linked to an increase in rapport among interactive partners. He attempted to mimic the body postures and arm\/leg placements of the participant (e.g., arms on the table and legs crossed) within approximately two seconds of witnessing it.<\/p>\n With a third group, Novotny combined the verbal commonality and mirroring strategies. With the fourth group, or control group, he did not employ either strategy.<\/p>\n Prior to being interviewed, participants completed a document that required them to rank 10 topics (academics, athletics, family, finances, friends, leisure, medical history, mental health, pet ownership, romance) in terms of how personal they were. The interviewer used these responses to choose topics for the interview. After the interviews, participants rated how willing they were to continue discussions with the interviewer, as an indicator of rapport.<\/p>\n Results indicated that participants were more willing to discuss personal topics when verbal commonalities were used alone, versus in conjunction with nonverbal mirroring. In the group that experienced mirroring, participants were more willing to disclose personal information with the interviewer, but not at a rate that was significantly different from the control group. The combined condition produced the lower rapport of any group.<\/p>\n \u201cBased on the literature, we knew that verbal and nonverbal techniques work to help build rapport during an interview, but we didn\u2019t know what happened if you used both,\u201d Novotny said. \u201cThis applies to everything from investigative interviewing to therapists and their clients, so we were interested in knowing which technique\u2014or combination of techniques\u2014was going to be most effective.\u201d<\/p>\n While verbal commonalities and techniques that employ mirroring body language can be applied with minimal training and preparation, Novotny notes that interviewers should be aware of their cognitive load during the interview. Between formulating questions, writing, listening and attempting to build rapport, interviewers can easily get overloaded and be less effective\u2014though that can be improved with training, he said.<\/p>\n Alternatively, the combined use of both techniques could seem forced or phony to participants. Novotny believes that once a person realizes someone is actively seeking rapport or manipulating them, it backfires, wiping out any gain from the verbal or nonverbal technique.<\/p>\n Despite the challenges, Novotny was surprised by the participants\u2019 willingness to discuss sensitive topics.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was interesting how willing random strangers were to tell me their deepest, darkest secrets,\u201d he said. \u201cI think, because I was a stranger and they\u2019d never see me again, they were more willing to open up to a simple question like, \u2018Why is your financial history so private to you?\u2019 And then they would start discussing their money troubles.\u201d<\/p>\n Co-authors on the study include Mark G. Frank, University at Buffalo, SUNY, and Matthew Grizzard, The Ohio State University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For interviewers trying to build rapport with interviewees, using a verbal technique or using a nonverbal technique\u2014but not both at the same time\u2014produces better results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":40401,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[290],"tags":[],"post_medium":[314],"publications":[],"authors":[345],"photographers":[],"video_credit":[],"takeaways":[],"class_list":["post-40397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-communications","post_medium-read","authors-allyson-mann","entry"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40397"},{"taxonomy":"post_medium","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_medium?post=40397"},{"taxonomy":"publications","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publications?post=40397"},{"taxonomy":"authors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/authors?post=40397"},{"taxonomy":"photographers","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/photographers?post=40397"},{"taxonomy":"video_credit","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/video_credit?post=40397"},{"taxonomy":"takeaways","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/takeaways?post=40397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Eric](\"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2021\/11\/Staff_NovotnyEric_2021.jpg\")
Verbal and nonverbal interview tactics<\/h2>\n
What communication techniques were most effective for building rapport?<\/h2>\n