A new methodological approach to nonverbal behavior analysis in cultural perspective.

The measurement of human behavior is a complex task, both for psychologists and human sciences researchers and with respect to technology, since advanced and sophisticated instruments may have to be implemented to manage the plurality of variables involved. In this article, an observational study is presented in which a quantitative procedure, the external variables method (Duncan & Fiske, 1977), was integrated with a structural analysis (Magnusson, 1993, 2000) in order to detect the hidden organization of nonverbal behavior in Italian and Icelandic interactions. To this aim, Theme software was introduced and employed. The results showed that both the frequency and the typology of gestures deeply change as a function of culture. Moreover, a high number of patterns was detected in both Italian and Icelandic interactions: They appeared to be complex sequences in which a huge number of events were constantly happening and recurring. In this domain, Theme software provides a methodological progression from the quantitative to the structural approach.

Linguistic intergroup bias in political communication.

The Linguistic Intergroup Bias (LIB) illustrates the disposition to communicate positive in-group and negative out-group behaviors more abstractly than negative in-group and positive out-group behaviors. The present research examined the function of language in reinforcing this bias in political communication. To illustrate the LIB, the Linguistic Category Model (LCM) was used, including a nouns category. Because social stereotypes are usually conveyed by nominal terms, the aim was to observe the relationship between stereotypes and language in political communication. Moreover, we were interested in analyzing the psychological processes that drive the LIB. Therefore, we verified whether the LIB is more related to language abstractness than to agent-patient causality. Several political debates and interviews, which took place before the latest Italian provincial elections, were analyzed. Results suggested that the language politicians use in communicating about political groups are conceptualized as stereotypes rather than as trait-based categories. Moreover, it seems that the LIB could not be explained only at a lexical level. Social implications of the present findings in interpersonal relations and causal attribution were discussed.

Topic variability and linguistic convergence in marital couples' speech as related to specific attachment style.

Links between mental working models, attachment style, and linguistic strategies were analyzed in the present research, which focused on linguistic choices made by marital couples. Eight couples (16 Italian subjects, M age=49.1, SD=0.4) with drug-addicted sons and undergoing systemic therapeutic treatment were recruited. Conversational transcripts were coded by two judges. The research analyzed (a) the definition of a topics map derived from the Adult Attachment Interview, using the discursive level of the topic; (b) the systemic-functional analysis of the topics, through both the micro- and macro-unit levels and the lexical/semantic indexes of the discourse; (c) the within-couple convergence in terms of linguistic moves, and, more generally, of their cognitive strategies. Specifically, a hierarchical model of the topic organization was used to explain the recursivity of the thematic choices made by the participants. Secondly, the characterization of the topics in terms of their cognitive/emotive values (high/low "critical" topics) was explained, especially through some "linguistic markers" as disfluency or lexical/semantic indexes (i.e., linguistic variety and completeness indexes). Third, it was found that different and specific linguistic strategies were adopted by the couples in order to reiterate their internal working models. The high convergence of linguistic patterns inside the marital couple was discussed as representative of "dysfunctional" working models, from both the communicative and relational points of view.

Personality of people using chat: an on-line research.

Conflicting claims have been presented in the literature about on-line management of personal relationships. The current research, carried out in a substantially descriptive design, aimed to consider psychological and social features of a particular electronic environment, the Chat room. One hundred fifty-eight participants filled out an on-line questionnaire set, designed to investigate the personality traits and the prevailing interpersonal values of those participants who set up interpersonal relationships on-line. The Web research showed that, if sampling control and validity assessment were provided, it could be a valid alternative to a more traditional paper-based procedure. The results highlighted that Chat users were not an homogenous group, but were composed of different personality types. Basically, however, this specific virtual environment proved to be crowded with rather close individuals, who were looking for independence but who needed also to be supported and encouraged. They created deep on-line relationships, but these remained limited to the virtual world.

The use of the internet in psychological research: comparison of online and offline questionnaires.

The Internet can be an effective medium for the posting, exchange, and collection of information in psychology-related research and data. The relative ease and inexpensiveness of creating and maintaining Web-based applications, associated with the simplicity of use via the graphic-user interface format of form-based surveys, can establish a new research frontier for the social and behavioral sciences. To explore the possible use of Internet tools in psychological research, this study compared Web-based assessment techniques with traditional paper-based methods of different measures of Internet attitudes and behaviors in an Italian sample. The collected data were analyzed to identify both differences between the two samples and in the psychometric characteristics of the questionnaires. Even if we found significant differences between the two samples in the Internet attitudes and behaviors, no relevant differences were found in the psychometric properties of the different questionnaires. This result, similar to the ones previously obtained in Web-based assessments of personality constructs, is even more interesting given the lack of control on the characteristics of the online sample. These finding suggests that, if sampling control and validity assessment is provided, Internet-based questionnaires can be a suitable alternative to more traditional paper-based measures.

Analysis of the vocal profiles of male seduction: from exhibition to self-disclosure.

The authors analyzed the suprasegmental (temporary) vocal profiles of 19 young men (not married) during their seductive interaction with 19 young women (not married) whom they had not known previously. The aim of the research was to verify the specificity, the sequential temporal stream, and the efficacy of the acoustical features of the seducer's voice during seductive interaction. In an ecological laboratory situation, the male participants were asked to meet their female partners. Participant-by-participant analysis showed that the male seductive voice is characterized by strong variations during the course of the seductive sequence. At the beginning of the sequence it had a higher pitch and an elevated intensity, as well as a faster rate of articulation than it did during normal speech (the exhibition voice). In the following phases it became gradually lower, weaker, and warmer (the self-disclosure voice). The modulation and variability of the vocal profiles during the seductive interaction were significantly stressed in the 9 successful seducers (those who succeeded in arranging a subsequent meeting with the partner), compared with the 10 unsuccessful seducers. The results have been interpreted as an ability to perform an effective local management of seductive communication.

Behind dark glasses: irony as a strategy for indirect communication.

This article outlines the model of irony seen as a "fencing game." The starting point is the metaphor of the "dark glasses" (R. Barthes, 1977), according to which irony is considered as a mask revealing, paradoxically, what it apparently hides. Basing the study on both perspectives of symbolic interactionism and planning communication theory, the authors analyze the social functions of irony (to evade censure in a socially correct way, to safeguard private space, to renegotiate meanings). In this framework, irony is described as a script of actions that people use astutely in order to strike antagonists in a graceful but "stinging" way, just like fencers in a competition. The fencing game model of irony foresees 4 steps: the textual and contextual assumptions (i.e., shared knowledge), the focal event (the trigger of irony), the dialogic comment (the ironic utterance the speaker performs by combining verbal and nonverbal aspects), and the ironic effect referring to the addressee's feedback (denying, misunderstanding, touché). The advantages of the fencing game model of irony are also considered.

Adult attachment interview, thematic analysis, and communicative style in families with substance use disorder.

The paper examined the Adult Attachment Interview with special reference to thematic and semantic analysis in line with the discourse study (van Dijk, 1997). The hypothesis was that correspondence between the communicative organization of speech and the mental representations of the attachment experiences would be substantial. Eight Adult Attachment Interview transcripts of fathers with a heroin addicted young son were analyzed at two levels, (a) thematic analysis to individuate the topics of their talk applying the structural and semantic study of discourse and (b) enunciative analysis of speech to define their linguistic patterns utilizing a set of linguistic micro- and macro-units. Results showed nine main topics in the Adult Attachment Interview, each of which was characterized by a distinctive linguistic profile. In this perspective this device seems to be effective not only for discriminating attachment styles between subjects but also to identify differences within subjects belonging to the same attachment pattern.