adaptors: Touching gestures, often unconsciously made, that serve a physical or psychological purpose. For example, twirling hair while reading, jingling pocket change, and fingering jewelry may be gestures that provide comfort, signal anxiety, or are simply unconscious habits.
affect displays: Intentional or unintentional nonverbal behaviors that display actual or feigned emotions, such as a frown, a choked sob, or a smile intended to disguise fear.
aggressive-hostile touch: A touch designed to hurt and humiliate others, involving forms of physical violence like grabbing, slapping, and hitting.
artifacts: Things we possess that influence how we see ourselves and that we use to express our identity to others. Jewelry, for instance, can indicate economic means, marital status, religious affiliation, style preferences, and taste.
chronemics: A nonverbal code that represents the way you use time to communicate in interpersonal interactions.
dominance: The interpersonal behaviors we use to exert power or influence over others. Dominance may occur through nonverbal behavior, as in crowding threateningly into a person’s intimate zone, staring someone down, or keeping another person waiting.
emblems: Gestures that symbolize a specific verbal meaning within a given culture, such as the “thumbs-up” or the “V for victory” sign.
environment: The physical features of our surroundings.
friendship-warmth touch: A touch used to express liking for another person, such as an arm placed across another’s shoulders or a “high five” shared between teammates.
functional-professional touch: A touch used to accomplish a task, such as a physical therapist positioning a client’s arm or a dancer gripping his partner’s waist for a lift.
haptics: A nonverbal code that represents messages conveyed through touch. See also aggressive-hostile touch; friendship-warmth touch; functional-professional touch; love-intimacy touch; sexual-arousal touch; social-polite touch.
illustrators: Gestures used to accent or illustrate a verbal message. For example, a fisherman holds his hands apart to show the size of his catch, or someone points emphatically at a door while saying, “Leave!”
immediacy: As expressed in your posture, the degree to which you find someone interesting and attractive.
intimacy: A feeling of closeness and “union” that exists between us and our relationship partners.
intimate space: The narrowest proxemic zone—0 to 18 inches of space—between communicators.
kinesics: A nonverbal code that represents messages communicated in visible body movements, such as facial expressions, posture, body movements, gestures, and eye contact.
love-intimacy touch: A touch indicating deep emotional feeling, such as two romantic partners holding hands or two close friends embracing.
mixed messages: Verbal and nonverbal behaviors that convey contradictory meanings, such as saying, “I’m so happy for you” in a sarcastic tone of voice.
nonverbal communication: The intentional or unintentional transmission of meaning through an individual’s nonspoken physical and behavioral cues.
nonverbal communication codes: Different ways to transmit information nonverbally, including artifacts, chronemics, environment, haptics, kinesics, physical appearance, proxemics, and vocalics.
personal space: The proxemic zone that ranges from 18 inches to 4 feet of space between communicators. It is the spatial separation most often used in the United States for friendly conversation.
physical appearance: A nonverbal code that represents visual attributes such as body type, clothing, hair, and other physical features.
power: The ability to influence or control events and people.
proxemics: A nonverbal code for communication through physical distance. See also intimate space; personal space; public space; social space.
public space: The widest proxemic zone, which ranges outward from 12 feet and is most appropriate for formal settings.
regulators: Gestures used to control the exchange of conversational turns during interpersonal encounters—for example, averting eye contact to avoid someone or zipping up book bags as a class to signal to a professor that the lecture should end.
sexual-arousal touch: A touch designed to physically stimulate another person.
social-polite touch: A touch, such as a handshake, used to demonstrate social norms or culturally expected behaviors.
social space: The proxemic zone that ranges from 4 to 12 feet of space between communicators. It is the spatial separation most often used in the United States for conversations between acquaintances and strangers.
submissiveness: The willingness to allow others to exert power over you, demonstrated by gestures such as a shrinking posture or lowered eye gaze.
territoriality: The tendency to claim personal spaces as our own and define certain locations as areas we don’t want others to invade without permission, such as spreading personal stuff to claim the entire library table.
vocalics: Vocal characteristics we use to communicate nonverbal messages, such as volume, pitch, rate, voice quality, vocalized sounds, and silence. For instance, a pause might signal discomfort or be used to heighten tension.