Nonverbal Communication Analysis

K1 Mingyu Zhang (Jade)

Individual Assignment 1: Nonverbal Communication Analysis

In the first video, the seller Egypt showed up with a smile on her face, and talked to the two buyers with an open gesture, enhancing buyers’ perception of warmth and friendliness. Then she talked about Jonathan’s requirements of the place with frequent eye contact to give him the impression that she is sincere about the interest in his need. From the sitting posture of Jonathan and Derrick, we can see that they were relaxed in the conversation. Jonathan kept nodding his head while Egypt describing his requirements and, with a smile on Jonathan’s face, he was willing to speak more about the house style he was looking for. At the end of the first meeting, Egypt offered her hand to have a fist bump with the two buyers. This body movement gave them a sense of team working, motivated them to get involved. During the first meeting, Egypt not only built a friendliness impression through her nonverbal behavior to make buyers feel relax but also tried to increase the motivation of the two buyers by getting their involvement through talking about their personal needs verbally and encouraging them to participate nonverbally. Those nonverbal behaviors complemented verbal behavior, subconsciously motivating buyers to engage in a house purchasing behavior.

Then Egypt took Jonathan and Derrick to have a look at the properties. Jonathan was quite satisfied with the first apartment at the first glance. He stepped in with a big smile and nodded his head when he looked up and down. However, when he noticed the wash basin in the kitchen, he made a strange hesitant sound and seemed unsatisfied with it. Egypt opened the closet to show it to the buyers and said that it could use as a shoe room in an envious tone. The movement and the tone stimulated Jonathan’s imagery processing of the information. Under the processing, he would start to imagine what the closet could use for, stimulating his positive attitude towards the properties and impacting his future choice. When Egypt mentioned the price, both of the two buyers nodded their head and smiled, indicating that they were very satisfied with the price. Through this communication, Egypt aware of features that the buyers looking for. Then the second property Egypt showed to Jonathan and Derrick was very satisfied by Jonathan. However, when Egypt stated the price, Jonathan bared his teeth and moved his eyes from Egypt, indicating that the price exceeded his expectation. Initially, he has a budget of $220,000, but the price of last property was stored in his episodic memory, which influenced his evaluation with this property, making him felt the property was expensive. The last property was satisfied with both buyers and the only concern was price before Egypt told them about it. When Egypt talked about the price, she held the arms of the two buyers to increase their attentional arousal about the surprised fair price, which motivated them to make the final decision.

In conclusion, from the exchanges above, we can see that nonverbal behavior can work as a complement of verbal behavior to motivate consumers by increasing their involvements. Besides, it can also stimulate consumers’ imagery processing in working memory to impact consumers’ attitude as well as decision. Moreover, nonverbal behavior can deepen consumers’ episodic memory, which influences products evaluation.

In the second video, the seller Joe Moore firstly introduced himself and his goal in a low pitch, moderate volume, and with brief pauses to enhance the buyers (sharks) perceptions of friendliness, credibility, and trustworthiness. However, the sharks seemed doubtful and confused to his description with their puzzled face at the very beginning. Then Joe started to illustrate the product and paused to wait for the sharks to look at the picture that shows how the product works. This pause and visual stimuli aroused sharks’ attention to his product. Kevin, one of the sharks, opened his mouth; Barbara smiled and leaned forward her body; Robert looked at others while Daymond stared at Joe with a puzzled frown. All these body movements show their attention and interest in the topic. Once they paid attention to the information, they started to perceive it. The picture was a strong visual stimulus that helped sharks to process the information about the product through vision. When Joe handed out the real product to the sharks, he also gave a chance to sharks to perceive the product through touch. These nonverbal behavior accelerate the sharks’ perception process, enhancing their understandings and trustiness toward the product.