Student Work

The Effects of Body Language and Affiliative Motivation on Social Tuning and Likeability

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The current experiment examines whether affiliative motivation and body language influence social tuning. Eighty-three participants were led to believe they would interact with their partner for either 5 minutes or 30 minutes (affiliative motivation manipulation). Participants also saw a Polaroid photo of their ostensible partner. This picture either depicted open or closed body language (body language manipulation). Results show a main effect of body language on likeability such that participants rated their ostensible partner as more likeable when displaying closed body language. Thus the findings are contrary to previous research stating that open body language is seen as more likeable.

  • This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.
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Subject
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Identifier
  • E-project-031113-175233
Keyword
Advisor
Year
  • 2013
Date created
  • 2013-03-11
Location
  • Worcester
Resource type
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Last modified
  • 2021-02-03

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