Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Behavioral Stability Across Time and Situations: Nonverbal Versus Verbal Consistency

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Nonverbal Behavior Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Behavioral consistency has been at the center of debates regarding the stability of personality. We argue that people are consistent but that such consistency is best observed in nonverbal behavior. In Study 1, participants’ verbal and nonverbal behaviors were observed in a mock interview and then in an informal interaction. In Study 2, medical students’ verbal and nonverbal behaviors were observed during first- and third-year clinical skills evaluation. Nonverbal behavior exhibited consistency across context and time (a duration of 2 years) whereas verbal behavior did not. Discussion focuses on implications for theories of personality and nonverbal behavior.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. For logistical reasons, the transcript and video rating sessions were run in different semesters. Although the sacrifice of random assignment is a limitation of the current methodology, analyses examined consistency within transcript ratings or within silent video ratings. Hence, the sacrifice of random assignment here may be only a minor limitation.

  2. For logistical reasons, the still image ratings were run in a different semester from the other ratings. Again, analyses examined consistency within each media such that the sacrifice of random assignment may be only a minor limitation.

References

  • Ambady, N., Bernieri, F. J., & Richeson, J. A. (2000). Toward a histology of social behavior: Judgmental accuracy from thin slices of the behavioral stream. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, 32 (pp. 201–272). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ambady, N., LaPlante, D., Nguyen, T., Rosenthal, R., Chaumeton, N., & Levinson, W. (2002). Surgeons’ tone of voice: A clue to malpractice history. Surgery, 132, 5–9.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ambady, N., & Rosenthal, R. (1992). Thin slices of expressive behavior as predictors of interpersonal consequences: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 111, 256–274.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ambady, N., & Rosenthal, R. (1993). Half a minute: Predicting teacher evaluations from thin slices of nonverbal behavior and physical attractiveness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 431–441.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bem, D. J., & Allen, A. (1974). Predicting some of the people some of the time: The search for cross-situational consistencies in behavior. Psychological Review, 81, 506–520.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blanck, P. D., Rosenthal, R., & Cordell, L. D. H. (1985). The appearance of justice: Judges verbal and nonverbal behaviour in criminal jury trials. Stanford Law Review, 38, 89–164.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Borkenau, P., Mauer, N., Riemann, R., Spinath, F. M., & Angleitner, A. (2004). Thin slices of behavior as cues of personality and intelligence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86, 599–614.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cervone, D., & Shoda, Y. (1999). Beyond traits in the study of personality coherence. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8, 27–32.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1988). Personality in adulthood: A six-year longitudinal study of self-reports and spouse ratings on the NEO personality inventory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 853–863.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • DePaulo, B. M. (1992). Nonverbal behavior and self-presentation. Psychological Review, 111, 203–243.

    Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E., & Larsen, R. J. (1984). Temporal stability and cross-situational consistency of affective, cognitive, and behavioral responses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 871–883.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ekman, P., Davidson, R. J., & Friesen, W. V. (1990). Duchenne’s smile: Emotional expression and brain physiology II. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 342–353.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1969). Nonverbal leakage and cues to deception. Psychiatry, 32, 88–106.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1974). Detecting deception from the body or face. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 29, 288–289.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Endler, N. S. (1973). The person versus the situation: A pseudo issue? A response to Alker. Journal of Personality, 41, 287–303.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Epstein, S. (1979). The stability of behavior: I. On predicting most of the people much of the time. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1097–1126.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fleeson, W. (2001). Toward a structure- and process-integrated view of personality: Traits as density distributions of states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 1011–1027.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Fleeson, W. (2007). Situation-based contingencies underlying trait-content manifestation in behavior. Journal of Personality, 75, 825–862.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Funder, D. C. (2006). Towards a resolution of the personality triad: Persons, situations, and behaviors. Journal of Research in Personality, 40, 21–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Funder, D. C., & Colvin, C. R. (1991). Explorations in behavioral consistency: Properties of persons, situations, and behaviors. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 773–794.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Furr, R. M., & Funder, D. C. (2004). Situational similarity and behavioral consistency: Subjective, objective, variable-centered, and person-centered approaches. Journal of Research in Personality, 38, 421–447.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hager, J. C., & Ekman, P. (1985). The asymmetry of facial actions is inconsistent with models of hemispheric specialization. Psychophysiology, 22, 307–318.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hartshorne, H., & May, A. (1928). Studies in the nature of character, vol. 1, studies in deceit. New York: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keltner, D., & Buswell, B. N. (1997). Embarrassment: Its distinct form and appeasement functions. Psychological Bulletin, 122, 250–270.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kenrick, D. T., & Funder, D. C. (1988). Profiting from controversy: Lessons from the person-situation debate. American Psychologist, 43, 23–34.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lang, P. J., Davis, M., & Ohman, A. (2000). Fear and anxiety: Animal models and human cognitive psychophysiology. Journal of Affective Disorders, 61, 137–159.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Mischel, W. (1968). Personality and assessment. New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mischel, W., & Peake, P. K. (1982). Beyond déjà vu in the search for cross-situational consistency. Psychological Review, 89, 730–755.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mischel, W., & Shoda, Y. (1995). A cognitive-affective system theory of personality: Reconceptualizing situations, dispositions, dynamics, and invariance in personality structure. Psychological Review, 102, 246–268.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Mischel, W., & Shoda, Y. (1998). Reconciling processing dynamics and personality dispositions. Annual Review of Psychology, 49, 229–258.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Mischel, W., Shoda, Y., & Mendoza-Denton, R. (2002). Situation—behavior profiles as a locus of consistency in personality. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11, 50–54.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moskowitz, D. S. (1982). Coherence and cross-situational generality in personality: A new analysis of old problems. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43, 754–768.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Niedenthal, P. M. (2007). Embodying emotion. Science, 316, 1002–1005.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Pinker, S. (1991). Rules of language. Science, 253, 530–535.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ross, L. (1977). The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 10, pp. 173–220). New York: Academic Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Scherer, K. R. (2005). Unconscious processes in emotion: The bulk of the iceberg. In L. F. Barrett, P. M. Niedenthal, & P. Winkielman (Eds.), Emotion and consciousness (pp. 312–334). New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shoda, Y., & Mischel, W. (2000). Reconciling contextualism with the core assumptions of personality psychology. European Journal of Personality, 14, 407–428.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Streeter, L. A., Krauss, R. M., Geller, V. J., Olson, C. T., & Apple, W. (1977). Pitch changes during attempted deception. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 345–350.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ten Berge, M. A., & De Raad, B. (2002). The structure of situations from a personality perspective. European Journal of Personality, 16, 81–102.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tickle-Degnen, L., & Puccinelli, N. M. (1999). The nonverbal expression of negative emotions: Peer and supervisor responses to occupational therapy students’ emotional attributes. Occupational Therapy Journal of Research, 19, 18–29.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vansteelandt, K., & Van Mechelen, I. V. (2004). The personality triad in balance: Multidimensional individual differences in situation-behavior profiles. Journal of Research in Personality, 38, 367–393.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walker-Andrews, A. S. (2008). Intermodal emotional processes in infancy. In M. Lewis, J. M. Haviland, & L. Feldman-Barrett (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (pp. 364–375). New York: Guilford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zuckerman, M., DePaulo, B. M., & Rosenthal, R. (1981). Verbal and nonverbal communication of deception. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 14, pp. 1–59). New York: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The project described was supported by NIMH grant F32MH078350 to the first author and by NIH grant R01 MH70833 to the fourth author. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute of Mental Health or the National Institutes of Health.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psychology Department, Tufts University, 490 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA, 02155, USA

    Max Weisbuch, Michael L. Slepian, Asha Clarke & Nalini Ambady

  2. Department of Psychiatry, Vanderbilt Medical Center, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

    Jeremy Veenstra-VanderWeele

Authors
  1. Max Weisbuch
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Michael L. Slepian
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Asha Clarke
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Nalini Ambady
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Jeremy Veenstra-VanderWeele
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Max Weisbuch.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Weisbuch, M., Slepian, M.L., Clarke, A. et al. Behavioral Stability Across Time and Situations: Nonverbal Versus Verbal Consistency. J Nonverbal Behav 34, 43–56 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-009-0079-9

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-009-0079-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation