Research Report Draft

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School

University of British Columbia *

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217

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Psychology

Date

Feb 20, 2024

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docx

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Uploaded by AdmiralKnowledgeMongoose35

Report (Approx 1500 - 1700 words): Between 5 and 7 pages double spaced (not including cover page, abstract, references. Graphs, tables or appendices) Abstract (100 - 150 words) - Clear description of study and its results without the reader having to read the entire paper - Reviewers read abstract to decide if they want to continue reading the paper - Begin with a background or objective: - To clearly state why the research was done - Its importance of the field of study - Any previous roadblocks encountered - Very concise version of your methods, results, and conclusions but no references - STRUCTURE: - Background - Latest information on the topic; key phrases that pique interest - Objective - your goals; what the study examined and why - Methods - brief description of the study (eg. retrospective study) - Results - findings and observations - Conclusion - where are these results expected? Whether more research is needed or not? Building on the various disciplines in which body language has been studied in psychology, the study aimed to determine the extent body language affects how people perceive others. In terms of previous research, there are several inconsistencies with the findings. Such that this study analyzes the consistencies between previous findings of body language and social perception. Through a retrospective study, participants were randomly assigned to watch a pre-recorded video of an educational presenter using either closed or neutral body language. From there, participants were directed to answer a series of questions related to the video, and of their perception of the educational presenter; through a rating scale of 1-5 (1 = not confident and 5 = extremely confident). The results of the study were expected, as the participants who viewed the neutral body language video thought the educational presenter was being extremely confident. After obtaining all the results, it was very evident that participants who viewed the neutral body language video were much more engaged with the educational presenter, and thought she was more along the lines of being extremely confident. These results were expected al the specific environment of an educational presenter's body language too . The retrospective study conducted Introduction (400 words)

- Clearly describes the relevant details for one past published research study - Clearly describes the relevant details for a second past published research study - Clear purpose for the study is discussed in relation to the past research and/or observed phenomenon - Clear description of hypothesis - Flows from more general topic area to specific hypothesis Body language is a strong and effective process of non-verbal communication done through gestures and movements that can indicate one's emotions and intentions. They are very important as they are a form of conscious and unconscious speech, that one may not be entirely aware of, which is expressed through physical behaviors and mannerisms, when presenting oneself or interacting with others. It is especially important when considering how one wants to be perceived in social settings, such that they may purposefully change the way they act to put up a facade. No matter how one acts will always entail recognizing the relevant visual social information that is being provided to them, such that every form of body language one represents has meaning (Tipper CM et al., 2015). A fMRI study conducted at the University of British Columbia researched the impact different forms of body language has on neuropsychology. Meaning that their goal was to determine how neural systems and neural integration would be represented through the portrayal of body language, after participants were shown a performance. In this study, there were eight distinct themes, four included dance themes (happy, hopeful, fearful and agony) and the other four included pantomimed themes (in love, relaxed, ill and exhausted) (Tipper CM et al., 2015). The researchers created several videos of choreographed performances that dancers carried out according to each theme. Afterwards, fMRI data was collected using a machine as participants viewed the series of videos, to obtain neural response data. The results showed that brain activity is heavily associated with expressive body language, however pantomimed sequences were more highly correlated. In another study that also researched body language, researchers focused on the differences in social perception in relation to how one presents themself through arm-crossing. These researchers wanted to determine whether arm-crossing is a representation of being defensive in a social environment (Fetterman et al., 2015). This research was conducted through three different studies that each showed what arm-crossing means and what it can activate. Study one presented the most relevant information as they tested the individual differences in arm-crossing frequency, inhibited social decision-making and submissive interpersonal behavior. For individual differences in arm-crossing frequency , participants were asked a series of questions like “to what extent do you often cross your arms?” with answers on a 7-point scale (1 = not very much and 7 = very much) (Fetterman et al., 2015). As for testing what inhibited social decision-making , different scenarios were shown to participants along with examples of uninhibited and inhibited responses to choose from (Fetterman et al., 2015). Finally, for submissive interpersonal

behavior participants were asked to indicate what described them best on the 6 dominance- submission IAS-R markers (1 = extremely inaccurate and 6 = extremely accurate) (Fetterman et al., 2015). The results for these three topics indicated that higher reporting of arm-crossing was correlated with inhibiting their decision-making in social settings. After doing extensive research on body language, the aim of this study was determined; which was to find the consistencies between body language and social perception. The research found relations between body language with neuropsychology and arm-crossing. However, the purpose of this study was to determine the consistencies between this research, and determine the extent to which body language has an effect on how people are perceived by others. The term 'others' in this study is defined as persons of authority and/or presenters of educational information, in a video that participants watch. Furthermore, the second research study showed more correlation with purpose of the study at hand, in which a concise hypothesis was curated: Using closed body language, in which an individual is more or so starting at a fixed object with no fluctuation or change, might cause an audience to feel less engaged with their presenter than neutral body language. Method - Brief description of participant characteristics (no gender, age, breakdown required) - Clear enough description of materials & procedures to permit replication - Complete description of how independent variable was manipulated - Complete description of how dependent variable was measured - Discussion of controls implemented The study used 22 students (random number of males and females) studying Psychology at the University of British Columbia, however, due to error only the results of 19 students were accounted for. Prior to conducting the experiment, researchers created two educational videos of a fairly neutral topic relevant to students, in which a presenter was reading the same script, however under a different condition. One condition included the presenter using closed body language, and the second condition showed a presenter using neutral body language. After these videos were created, they were uploaded to qualtrics, a web based software that researchers use to create surveys that will generate results and reports. Using this software, the settings were adjusted such that as participants scan a qr code, they are randomly assigned to one of the two possible videos. Once the video has been watched, participants are then directed to an anonymous survey, where they must select whether they ‘have watched the video’ or ‘have not watched the video’, and then are prompted to answer questions. There were basic recall questions about the information presented, and questions about the quality of engagement from the educator in the presentation. After the responses were collected, they were converted into data to determine whether or not the body language of the presenter had a statistically significant impact on the participants' responses.

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As for the variables, the independent variable in the study was the body language of the presenter, meaning the manner in which she was acting/posing in the video. There were two different conditions of the presenters body language, the first being the presenter showing closed body language, and the second being the presenter showing neutral body language. The dependent variable of the study was the self reported results from the survey, that participants answered once they watched one of the two videos. This was measured using qualtrics, a web based software that can generate results and reports after survey questions have been answered. The survey included a few questions that were to be answered on a numerical scale between 1 and 5. As the questions in the survey were all different, as were the meaning of the numbers 1 and 5; however, they all were relatively defined as 1 = least and 5 = most, whether that meant informative, entertaining, engagement or confidence. There was also one control variable in the study which was accounted for through the presenter showing neutral body language. However, there are no confounding variables as the delivery of the presentations were as similar as possible, such that the IV and DV were isolated. Everything in the two videos were exactly the same including the person, location, clothing, material, tone of voice etc, except for the presenters body language. This was very important such that no other variables could affect the results. Results and Figure(including at least one graph) - Clear explanation of how each variable was calculated - Appropriate descriptive statistic(s) clearly provided/describes (eg. mean and standard deviation for each group) - Graph is appropriate and features data relevant to hypothesis test - Data and labels on the graph are correct and are coloured / patterned uniquely from the rest of your group The study curated the results through the web based software qualtrics, where each variable was specifically calculated. The independent variable was calculated through the presenter showing either closed or neutral body language, in which everything between the two conditions were identical expect for the manner in which the presenter was acting. Alternatively, the dependent variable was calculated using qualtrics, as each participant watched one of the two videos, they were then prompted to a survey answering questions on a numerical scale from 1 to 5. The results were reported in a structured data set through the web based software. In the survey, question 3 was relevant to the relation between body language and social perception. The was ‘How confident would you describe the presenter in the video? (1 = not confident at all, 5 = extremely confident)’. The raw data for this question is as follows, where there are 19 participants (13 accounted for the closed body language and 6 accounted for the neutral body language).

Condition one: Mean of responses from participants watching closed body language video = 3.230769231 Condition two: Mean of responses from participants watching neutral body language video = 4.2 Using the raw data, the mean of the closed body language and neutral body language conditions were calculated. The mean of responses from participants watching the closed body language video equals 3.230769231 and the mean of responses from participants watching the neutral body language video equals 4.2. With these data set, the standard deviation for each condition was also calculated. The standard deviation of the first condition (closed body language) equals 0.7250110521 and the standard deviation of the second condition (neutral body language) equals 1.303840481. The standard deviation tells us the amount of reliability there is between the data set. The closed body language responses have a lower standard deviation than the neutral body language responses. Such that the closed body language responses are more reliable and cluster around the mean of the data. A graph of the raw data plots the responses of both the closed body language and neutral body language of participants. Discussion (200-250 words) - Clear and correct summary of results - Evaluation of result in context of hypothesis

- Comparison or connection to research findings or theory (typically those from the introduction) - Discuss one limitation to the study’s internal validity - Discuss one limitation to the study's external validity - Discuss and justify one concrete idea for f uture research (eg. address a limitation, extend the theory) - Discuss one meaningful contribution and/or implication of the study (eg. tied to original purpose ) In conclusion, the results of the study supported the hypothesis that stated, using closed body language might cause an audience to feel less engaged with their presenter than neutral body language. According to the results, the mean of responses from participants watching the closed body language video was much lower ~ 3.2 than the mean of responses from participants watching the neutral body language video ~ 4.2. This means individuals who watch the video with the condition of neutral body language thought the presenter was much more engaged with the audience and confident in their speech. These results are also consistent with those of the study conducted by Fetterman (2015), as arm-crossing was correlated with negativity in a social setting. In this case, the arm-crossing can be seen as closed body language which according to our results makes participants social perception of the presenter less engaging and confident. Taking validity problems into account, a limitation to the study’s internal validity includes the use of self-report measures. This is because the research questions were asked using a self-report numerical scale, where there is much bias and all the responses are up to the participants discretion. The study also has external validity such that there is sampling bias, as the sample of participants used in the study is not reflective of the entire population. The sample of participants used in this study are strictly limited to students taking Psych 217 at UBC. For future purposes, there are also a few limitations, such that self-report measures can be inaccurate as participants may not be honest or may simply click any answer. This may account for the one different answer of ‘2’ in the raw data for neutral body language. To prevent this, another form of measurement in research such as a nominal scale can be used in the future. Also, for future research, the contributions of this study have concluded that ones body language can most definitely affect how one will be perceived References Fetterman, Adam & Bair, Jessica & Robinson, Michael. (2015). Submissive, Inhibited, Avoidant,

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and Escape Motivated: The Correlates and Consequences of Arm-Crossing. Motivation Science. 1. 10.1037/mot0000013. Tipper CM, Signorini G and Grafton ST (2015) Body language in the brain: constructing meaning from expressive movement. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 9:450. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00450

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