Black-White Differences in Nonverbal Behavior in an Interview Setting

Abstract

The majority of systematic research on nonverbal behavior has used white college students as subjects. The present investigation examined both white and black subjects’nonverbal behavior and also independently varied the race of the person with whom the subject interacted. The experimental setting was an actual employment interview. Twenty black and 20 white female undergraduates were individually interviewed by either a black or white male interviewer. White subjects tended to maintain more visual interaction with interviewers of both races than did black subjects. Moreover, black interviewers were visually interacted with less, and given shorter glances. Racial, in contrast to nonracial, questions elicited longer glances; and subjects hesitated longer before answering them.