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International Journal of Psychology

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Training Englishmen in the Non-Verbal Behaviour of Arabs

Peter Colletta a Oxford University, England

To cite this Article Collett, Peter(1971) 'Training Englishmen in the Non-Verbal Behaviour of Arabs', International Journal

of Psychology, 6: 3, 209 215 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/00207597108246684 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207597108246684

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International Journd of P.ycbolopy JournaI International de PsycboLcgie 1971,Vol. 6, NO 3, 209-215

TRAINING ENGLISHMEN I N THE NON-VERBAL BEHAVIOUR OF ARABS

AN EXPERIMENT ON INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION PETER COLLETT
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Oxford Ufiiutmi& England

Deux experiences sont relaties : l'une porte sur 10 Arabes, qui ont rencontrt deux sujets anglais et ont discuti avec eux; on leur demande ensuite de choisir entre 1es deux anglais. Le sujet anglais experimental a appris prialablement quelles itaient les habitudes non verbales arabes; l'autre, le sujet contrble, a resu des informations non pertinentes. Les sujets expirimentaux se sont mieux conformis B l'enseignement r e p que les sujets contr6les. Les risultats montrent igalement que les Arabes prifkrent les sujets expirimentaux B plusieurs titres. La seconde experience est une riplique de la premiere, mais il s'agit cette fois $Anglais et non plus d'iirabes, l'hypothkse itant que les Anglais prifkreraient les compatriotes qui se comportent B la maniere anglaise plutBt qu'arabe. L'hypothese n'est pas confirm& : les Anglais, dans leur prifirence finale, sont indiffirents aux manipulations expirimentales. Les sujets expirimentaux sont plus souvent choisis dans l'expirience arabe que dans l'expirience anglaise.

Recently social psychologists have begun to focus their attention on communication between cultures and the misunderstandings that arise within the context of intercultural encounters. To date their concern has largely been with cultural differences in cognition (see Foa, 1967; Foa and Chemers, 1967; Danielian, 1967; Fiedler et af., 1971). Apart from differences in cognition and spoken convention affecting the course of an intercultural encounter, it is likely that cultural variations in non-verbal behaviour might also constitute a source of misunderstanding, and therefore provide a viable sphere for training in culture-contact. Haines (1964) and his colleagues have developed a technique for instructing Americans in the paralinguistic skills of target cultures. They show that trainees who have been confronted with a video-tape feedback of their own performances manifest better learning and retention of such skills than do those who have received conventional instruction. Hall (1964a, 1964b) has written at length on non-verbal behaviour in several cultures, and he has suggested that whereas the verbal content of a communication is usually perceived in intercultural encounters, the non-verbal signah are more frequently misconstrued. Watson and Graves (1966) have corroborated some of his observations in an empirical study in which they showed that Arabs engage in more mutual looking, position themselves far closer, orient themselves more directly, talk far louder and touch each other slightly more during face-to-face interaction than do Americans. In light of these cross-cultural differences and some recent research which suggests that non-verbal behaviours play as important, if not a more significant
I should like to thank my supervisors Michael Argyle, Paul Harris, Florisse Alkema and Ederyn Williams for their help and suggestions.
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role than language in the communication of affect (Argyle ef al., 1971), it was decided to investigate the possibility of more effective communication by Englishmen who employ the non-verbal behaviour of Arabs during interaction with them. A programme, designed to train Englishmen to employ these social skills, was therefore constructed from the Watson and Graves data, a review of the literature on Arab behaviour and material provided by Arab informants. The next task consisted in testing the effectiveness of the training programme. It was hypothesised that naive Arab Ss would prefer Englishmen who manifested typically Arab behaviour higher than they would those Englishmen who continued to employ their native behaviours. Secondly, we anticipated that Englishmen would show preference for compatriots who employed English rather than Arab behaviour in their presence. This latter hypothesis was invoked to render the findings of the first experiment unambiguous and to show that culture-trained Ss had been equipped with specifically Arab skills and not with a sample of pancultural skills.

METHOD AND PROCEDURE

Suljectts
Ten Arabs and fifty Englishmen, studying in Oxford and London, served as Ss. The Arabs were contacted through an Arab society and the English Ss were randomly selected from the student bodies of Oxford University and the London School of Economics. All Ss were male, between the ages of 18 and 2 5 .

Method
To test the iirst hypothesis, the Arab experiment was undertaken. Each of the ten trials involved an Arab and two Englishmen. On arrival at the laboratory the three Ss were ushered into separate cubicles. The two Englishmen were informed that they would be meeting an Arab and were then randomly assigned to the experimental (E) and control (C) conditions. The control subject (CS) was provided with unstructured material on the Arab world which was deemed to be unrelated to the immediate task of conversing with an Arab. The experimental subject (ES) received the training programme which instructed him as follows (preamble excluded) :
I

I. When you are introduced to your Arab partner, rise to your feet, then shake hands while lowering your head slightly. Nod and smile, all the time looking him in the eyes. 2. Once you have both sat down, pull your chair toward the Arabs so that, with your arm extended, you could touch his chest. Do not take up the out-of-reach distance that we usually adopt when we meet strangers. 3. Arabs always sit straight on ,instead of orienting themselves away from . Although you may find it rather strange the interactor as we so often do. Try to do likewise. 4 at first, it is important that you look the Arab constantly in the eyes while talking to him. Avoid averting your gaze at all costs, as Arabs feel more comfortable when there is more mutual looking. 5 . Although the smile usually conveys frienship in our culture, the emphasis placed o n smiling as a communication of friendship is far greater among Arabs. So try to smile at appropriate moments. 6. Do not at any stage point the soles of your feet at the Arab, for in his culture this is an insult, meaning something like You are worth as much as the dirt on my feet 7. Arabs prefer warm and frank interchanges. They also prefer personalised as opposed to abstract treatments of the topic at hand. In fact a delicate and considered answer in quite likely to offend him. So, if you speak your mind (without being offensive or disagreeing unnecessarily) and display a friendly and polite attitude, you are more likely to put the Arab at ease. 8. As soon as the experimental session is over, get up, shake hands with the Arab, then walk to the door. Allow him to leave the room first by opening the door and touching him on the shoulder (as you might a friend) as he goes through. Once in the passage, talk to him until the experimenter interrupts you. Then shake hands again. While in the passage, stand fairly close to the

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Arab. 9. Test yourself to see whether you remember these instructions. Do not disclose to the Arab that you have learned the above information. After 10-15 minutes both Englishmen were individually shown the room in which they were to meet the Arab. Essentially this afforded an opportunity for a practice session with the ES, during which the experimenter checked his behaviour. The CS was entertained in this room for the same period of time, during which he was briefed on the procedure and exhorted to d o his best to make a good impression and put the Arab at ease Once the Englishmen had been acquainted with the experimental room and had returned to their separate cubicles, the Arab was seated in the experimental room and an English S was brought in and introduced to him 2. The experimenter asked them to converse on the topic of Love for five minutes and, on a signal, to leave the room and wait in the passage till he had switched off the tape-recorder in the operations room and joined them. He then retired to an adjacent room which provided a view of the encounter through a one-way mirror. During the interaction a video tape-recorder and an event recorder were used by the experimenter and an assistant to record the behaviours contained within the training programme and itemised in Table I . After five minutes the conversation was terminated and the pair returned to their cubicles. At the end of each trial, the Arab was requested to make a series of sociometric choices between the two Englishmen he had met and he was asked to write a few paragraphs, giving his reasons for these choices. To test the hypothesis that Englishmen prefer compatriots who manifest English rather then Arab-like behaviour we ran another ten trials. The trials of the English experiment were identical in form to the previous trials of the Arab Experiment, though on this occasion an Englishman occupied the role (henceforth referred to as R) that had been filled by Arabs in the preceding trials. The preamble and phrasing of the training programme were altered for the purposes of credibility and the control subjects were now provided with a text on psychology rather than material o n the Arab world.
I

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RESULTS

Independent variables

Concerning the independent variables, we wished to show that, in both experiments, ESs performed more in line with the prescriptions of the training than did their control counterparts, and that the experimental manipulations in the English experiment matched those in the original Arab experiment. Application of Fishers Exact Probability Test to the data for the first five features of recorded behaviour in Table I ( i e . , the discrete data) revealed significant differTABLE 1
PERFORMANCE OF EXPERIMENTAL AND CONTROL SUBJECTS I N THE ARAB AND ENGLISH TRIALS

-___

Features of behaviour

lE
I0

Arab

C
9
I
0
I 0

English E

C
4
0
0

No of Ss who shook hands on 1st meeting No of Ss who did intermediate handshake 3. No of Ss who did parting handshake 4. No of Ss who allowed R through door first 5 . No of Ss who touched R on shoulder 6. Interpersonal distance in feet (mean) 7. Englishmens yo looking time (mean) 8. Average length of look in secs (mean) 9. Smiling time in secs (mean) 10.Personalised us abstract discourse
I.
2.

7 7
I0 I0

5
0

3.85 92.00 26.50 9.75

6.35 74.63
I I .oo

7.25 66.90
8.25

12.00

7.50

Trials were balanced for order, so that on alternate trials, an ES met an Arab first. 6,
NO

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ences (p < .or) in the expected direction between the performances of E and CSs in both experiments for the intermediate and parting handshakes, allowing R through the door first and touching on the shoulder. Though ESs engaged in significantly more initial handshakes than CSs in the English experiment, no such difference was found in the Arab experiment, thus suggesting the redundancy of this instruction in the training programme. Similarly, when comparing across experiments we were able, in all cases other than that of the initial handshake, to point to the absence of significantly different behaviours between ESs in the Arab and English experiments, and between the CSs in the Arab and English experiments. The results of the initial handshake indicate that CSs in the Arab experiment engaged in significantly more ( p < .oi) handshakes than CSs in the English experiment. Either this reflects the fact that Arab Rs initiated this handshake more often than English Rs, or else it suggests that the relative informality of the second experiment, Le., meeting a compatriot, demanded less handshakes. Separate analyses of variance were computed for the last four features of behaviour in Table I . For each analysis there were two factors, Experiments (Arab vs English) and Conditions (E VJ C). Significant main effects for conditions were found in the analysis of interpersonal distance (Flr18 = 388.70,p < .OOI), looking time (F,,,, = 2z.j I, p < .oar) and mean length of look (F,,,, = I 1.96, p < .oI), but not in the analysis of the data for smiling. This indicates that ESs sat closer to Rs, looked more and engaged in longer looks then CSs in both experiments, and that ESs failed to follow instructions concerning smiling. Throughout there were no main effects for experiments. A significant interaction between experiments and conditions was found in the analysis of interpersonal distance, showing that the experimental manipulation in the English experiment was stronger than that in the Arab experiment. To obtain data on the extent to which Ss discussed Lore in a personalised as opposed to an abstract manner, transcripts of the E and CSs side of the dialogue were independently rated by three judges on a ten-point scale. Precautions were taken to ensure that they remained unaware of which Ss fell into which condition. Inter-rater reliability was not found to be significantly positive, indicating that judges were unable to agree on what constitutes a personalised or an abstract treatment of topic. This data was therefore discarded. These calculations point to the absence of significant differences between experiments with respect to all of the tabled features of performance other than those of initial handshake and interpersonal distance in the control condition. As these differences between experiments would only operate in favour of disconfirmation of the second hypothesis we felt that they could safely be ignored. The English experiment was therefore regarded as a satisfactory replication of the Arab experiment. The calculations for differences between the behaviours of E and CSs in both experiments showed that ESs performed significantly more in line with instructions on all counts other than initial handshake (feature I) and smiling (feature 9). We were unable to obtain reliable data on treatment of topic (feature 10). Other items of the training programme, such as orientation to the other person and position of the feet were excluded from the analyses because no variations in these behaviours were observed during the experiments.
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Dependent variables The major dependent variable consisted of a questionnaire which required Rs to make sociometric choices between the E and CSs they had met. The statements, all phrased in the direction of positive evaluation, and the data from the questionnaire are presented in Table z. Three separate analyses of this data

TABLE 2
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RESULTS OF THE SOCIOMETRIC-CHOICE QUESTIONNAIRE IN THE ARAB AND ENGLISH EXPERIMENTS

Item in questionnaire : R would

...

No of times E/C chosen

EArabC

English E C

prefer to share flat with E/C prefer to be friends with E/C 3. prefer to take E/C back to his family 4. prefer to continue conversation with E/C 5 . trust E/C more 6 . thinks E/C was the nicer of the two 7. thinks E/C would understand him better
I.
2.

9 9

8 1
9

1 1

2 5

8 8

2 2

4 6 6 6 4 4 6

6 4 4 4 6 6 4

were undertaken. When the data were collapsed across items and a x 4 computed, it was found that ESs were chosen significantly more often ( p < .or) i n the Arab experiment than in the English experiment. An item by item analysis of the data, using Fishers Exact Probability Test, revealed significantlymore choices of the ESs in the Arab experiment than in the English experiment on the items of prefer to share a flat (apartment) with and trust him more (items I and 5 ) . The last computation consisted of a within-experiment, item by item analysis in which the number of choices of ESs was compared with a binomial distribution. None of the items in the English experimen were significantly different from a random process. This shows, contrary to our second hypothesis, that English Rs did not prefer compatriots who behaved in an English fashion; but instead remained indifferent to the experimental manipulations. On the other hand it was found that the extent to which Arabs chose ESs over CSs differed significantly from chance ( p < .OII) on three items. They stated they would prefer to share a flat with, would prefer to be friends with, and would trust ESs significantly more often than they would CSs (items I , z and j). The Arab Rs
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also showed preference ( p < .oi 5 ) for ESs which did not reach the criterion of significance but which reflected a positive trend in favour of ESs on the items of " take back to family "," think he was the nicer of the two " and " he would understand me better " (items 3, 6 and 7). They were indifferent as to with whom they would prefer to continue the conversation (item 4 ) .
DISCUSSION A N D CONCLUSION

Initially we hypothesised that Arabs would be more favourably inclined towards Englishmen who employed Arab-like behaviour than towards those who behaved in a characteristically English fashion. The analysis of the independent variables showed that the behaviour of E and CSs differed significantly in most instances, i.e., engaging in the intermediate and final handshakes, allowing the Arab through the door first and touching him on the shoulder, sitting close to the interlocutor and looking more and longer, and it is to these differences in performance that we attribute the subsequent, more frequent preference by Arabs for ESs. The second hypothesis, that Englishmen prefer compatriots who behave in an English fashion over those who adopt Arab behaviour, was not confirmed. The analyses of the independent variables revealed significant differences in behaviour between E and CSs, but these variations, though similar to those in the Arab experiment, were not shown to be related to preferences for particular fellow Englishmen. This suggests that whereas Arabs place more emphasis on variations in certain non-verbal behaviours when assessing Englishmen, Englishmen attend more to the residual features of performance (possibly tone, manifest attitude, etc.) in evaluating their compatriots. Thus, in relation to a limited sphere of behaviour the experiment illustrates that Arabs prefer Englishmen who behave like themselves over those those who continue to behave like Englishmen in their presence. Several aspects of the experimental design warrant discussion. First of all, a repeated measures design would probably have been better, in that Arab and English Rs would have met the same English E and CSs. Furthermore, instead of selecting statements for the questionnaire on an a priori, intuitive basis, we would have been more well-advised to employ an idiographic procedure which involved using culture-relevant statements which had experimentally been shown to have high salience for Arabs and Englishmen respectively (Hall, 1969). Alternatively we could have improved the dependent variable by asking Rs to make behavioural choices which they believed would implicate them in a later phase of the experiment, rather than the hypothetical statements used in this study. Finally, a more rigorous form of training with further practice trials and videotape feedback could have been instituted to ensure more consistent and authentic performances by ESs. This investigation was concerned with equipping Ss with a repertoire of motoric social skills from another culture. Unlike many other studies on the effects of culture training, it involved a fairly detailed analysis of what occurred during the interactions, and this enabled us to stipulate which behavioural differences, rather than which differences in training, were responsible for the more frequent selection of ESs by Arabs (see Collett, 1970). The procedure has impliINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY

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cations for programmes that are designed to train foreigners to accommodate themselves in target cultures.
REFERENCES

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ARGYLE, M., ALKEMA, F. & GILMORE, R. The communication of friendly and hostile attitudes by verbal and non-verbal signals. European JournaC of Social Pycboology, 1971(in press). COLLETT, P. Notes on intercultural training. Unpublished, 1970. DANIELIAN, J. Live simulation of affect-laden cultural cognitions. Journal o f Conflicf Resohtiott, 1967, 3, 312-132. FIEDLER, F.E., MITCHELL, T.R. & TRIANDIS, H.C. The culture assimilator. An approach to cross-cultural training. Journal .f Applied Psychology, 1971, 5 5 , 95-102. FOA,U.G. Differentiation in cross-cultural communication. In L. Thayer (Ed.), Communiration, concepts and perspectives. Washington : Spartan Books, 1967. FOA,U.G. & CHEMERS, M.M. The significance of role behaviour differentiation for crosscultural interaction training. International Journal of Psychology, 1967,I, 45-67. HAINES, D.B. Training for culture-contact and interaction skills. Aerospace Medical Research Laboratories, Wright-Paterson Air Force Base, Ohio, 1964. HALL,E.T. Adumbration as a feature of intercultural communication. American Anthropologist, r&a, 6 , 154-163. HALL,E.T. The hidden dimension. New York : Doubleday, 1964b. HALL,E.T. Personal communication, 1969. WATSON, O.M. & GRAVES, T.D. Quantitative research in proxemic behaviour. American Anthropo!ogist, 1966, 38, 971-985.

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