"NVC is a very important part of success and can change how the VC is interpreted." (Argyle)
 

"Behaviour designed to create an impression on others." (Argyle)
 

"Non-verbal signs for friendly and hostile, superior and inferior have a much greater impact than their verbal equivalents." (Argyle)

"Some 65 percent of meaning in dyadic (two-person) commmunication is carreid non-verbally." (Birtwhistell - 1970)

”Most of our NV signalling is done through facial movements but we do use our hands to punctuate our talks in various ways. These particular expressive gestures are known as batons. “ (Gill and Adams)

Self Presentation and Role:

"You may find your ideal self is based on individuals you admire: people you feel you have come to know through the mass media." (Desmond Morris 1978)

Personae are the various 'masks' we might wear when undertaking roles. While these personae are to some extent selected or encouraged by our respective roles or contexts, we are not bound to them. (Adapted from Beck/Bennett/Wall)

"If personae are masks, performances describes the ways in which they can be worn. These ways range crudely from 'for real' to 'ironically/for laughs/ for reward." (Beck/Bennett/Wall)

"Self-presentation is a sort of extended dramatic performance." (Goffman)

"Definition by role becomes more prominant as we mature (undergraduates refer to the idea of role twice as often as 7-year-olds.(Goffman)

"The gap between self-image and ideal self is likely to be a measure of an individual's self-worth or 'self-esteem', as the third component of self-concept is usually known. (Rogers)

"I speak through my clothes." (Eco)

"Put an ordinary man, with a negligible personality, into a policeman.s uniform and immediately his every act changes and becomes more power laden." (Desmond Morris)

"Society appears as a kind of fancy-dress party in which identities are designed, tried on, worn for the evening and then traded in for the next." (Slater)
 
"Within an existing social system, people are assigned to rôles. A given individual performs a specified set of behaviours and occupies a specific position. To some extent, these behaviours are performed by any person occupying that position regardless of who he is or what his personal characteristics are." (Berlo)

Groups and Group Leadership

A group can develop norms which restrict its members' behaviour and communication; on the other hand a group can provide support and understanding for its members and allow them to express themselves in way that they otherwise would not have done. (Hartley)

"Conformity: This might usefully be defined as the tendency of individuals to adhere to or follow the conventions or norms of a particular group or situation. It refers to the way we fit in with the expectations of a particular group or situation." (Beck/Bennett/Wall)

"Leaders have to cope with continuous flow of event which they have to respond to." (Smith and Peterson)

"Leadership behaviour demonstrates the importance of gathering information, listening to other people´s responses and avoiding such behaviours as negative evaluation, disagreeing, criticising and ignoring other people.s contributions." (Wright)

The following Interpersonal Communication Skills are useful to Group Members: (Dimbleby and Burton)
To be able to offer praise for ideas and actions
To be able to show agreement with group ideas
To be able to offer information and ideas
To be able to evaluate ideas and information
To be able to invite opinions and involvement
To be able to bring together ideas and opinions
To be able to suggest actions involving the groups

In a group such as a teaching group, there may be something to be learned from the relationship between positioning in relation to the teacher and group interaction. Some positions may in fact be inherently stronger than others and may as a result be occupied by those who have the greatest influence.(Moreno)

To take the floor, a listener can:
1. actually interrupt; there may be a brief battle, volume being the principal weapon
2.show impatience, using rapid head-nods, often accompanied by verbal signals such as 'yes', 'but' or 'well'

To keep the floor, a speaker can:
1. raise the volume when the other interrupts and keep the volume raised if the other continues to try to interrupt  
2. keep a hand in mid-gesture at the end of sentences

To yield the floor, a speaker can:
1. come to the end of a sentence
2. end by trailing off, or end with something open-ended like 'you know'
3.drawl the final syllable
4.end on a prolonged rising or falling pitch
5.come to the end of some of the hand movements accompanying speech
6.gaze at the other

To decline an offer of the floor, a listener can:
1.nod grunt or make 'uh-huh' noises
2.complete the sentence
3.briefly request clarification
4.briefly restate what the speaker said

Transactional Analysis

A transaction consisting of a single stimulus and a single response, verbal or non-verbal, is the unit of social action. It is called a transaction because each party gains something from it, and that is why he (sic) engages in it. Anything that happens between two or more people can be broken down into a series of single transactions, and this gives all the advantages which any science attains when it has a well-defined system of units. (Berne)