Accuracy in Nonverbal Communication as Affected by Trait and State Anxiety

Abstract

66 students from a midwest junior college participated in an investigation of the effects of trait and state anxiety on accuracy in interpreting nonverbal communication. The students were asked in normal and stress-induced settings to decode facial emotions from a series of slides depicting 6 categories of facial expressions. Analysis indicated that low trait-anxious subjects were more accurate in interpreting nonverbal facial expressions in stressful situations, whereas high trait-anxious subjects were superior in non-stressful situations but showed a significant deterioration in accuracy when subjected to situational stress.