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The Intimate Winking Intimate Winking The face is an organ of emotion and we constantly read facial expressions to understand what others are feeling. The face also contains other powerful clues. Our identity is captured in our features and our eyes reveal important truths about us, even those we would prefer to conceal. We use facial expressions as a process of sending and receiving wordless messages such as smiling, frowning, laughing, and winking to name a few.
Body language symbols may be learned, innate, or mixed. An eye wink is clearly an example of a learned behavior because for one to understand how it is used and the contextual meaning behind it, one must participate in a heterogeneous social group. Intimacy or being intimate is a fundamental characteristic of our existence. Intimacy represents an important component of human functioning. Outside of intimacies inner depth, at it surface intimacy is a? sweet attraction that pulls us towards another person? (Jawyer, 2000).
Eye winking is an empirical indicator of intimacy. What are the operational and conceptual definitions of an eye wink? The operational ization of an eye wink is the shutting of one eyelid while the other eye remains open. Winking associates few meanings compared to its other facial counterparts. Acknowledgement is one interpretation of a wink that conveys greetings (hello, bye, talk to you later). Acceptance and belonging both elucidate an interpretation by illustrating clear meaning tied to winking.
Winking most often is a passive gesture generally used to soften a message between parties. Not only does winking soften messages, but it also contributes many sensuous connotations such as flirting, joking, and loving symbols, which confirms the theory proposed. Usually transmitted in a positive form, the winking eye? s interpretation is left to the recipients to judge for themselves. Dimensions found by Hewitt and Shawhan (1999) state that intimacy is temporarily adopting increased feelings of love, adoration and closeness to their partner.
Many facial expressions are universal, though most may be shaped by cultural usages and rules. Conceptually defining a wink isn? t necessary because a wink is an American gesture that? s conceptually known amongst the population. Conceptually defining intimacy would help if first we took the dictionary? s definition: the condition of being intimate (Merriam-Webster, 2000). ?
Intimacy a deep, heart-to-heart, mind-to-mind connection with another person? (Farmington, 2000). There is an abundance of factors that affect intimacy itself such as the length of relationship, exclusivity of relationship, frequency of affection, commitment, and relationship satisfaction. Intimacies observable or empirical characteristics allows proxemics, continuous eye gazing, embracing, and hand holding to be measured between heterogeneous parties. Since a good conceptual devise has been created this allows the operational definition to be specified more concretely. Given the very limited research on the relationship between winking and intimacy, it seems premature to articulate a specific research hypothesis. Rather, we propose specific research questions.
RQ 1: Are there discrete intimate meanings associated with eyewink's? RQ 2: Once a wink is communicated does the relationship move to another level of intimacy? RQ 3: Is a wink considered an element of self-disclosure? Review of literature Utilizing previous reliable work that has been proven valid curtails the testing instruments work level. In Irwin Altman and Dallas Taylors (1973) social penetration theory, self-disclosure is significantly correlated with the personality characteristics of both the discloser and the personality of the target interacting. This procedure of social penetration in which individuals open up to one another in increasing levels of intimacy, is a process more recently recognized as one aspect of uncertainty reduction in relationship development (Goodwin, Nizharadze, Lan Anh, Kosa, Emelyanova, p 72).
Altman and Taylor describe the development of a relationship as a process of social penetration during which interact ants broaden the breadth of the topic and increase the depth at which they are discussed. Altman and Taylor? s theory is a good example of the traditional linear model of communication, meaning relationships proceed gradually in one direction. The model has often been compared to the structure of an onion because of its multiple layers. The layers of an onion represent the many stages in a person?
s personality with each progressive layer claiming a higher degree of intimacy. Social penetration theory posits four stages of relationship development (orientation, exploratory affective exchange, affective exchange, and stable exchange) and suggests that disclosure becomes deeper (more intimate) as a relationship develops from acquaintance stage to friendship and romantic involvement. An eye wink would be described as a peripheral item, but its measurement is valid to the social penetration theory because this theory measures intimacy through self-disclosure. This is the layer of the onion where people flirt in a discrete manner to reduce uncertainty and invite the recipient into your life.
Altman and Taylor propose that relationship formation will proceed gradually and in an orderly fashion, through reciprocal exchange from non-intimate, relatively unemotional aspects of the selves to intimate, private and vulnerable central core aspects of the selves (Duck &# 038; Gilmour, p 15). The events that occur in the formation of any relationship are, according to Altman and Taylor encompassed by four social penetration processes: verbal exchange, nonverbal use of the body, use of physical environment, and interpersonal perceptions. All of these processes occur in different ways at different levels of intimacy and encounter. Verbal behaviors provide the informational content of an interaction while nonverbal behavior involves use of the body, such as postures and position, gestures, limb and head movements, facial expressions such as smiling, eye gaze, etc. Use of the physical environment includes manipulation of spatial features including personal space between people and of physical objects and areas.
All of these communicative behaviors are accompanied by subjective, interpersonal perceptions as to what the other communicant is like. According to Theories of Human Communication (Littlejohn, p 266), as relationships develop, communication moves from relatively shallow, non intimate levels to deeper, more personal ones. There are many factors that hinder the formation of relationships. There are three general categories for intervening, noncommunicative encounters.
The first is the personal characteristics of the participants involved in the interaction. The looks, personality and social needs of each person in an interaction will influence how they manage the interaction. The second is the outcome of the exchange as to whether the participants liked one another or if they feel there is something to be gained from the relationship. The third and last is the situational context which will dictate whether the participants are free to enter or leave a relationship. Recognizing that within relationships there is both the influence of personal perceptions as well as social and environmental factors is critical.
We also need to recognize that there is a great diversity of relationships in both form and content, but they seek to develop some general empirical and theoretical notions about the formation of relationships (Duck &# 038; Gilmour, p 15). Method In reviewing which experimental design to use on this study, one must evaluate multiple factors that prevent intervening variables from skewing the results. Quasi-experimental method was used because the independent variable winking can be manipulated, but because of control factors it was chosen otherwise, therefore ruling out full-experimentation. Quasi- experiments are more consistent with external threats and lack consistency internally because they measure real world experiences. This is reliable because quasi-experiments are most often conducted in the field rather than a laboratory. The pretest-posttest quasi-equivalent group design offers pre and post-tests following a treatment.
The pre-tests that are given is a conversation between two heterogeneous people without being exposed to the treatment. The conversation consists of a flirtatious encounter without the use of an eye wink. The treatment then added is the implementation of a wink within the course of the conversation. The female test administrator applies the treatment to the male test subject during their scripted roles. This allows for control of the independent variable. Once the treatment has been exposed observation becomes a major role in collecting data.
The accuracy of accumulated results that concludes our experiment is only as accurate as our operational ization of intimacy. This method in the selection of quasi-experiments was chosen because multiple pre and post-test were unnecessary for conduction such a survey. Sleeper effects and aberration contribute major concerns amongst single-group interrupted time series design because researchers have trouble determining what the ambiguous motives of the results are from. For the same reason that the single-group design wasn?
t used, the interrupted time series design wasn? t used as well. The reasoning behind not using multiple tests is because winking is a fundamental conceptual indicator. Pretests were not used as a result of having an informative literature review. If a weak literature review were conducted than pretests would be essential to the validity of the experiment. An important measurement in choosing a variable that communicates intimacy concerns consistent reliability and validity of the independent variables (winking) on the dependent variable (intimacy).
We must remember that the face is perhaps the most powerful channel of nonverbal communication and people encode messages in facial expressions differently, thus numerous possibilities affecting intimacy can be argued. To determine the reliability and validity of winking on intimacy one must assess sampling techniques. The quasi-experimental design chosen relies more heavily on external validity with some degree of internal validity having affect. A stratified external sampling technique was used for this study to represent accuracy in a specific setting (college). Random sampling was taken from a college campus with participants attaining demographics of age ranging from 18 - 23. Findings from our experiment were used to generalize the level of intimacy a wink posses in a collegiate atmosphere.
Internal validity measures the consistency at which the researcher, research participants, and how research has been conducted is accurate with the results obtained. Since the conversation between test subject and administrator was scripted for them, procedural consistency is confirmed. Research participants were unaware of the scenario and because they were selected randomly, personal bias was not accounted for. Measures were used to decrease the amount of researcher effects by having multiple researchers (inter observers) agree to 80 % what was the cause-effect relationship. Since internal validity was difficult to achieve, measures were taken to decrease the amount of threats to the study. Measuring validity determines the accuracy of the results.
Validity was based upon the relevance in which eye winking had a positive effect on the increase of intimacy between the couple. Predictive validity was essential to this study as an instrument to forecast an optimistic outcome. By studying this power principle phenomenon, researchers will be more able to explain the meaning ensuing winking rather than predicting occurrence. A list of propositions follow: 1. As disclosure of personal emotions (feelings) increase the contextual level of winking increases as well. 2. If winking is a factor of self-disclosure than intimacy and winking are interconnected. 3.
Winking contains intimacy. In heterogeneous relationships there is positive rapport that an increased amount of winking causes an increase in the intimacy level between participants as measured by the social penetration theory. Duck, S. Gilmour, R. (1981). Personal Relationships 1: Studying Personal Relationships.
Academic Press: London. Personal Relationships. Academic Press: London. Farrington, Jan. (2000). On the Road to Intimacy: Can Sex get in the Way? Current Health 2, Supplement Human Sexuality, Vol. 26 Is Goodwin, R. , Nizharadze, G. , Lan Anh Nguyen, L, .
Kosa, E. , Emelyanova, T. (1999). Glasnost and the Art of Conversation. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. Vol. 30 Issue I, p 72 Hewitt, J. , Shawhan, J. , (1999). Intimacy of Relationship as a Function of Positivity vs. Accuracy of Perceived Evaluative Feedback.
Perceptual &# 038; Motor Skills, Vol. 89 Issue 2, p 651. Jawyer, Jeff. , (2000). The Astrology of Intimacy. Available: web [November 15, 2000 ] Littlejohn, S. W. Theories of Human Communication.
Wadsworth Publishing Co. ? 1999. p 266 - 268. Merriam-Webster Incorporated. (2000). Available: web [November 15, 2000 ]
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