Analyse et interprétation psychologiques des comportements corporels en situation de communication interpersonnelle

Abstract

Bodily movements, such as gaze, head nods, hand gestures, body position or facial expressions, provide a lot of information. In an interpersonal exchange, they inform about interpersonal attitudes, behavioral intentions, emotional experiences and contribute to interaction regulation. Beyond this, nonverbal behaviors are parts of the process of utterance as complements or alternatives to the discourse. Many areas of psychology, anthropology, linguistics, medicine or education are interested in observation and interpretation of nonverbal behavior. Relying on theories and methods of psychology, this paper presents coding procedures and techniques for analyzing and interpreting bodily movements in social interactions. It proposes arguments in favour of a functional and contextual point of view.

Keywords

• bodily behaviors
• context
• interpersonal communication
• nonverbal coding
• interpretation
• meaning