Disrupting the flow: How brief silences in group conversations affect social needs
Koudenburg, Postmes and Gordijn, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 47(2), 2011, 512-515. Study 1: a written scenario of a fluent conversation with or without a brief silence after a mildly controversial statement; the silence raised rejection and negative emotion, and flow went with higher belonging, self-esteem, social validation and perceived consensus; control was unaffected. Study 2: a six-minute video of three women discussing relationships, with a four-second silence edited in or not, plus a baserate group given only script and photographs. The silence condition showed more rejection and negative emotion and lower belonging, self-esteem, validation and consensus than the flow and baserate groups, which did not differ. Participants did not consciously detect the silence. Authors read fluent talk as an implicit route to social validation.
Koudenburg, Postmes and Gordijn, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 47(2), 2011, 512-515. Study 1: a written scenario of a fluent conversation with or without a brief silence after a mildly controversial statement; the silence raised rejection and negative emotion, and flow went with higher belonging, self-esteem, social validation and perceived consensus; control was unaffected. Study 2: a six-minute video of three women discussing relationships, with a four-second silence edited in or not, plus a baserate group given only script and photographs. The silence condition showed more rejection and negative emotion and lower belonging, self-esteem, validation and consensus than the flow and baserate groups, which did not differ. Participants did not consciously detect the silence. Authors read fluent talk as an implicit route to social validation.
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Koudenburg, N., Postmes, T., & Gordijn, E. H. (2011). Disrupting the flow: How brief silences in group conversations affect social needs. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47(2), 512-515. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2010.12.006 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2010.12.006