Refers to the interpretation of an act or line of action by others when it was not intended by the actor.
Acculturation
The processes by which people acquire culture, starting at their birth and ending at their death.
Action language
Refers to how body behaviors, or lines of action, are interpreted, simulating language.
Additive model of aging
An approach to the aging process that suggests that people can maintain or increase their general abilities as they age.
Adaptors
Body behaviors, such as scratching or itching, that people use unconsciously, considered to be evolutionary adaptations to the biological environment.
Affiliation
Refers to identification with, or relationship to, one person with another.
Ageism
The stereotyping of the aging process, often expressed by the media or by people who are uninformed by the scientific intricacies of aging.
Agentry
Refers to the ways that people, on their own behalf, enact behaviors creatively in response to perceived expectations in a situation.
Agonistic
Refers to difficult behaviors that tend to be aggressive, associated with early growth, especially among males.
Androgyny
The process whereby males and females are able to manifest behaviors associated with either gender. Males can become more empathic and females can become more assertive, for example.
Anosmia
Refers to the impairment of the human sense of smell.
Anthropomorphism
The process of labeling animal behavior using terms that apply to human behavior.
Archetypes
In Jungian psychology, an inherited and unconscious mode of thought that is derived from the prior experience of the human race, but found in the modern individual.
Assimilation
Referring to the process by which people become absorbed into a group.
Automatic pilot
Refers to the fact that human behavior is often ritualized such that little or no thought is necessary to perform an action.
Autonomic nervous system
The hunan nervous system that governs involuntary actions.
Artifacts
Products, articles and goods that humans create and used, often serving to help interpret their behaviors, values or beliefs.
Aurality
Refers to the sense and process of hearing.
Back-channeling
The ways that people respond to others in conversations, usually nonverbally, to affirm or deny what others are saying; for example, by nodding their heads, indicating agreement.
Bi-culturalism
Refers to people who share more than one culture in a society.
Body identity
Refers to the symbolic representation of one's physical body.
Body language
The suggestion that bodily actions can be organized into patterns resembling patterns found in spoken language.
Body shine
Erving Goffman's phrase suggesting that the body gives off cues to others in human interaction, although the cues may not be known to the body's owner.
Body signature
Refers to the characteristic ways that people use their bodies.
Broca's area
The area of the brain in which many scientists think that language is encoded.
Channels
Many scholars in nonverbal communication refer to the use of the various senses as channels; nonverbal communication is multi-channeled compared to verbal communication, employing many channels at once.
Chronemics
Refers to time as a nonverbal background factor influencing human communication.
Chronobiology
The interaction of time and biology in the regulation of human behavior.
Circadian rhythm
Daily biological changes that influence human behaviors. For example, sleep and waking are daily events.
Co-construction
The process of jointly creating meaning in interaction with single or multiple others.
Communicative technologies
All technologies affect and effect communication, the principle ones being television and the computer, the internet in modern society.
Contact hypothesis
Refers to the patterns of behavior associated with first contacts among groups of humans, whether hostile or friendly, for example.
Co-cultures
The emphasis upon equality among ethnic cultures.
Codes
Refers to the often hidden set of rules or symbols, physical or social, which when interpreted give meaning to an event, body behavior or activity.
Cognition
The process of perceiving and knowing, becoming aware of phenomena.
Collective behavior
Group or mass behaviors that are often patterned and interpretable.
Communal
Refers to the emphasis upon groupness among various cultures, as opposed to the emphasis upon invidualism.
Construal
The creative process of translating the meaning of experiences throughout life.
Contingency
Referring to the enactment of lines of nonverbal action, one act dependent upon another in an ongoing sequence of interactions.
Cosmologies
The ways that members of cultures collectively organize their beliefs about the meaning of life and the universe.
Craniometry
The study of the shape of the human head to determine how races compare, one with the other.
Culture
The distinctive customs, religious beliefs, habits, languages and technologies that are shared commonly by people in various parts of the world.
Deficit model of aging
An approach to aging that suggests that people lose their general abilities as they age, suffering a decline in mental and physical abilities.
Digital divide
Refers to the general lack of access to computers and the internet which affects women, various ethnic groups and older citizens.
Discourse styles
The distinctive ways that various groups communicate verbally and nonverbally.
Disinhibition
The freedom to act out behaviors on the internet that would normally be suppressed in face-to-face communication.
Display rules
Cultural and social expectations that influence people to act appropriately; guides to dress and other behavioral actions.
Dramaturgy
Use of a theatrical model to do research and to explain human actions.
Dyads
Two person units involved in human interaction.
Dysfunctional
Refers to behaviors that are considered impaired or abnormal.
Ectomorphs
In Sheldon's research, refers to a slight body build, a somatype.
Egalitarianism
The belief that people are equal or that barriers to social, economic and political inequality should be removed.
Emoticons
Symbols and icons used on the internet to substitute for emotional expressions.
Endomorphs
In Sheldon's research, refers to the short, heavy, often fat person, as a somatype.
Emblem
A nonverbal cue or act that can take the place of words.
Engagement-disengagement
Words used to describe how people are said to behave, either by interactive withdrawal or increased involvement.
Enclave
A culturally distinct region of a city or country; for example, Chinatown.
Enculturation
The processes by which people learn the ways of their culture.
Ethnicity
Refers to the characteristics, traits and behaviors of groups whose members share a common identity, often minorities in a society.
Ethnographic
A type of research that uses the methods of field study to focus on the behaviors of specific group members, often ethnic.
Ethology
The scientific study of animal behaviors, especially higher order primates.
Evolution
The general theory that existing living things have their origins in pre-existing types and that modifications have occurred over time.
Face
In interaction, the symbolic front that people display to other people.
Facial primacy
The emphasis upon the face as the primary expressor of emotions, compared to other parts of the human body.
Filtered reality
Refers to mediated communication in which television, for example, alters daily reality. Refers as well to perceptual processes which act as selective lenses.
Folkculture
A type of culture that is transmitted orally, containing stories and myths associated with that culture.
Gaze aversion
Refers to the avoidance of eye contact with others.
Gender
Male and female identities, constructed in social interaction.
Genderlect
The spoken language of a male or female speech community.
Genetics
A branch of biology that deals with the heredtiy and variation of living things.
Genome Project
A scientific project devoted to the task of unlocking the secrets of the genetic code.
Gentling
The process of providing tactile nurturance to newborns, whether human or other animals.
Gestalt
Refers to the process of perceiving objects, physical and social, as whole units, not separable into parts.
Gesture
In Meadian philosophy and psychology, it was a body act, simple or complex, by which meaning is established in interaction.
Glass ceiling
A see-through boundary in organizations and businesses that stopped females and people of color from gaining access to higher level positions although they could see the positions usually filled by white males.
Global Village
The construction of a universal village ied together by modern media forms that crossed international boundaries, as discussed by Marshall McLuhan.
Gustatory
Refers to the taste sense.
Habituation
The ability to perform acts, or lines of actions, without requiring active or prior thought by the actor.
Haptics
The study of the ways that humans and other animals use touch or grasping behaviors.
Hardwired
The imaginative idea that human behavior is the direct result of instinctive or biologically driven mechanisms.
Hierarchy
A graded or ranked system that locates different species on different levels of importance.
High and low contexts
Refers to Hall's analysis of the place of implicit or explicit communicative patterns of behavior; high contexts are implicit and low are explicit.
Historiography
A scientific approach to the study of history to uncover, or discover, patterns of behaviors that may help to understand present day behaviors.
Hormonal cycles
Male and female body secretions that effect changes in the body over a period of a day, month or year, thereby affecting behavior.
Hyper-reality
The creation or simulation of everyday behaviors by computerized methods.
Hysterical personalities
The old belief that women were negatively affected by traumas or disturbances of the womb.
Icon
A pictograph used on the computer. An image of a person, place or object to which people attach devotion or adulation.
Identity
The distinguishing character of the personality or behaviors of an individual.
Imbeddedness
The process in which social dynamics are an inherent part of everyday activities and behaviors.
Immediacy
The attractive behaviors of an individual or people that increase their likability and reduce physical distance between people, as suggested by Mehrabian.
Impression management
The process of monitoring and managing oneself in the presence of others.
Information technologies
All technologies yield information, but reference in this case is to the computer and computer related technologies.
Intentional nonverbal communication
Acts, or lines of action, that are pre-planned by the actor or actors.
Interaction analysis
The study of interactive behaviors by the use of scientifically valid instruments and methods.
Interethnic adaptability
The ability of members of ethnic groups to relate to members of other ethnic groups in positive and flexible ways.
Intersubjectivity
The mutual sharing of meanings, behaviors, activities and events by actors in interactive situations.
Jim Crow Laws
Laws that were enacted to prevent Negroes from having the same rights as Whites despite the emancipation of the Negro.
Joint interactions
The working together of participants in dyads or groups to accomplish goals or share activities.
Kinesics
The study of body movements and actions in human nonverbal communication.
Knowbots
A robot that can perform tasks in libraries and other places that require specialized knowledge.
Labeling process
The naming of people, objects or social events for identification purposes.
Leakage Hypothesis
The scientific statement that suggests that human bodies give off information to observors without the body owner’s knowledge that it is occurring.
Lifeworld
Refers to all of the events, meanings and activities that constitute a person’s sense of the meaning of life.
Logic-in-use
The pragmatic schemas and thoughts that guide individuals as they enact behaviors in daily life.
Looking glass self
Cooley's theory that in social interaction, people ‘see’ themselves reflected in the appraisals of others.
Manifest destiny
The American White man's belief that it was inevitable that he would expand to the Pacific. It was his destiny, regardless of the consequences.
Man principle
Reference is to the fact that, for centuries, men were in charge of social, political and economic events. The power of men to control human interactions.
Marginalization
The forcing of minorities and women out of the mainstream of political, economic or social life.
Matriarchal society
A social system in which the woman is head of the family, tribe or nation in which descent of future generations is from the female line.
Media ecology
The study of the influence of the media, especially television, film, radio and the internet upon the quality and character of a given society or milieau.
Meta-analysis
The systematic study of numerous research outcomes to determine the patterns that are common to them, not apparent when one focuses on a few studies.
Metaphor
Figurative language that is used to describe a person, an object or an event. For example, people say that a computer 'thinks'.
Methusaleh factor
The focus on very old age as noted in the Bible in reference to Methusaleh, allegedly the oldest man who ever lived.
Microcosm
A unit that is a smaller version of something larger; in Meadian philosophy, child play was a microcosm of later adult behaviors.
Micro-meso-macro processes
The idea that human behavior may be studied in the context of small, mid-sized, or large, society-wide processes.
Mindlessness
The inattentiveness of humans to eventsthat when mindfully attended to can provide meanings that are otherwise not known, as discussed by S. Langer.
Minimal universality
The thesis that some human behaviors are universal, at least in a minimal way. Ekman and others described body movements that they thought revealed this phenomenon.
Modeling
The direct and indirect following of the behaviors of another person by a young child or other person.
Monolithic ethnic group
The false assumption that members of an ethnic group are all alike.
Moore's Law
The knowledge that changes in technologies are increasing in their doubling time.
Motor skill
Skills that arise from the physiological development of the human body, such as the ability to walk.
Multi-culturalism
The study of the interplay of groups from many different ethnic backgrounds.
Native
Members of oral cultures, as studied by early anthropologists; however, the word is used sometimes to describe people who live in modern societies as well.
Negotiation
In symbolic interactionism, the act of mutually creating meaning with others in interaction, resulting in an interpretation of the interaction or event by each actor.
Networking
Patterned ways that people interact with others in play or work and in interpersonal and group relationships.
Nonconsciousness
Personal unawareness of events that are occurring. Inattentiveness.
Neurological system
The neural-chemical brain system in humans and other species.
Olfaction
The smell system in the human body and in other species.
Oculesics
The study of eye movements, including pupillometry, or action of the pupils.
Oral tradition
The passing on to new generations the culture of the older generation through storytelling, singing, chanting or other rituals, not by the use of modern technologies.
Paradigm
An organized model or pattern used by researchers.
Paralanguage
Vocalized patterns, tones and emphases associated with spoken words that can convey special meanings separate from the meaning of the words in use.
Parapsychology
A field of study that is associated with the study of telepathy, clairvoyance or psychokinesis; the popular study of the sixth sense.
Patriarchal society
A society that is controlled by men in which the descendants of males continue the practice.
Perception
The ability of humans to make symbolic sense of information derived from the senses, from intuition or from imagination.
Pheromones
In many, perhaps most species, including humans, the smells that are produced by the skin or other organ to attract others of the same species.
Phrenology
The study of the structure of the skull in the belief that it is indicative mental abilities or character.
Physiognomy
The attempt to establish character or other thoughts about people by examining their outward appearance.
Place
Used in this text to indicate that people create personal and collective meanings for the areas where they have been raised or presently occupy.
Polysemia
The idea that words, events, people and objects can be interpreted in many different ways by individuals or by groups.
Post-modernism
The view held by many scholars that new patterns of authority and organization brought about essentially by the computer in an information age, are replacing those of the prior industrialized structure of society, thereby altering human relationships and ways of interpreting human behavior.
Pragmatism
Part of the symbolic interactionist view, which suggests that meaning lies essentially in how people act or behave. James and Peirce believed that the function of thought is to guide human action.
Primates
Mammalian species that include humans, higher order animals, such as chimpanzees and other species.
Proxemics
The study of the human uses of space; patterns of use in various cultures.
Pupilommetry
The study of the movements of the pupil in the eye, which are under the control of the autonomic nervous system, as initiated by Hess in his studies of cats.
Qualitative methods
The multiple ways that researchers use to try to understand the meaning of events and activities as understood by the subjects themselves, often referred to as participatory or the living subjects research.
Quantitative methods
The multiple ways that researchers use when they study subjects usually in the laboratory, in which, often, they represent subjects numerically.
Race
The older classification of humans according to physical characteristics, such as shape of head, color of skin, hair patterns, body structure and so on. Now considered scientifically ineffective.
Racism
The stereotypical characterization, usually negative, of members of ethnic groups by the members of other ethnic groups.
Racial profiling
The deliberate act of targeting members of ethnic minorities, usually Black, by White police officers and others, in an attempt to solve crimes or effect other policies, usually established by Whites.
Reductionism
The practice of some researchers to reduce complex behaviors to simple terms, often simplistic, thereby creating error in their interpretations of the behaviors.
Reflexivity
Perhaps better stated as reflectivity, it is the process of self-thought, of thinking about the meaning of events, of interactive situations, of the behavior of self and others in an effort to make sense of the circumstances.
REM studies
The study of the rapid eye movement associated with dreaming.
Reptilian stare
It has been suggested that some schizophrenic people use the fixed stare interactively, sometimes due to the effects of medical treatment.
Rituals
Customized, repeated acts found in events and in interpersonal situations, such as in marriages, funeralsand festivities. It can refer to ritualized behaviors by individuals as well.
Role playing
In symbolic interactionism it is the ability of an individual to observe and take the role of another that is key to identity. One learns how to play roles, such as playing the role of a student.
Saturated self
Gergen's idea that the creation of personal identity is made difficult, complex and very uncertain in an age saturated by television and other media.
Scripts
In symbolic interactionism, it is the observation that humans act as though they were following a script; they are influenced by past events and experiences and act accordingly in ways that make sense to them.
Segregation
In this context, it is the idea that young boys and young girls gradually segregate themselves by genders, as noted by Maccoby, only to return to cross-gendered relationships later in life.
Semantics
Essentially the study of meanings that humans create in interaction with others.
Self-presentation
In symbolic interactionism, the idea that humans present themselves to others as though they were on the stage of life. From the work of Erving Goffman.
Self-talk
The process of holding a conversation the self in an attempt to create meaning for the actions of self or of others.
Semiosis
The study of how objects, events and behaviors mean something to people, as signs and symbols.
Sensemaking
The interpretation of the meaning of behaviors in interaction. The ability to construct meaning from events, from self and others.
Sensory
Of or relating to the senses and how the information from them is used.
Signification
The human act of giving meaning to a sign or symbol.
Situated self
The human being is located in a milieau or context which influences her or his behaviors.
Sixth sense
Intuition, esp, clairvoyance or precognition are sometimes thought to comprise a sixth sense.
Socialization
The various and complex social processes that influence the growth of a human from birth to death.
Socio-drama
In symbolic interactionism, using a dramaturgical metaphor, human acts in interaction are referred to as socio-dramas. Television programs are sociodramatic forms.
Sociometry
The scientific measurement of the uses of space by humans.
Somatypes
As in Sheldon's studies, the placing of body shapes and sizes into categories.
Standpoint theory
The idea that all humans are born into and occupy a location in society that influences their behaviors.
Stereotypes
The labeling of people and events by using poor or little information, leading to false conclusions.
Stigmas
The creation of negative stereotypes for people that tend to limit their social success, such as acting toward 'fat' people pejoratively.
Strategy
In symbolic interactionism, the deliberate use of a line of action to accomplish an interactive goal, whether it is to build a good relationship or to deceive others.
Style
Refers to the ways that people present themselves, often in patterned ways; style is sometimes interpreted in opposition to substance, suiggesting that style is transitory.
Symbols, signs and signals
Taken together, these terms refer to the metaphorical ways that humans assign meaning to objects, people and events.
Symbolic interactionism
The scientific investigation of the ways that human create meaning for their lives in interaction.
Synchronicity
Things that occur together; Jung's theory that the collective unconscious of humans acts to create events that occur together.
Taboo
A behavior or act that is risky to perform, unacceptable to society.
Tactility
Similar to haptics, it refers to the use of the hands or limbs to grasp or touch objects or humans.
Techno-language, techno-speak
Specialized language that is derived from modern technologies, such as emoticon or web-site, words that are part of the new lexicon.
Technology
Any tool that is created by humans to be used by them; all tools have a communicative potential.
Telepresence
The saturation of society by the media, especially television, creates a new form of human presence, a mediated presence.
Testosterone
The hormone found in humans, mostly in males, that can lead to aggressive behavior.
Threshold
The idea that each human sense operates within a range of capabilities, beyond which it cannot function.
Tie-signs
Focuses on the importance of relational ties with others that humans create over a life-span.
Time, monochronic and polychronic
The breakdown of types of time associated with various cultures. The United States is said to operate on a monochronic scale.
Transactionalism
A scientific approach to the study of human relationships that focuses on how people give and take information.
Triangulation
In symbolic interactionist research, the use of various scientific methodologies to focus on a research topic in order to provide accuracy.
Victimology
The study of how groups of people have been victimized by other groups and how some groups perceived themselves as victims.
Virtual reality
The simulated reality that can be created by using computers programs.
Vocal signatures
The suggestion that humans have unique, identifying vocal features, one individual in comparison to another.
Voice set
The concept that vocal patterns seem inflexible, especially when one listens to older people speak.
White man's burden
The alleged duty of the White man to manage the affairs of less developed nations or peoples, as described in Kipling's poem, 1899.
Worldview
The concept that every individual, under the influence of culture, possesses a way of viewing the world.
Weltanschauung
A German word to describe the concept of a worldview.
Xenophobia
Essentially the fear of foreigners, arising from background influences or prior relationships.
Yellow Peril
The term used to describe the presence of Chinese in America, who, in theory, under economically difficult times, took jobs away from Whites.
Zoomorphic gods
Mythological gods in the form of animals often worshipped in ritual or feared, who could control the fate of humans, such as the dragon in Chinese society or the coyote, a trickster in Navajo beliefs.