Parental Response to Child’s Incongruence: Verbal Versus Nonverbal Primacy in Parent-Child Interactions

• In Event: Family Communication: Dynamics and Effects on (Adult) Children

Abstract

While the question of verbal versus nonverbal primacy has gained intensive interest, considerably less attention has been devoted to parental response to child’s verbal/nonverbal incongruence. This study comprehensively analyzed parental responses to child’s incongruence during mutual interactions. Parent–child interactions (n=160) in structured joint game sequences were filmed in their homes and analyzed using a mixed multi-variant design. Unexpectedly, parents related almost equally to verbal and nonverbal channels. The analysis of a wide-range of social and situational contexts – including child’s gender, parent’s gender, SES, and task difficulty – highlighted their significant effects and delineated the contexts for verbal primacy, nonverbal primacy, and incongruent responses. The study provides a composite theoretical framework for the relative dominance of verbal versus nonverbal communication.

Author

• Tsfira Grebelsky-Lichtman, Hebrew University and Ono Academic Colledge