Impressions about responses arising from a sense of unwanted transparency

• Published in: Shinrigaku kenkyū Vol. 81; no. 6; pp. 625 - 630
• Main Author: Tabata, Naoya
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Japanese
• Published: Japan The Japanese Psychological Association 01.02.2011
• Subjects: Attitude; Communication; Female; Humans; Interpersonal Relations; Male; Nonverbal Communication; nonverbal responses; self-fulfilling prophecy; sense of unwanted transparency; verbal responses; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0021-5236; 1884-1082
• DOI: 10.4992/jjpsy.81.625

The sense of unwanted transparency is the feeling that another person seemingly notices something about us that we would rather conceal. Two experiments were conducted to investigate impressions about responses arising from the sense of unwanted transparency. In Study 1, observers were asked to watch the videotape recorded in Tabata (2009) and judge the participants' responses arising from the sense of unwanted transparency. In Study 2, based on Tabata (2009), both verbal responses and nonverbal responses that were characteristic in arousing the sense of unwanted transparency were manipulated in the videotaped conversation. Participants were asked to watch the videotape and judge the confederate's impressions. The results indicated that unnatural impressions were heightened by nonverbal responses such as longer silences, averting the gaze, and increased self-touching. This suggests that these responses arising from the sense of unwanted transparency may produce a self-fulfilling prophecy. However, seemingly deceptive verbal responses were only related to the dubious impressions of the statements.