Robert Rosenthal b. 1933
Much of Professor Robert Rosenthal’s work has focused on
nonverbal communication, particularly its influence on expectations: for
example, in doctor-patient, student-teacher or manager-employee situations. His
interests include self-fulfilling prophecies, which he explored in a well-known
study of the Pygmalion Effect: the effect of teachers' expectations on
students. Using different approaches to nonverbal measurement, Rosenthal found
that a teacher’s expectations about a child’s behaviour has a firm influence on
how they actually behave; he studied doctors’ sensitivity to nonverbal
behaviours; discovered delay tactics in deception; and his demonstrations of
thin slicing made for some classic studies. In his study of rapport at
different stages of an interpersonal relationship, he examined coordination,
matching and synchrony, something he found with mother-infant interactions.
Read Skill in Nonverbal Communication: Individual
Differences (1979) Rosenthal, R (ed.). Oelgeschlager, Gunn & Ham