Nonverbal Cues as Indicators of Verbal Dissembling 1

Abstract

Sixty-three elementary school-age children in an experimental teaching session provided either genuine or dissembled verbal praise to a student (confederate). Nonverbal behavior of the subjects was analyzed both by trained coders and by naive observers. As hypothesized, nonverbal cues disclosed when the participants were dissembling. Dissembling participants smiled less, showed less pleasant mouth expressions, paused more, and were judged to be less pleased with their students than nondissembling participants.