Personality correlates of nonverbal interview behavior

Measured interviewee nonverbal behaviors, which included selected temporal speech behaviors and duration and frequency of interviewee adaptor and illustrator hand movements and gaze at the interviewer. Ss (N = 30) were evaluated for IQ, field dependence, state‐trait anxiety, self‐monitoring, introversion‐extraversion, neuroticism, and personal characteristics measured by the Gough Adjective Checklist and Test of Attentional and Interpersonal Style. As predicted, the experimental Ss responded to the interviewer latency delay with increased latencies of their own and a reduction in illustrator behavior. Length of interviewee speech utterances during the first 10‐minute period of “normal” conversation was related to positive self‐descriptions, whereas interviewee interruptions were associated with measures of anxiety, poorer self‐adjustment and attentional confusion.