Popular Press Analysis Final Analysis

For this assignment, we were tasked with analyzing a popular press article against two scholarly articles to see how accurate it was. For my topic, I chose nonverbal cues with flirting and found that nonverbal cues are more important to people than verbal cues.

Isabelle Mendez

Department of Communication & Theatre Arts, Old Dominion University

COMM 314 Nonverbal Communication

Professor Morgan

April 24th, 2023

Honor Pledge -Isabelle Mendez

Flirting is the act of letting someone know you like them by verbal and nonverbal clues. This can include touch, compliments, actions, and the way someone says something. Flirting can also be done in a joking manner or to get someone to do something for you. In this paper, I will be discussing contents about a popular press article about flirting. I will also be analyzing it against two different scholarly articles to see if there is a discrepancy between them or if the popular press article is correct.

The popular press article I chose to do was written by Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen, a writer who has an undergraduate degree in psychology and a master’s degree in social work. By putting her qualifications on her page, it makes her seem more professional and more qualified to give good and correct advice about love. She writes about the nonverbal signs of flirting and gives examples of each one and what they might mean. In the beginning of the article, she gives an introduction of flirting and the importance of reading body language. She also quotes ‘some experts’ stating that 90% of communication is nonverbal (Pawlik-Kienlen, 2020). Pawlik-Kienlen also gives a definition of what flirting is and how it relates to nonverbal communication.

Throughout this article, she lists ten different ways someone can flirt nonverbally with you. Each point has a little summary under it and explains what it means, and if it is geared more towards men or woman. She clearly states that nonverbal communication is important when it comes to flirting. She does quote some research in the article, making each point seem more true because it is backed by professionals. Four of the ten points include things that someone might do that is not about body movements like playing with jewelry or laughing. The rest include facial and eye movements along with how someone moves their body. Pawlik-Kienlen also puts in her summaries that some of these points aren’t only used for flirting, they can be used to get your way with people like bosses or even friends.

In my first scholarly article, Menelaos Apostolou and Christoforos Christoforou write about nonverbal communication and how it has to do with flirting. They write about all the different aspects of flirting and how each one can be useful to not only finding a partner, but also to benefit someone trying to get what they want. This article also talks about an experiment that was done about flirting and what men and women prefer when meeting someone for the first time and picking someone to date. Apostolou and Christoforou write about how people have preferences to what they like and are not choosing someone based off of something random that they did.

The research that they completed showed that men prefer physical attractions opposed to women who preferred men who were more kind and personable. Despite those discrepancies, both men and woman preferred when someone gave them nonverbal cues while flirting. Even though each group of participants had different preferences, they both still liked nonverbal cues, making them very important when flirting with someone or being flirted with. They also did other experiments to see which methods of flirting worked better than others. Ultimately, they ended up getting forty-seven different traits that were sorted into categories with nonverbal communication being one of the most important ones (Apostolou & Christoforou, 2020).

The second article I read was written by Jeffery Hall and Chong Xing about both verbal and nonverbal cues of flirting. For my summary, I will only be focusing on the nonverbal part they go over. In the article, they performed a test on people to see what they liked best when being flirted with. They broke it down into categories and had the participants sit down face to face and have interactions by reading cards and answering questions. It was found that there were many more nonverbal cues being given than there were verbal cues that led people to flirt or be flirted with. They broke down each nonverbal cue like hair and face touching, nodding, smiling, laughing, and the movement of their eyes.

In this article, Hall and Xing also quoted why nonverbal cues were so important and listed them into five different categories against the five different personality types. They were trying to figure out how people flirt and what works the best.They also broke it down into men and woman like the other journal and the popular press article did as well. This article gives a lot of information about flirting and how different flirting styles affect men, women, and different personalities. The research also backs their claims about nonverbal cues being the most important factor coming into play for flirting.

After reviewing the scholarly articles against this popular press article, I believe that Pawlik-Kienlen has some good points in her article but is missing key elements to be able to be considered true. In the article, she puts some statistics but does not cite her sources of where she found it. She also quotes researchers and movies under a few bullet points but does not have her references listed anywhere in the article for people to fact check or read the other research themselves. Her claims that nonverbal communication is the most important factor when it comes to flirting is proven in the research journals that I have read, and they both agree with the different types of nonverbal cues that both men and women give out that are found to work on them.

On the other hand, the information she has listed in this article is similar to what the scholarly journals say in the matter that nonverbal communication is crucial to flirting and that flirting can be used more than just to find a romantic partner. However, she does not provide enough in-depth details or research to back her claim. Therefore, the research does agree with the Pawlik-Kienlen is writing but in order for it to fully support her claims, she needs to add her references.

References:

Apostolou, M., & Christoforou, C. (2020). The art of flirting: What are the traits that make it effective? Personality and Individual Differences, 158, 109866. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.109866

Hall, J. A., & Xing, C. (2014). The verbal and nonverbal correlates of the five flirting styles. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 39(1), 41–68. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-014-0199-8

Pawlik-Kienlen, L. (2020, June 9). 10 signs of flirting you need to be aware of. She Blossoms. Retrieved April 24, 2023, from https://www.theadventurouswriter.com/blog/signs-of-flirting-in-men-and-women/