Do First Impressions Count? Perceived Nonverbal Behaviors Associated with Social Acceptance in University Students

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the relationship between non-verbal behavior of social interaction and acceptance and rejection in college, making sure that there are differences from beginning to end of the half as the acceptance and social rejection to study and do well as nonverbal behaviors evaluated at the beginning of the semester remains similar to the final acceptance and rejection in these assessments. They studied 175 college students of business schools (56.5%) and logistics of a large university in São Paulo, with 41% women. All of these students responded to the tests at the beginning and the end of June after signing the consent form. About 35% of the subjects were in the second year of their courses and students participated in the research first to seventh year of their courses. It developed a protocol in which it asks the student indicate a person who would like to study in the group and justify your choice from your perception of that person in nonverbal behaviors, namely, the look, voice content, voice quality, gestures hands, smile, body posture, tone of voice. In general, analyzing the behavior alone, they did not show differences in the perception of the beginning to the end of semester. However, how these were listed as reasons for the acceptance and social rejection to study and come out changed the beginning to the end of term, indicating that the coexistence of a semester enables a change in accepted motives and social rejection in the group.