Discuss research findings regarding gender differences in nonverbal communication. What are the implications for communication competence?

What will be an ideal response?

- Overall, there is no clear evidence that women are better than men at all aspects of nonverbal perception. But they do seem to be superior in performing several important tasks, such as judging another's specific personality characteristics, recognizing their current moods, and both sending and interpreting nonverbal cues.
- Women are clearly superior in their ability to read facial expressions; they also have the edge in interpreting body movements and gestures. However, they have a lesser ability for interpreting voice tone and for noticing discrepancies between nonverbal cues-for instance, inconsistencies between facial expressions and body cues.
- While the research is not completely conclusive, it does suggest that women are better than men at both sending and interpreting nonverbal cues and better at remembering details. This gives women an important advantage in many situations and may account for the widespread belief in women's intuition and their ability to recognize when someone's nonverbal communication is consistent with what that person is saying.