ABSTRACT
Two recent experiments were designed to explore the relationships among nonverbal and implicit verbal behaviors of two strangers in a waiting situation (Mehrabian, 1971b; Mehrabian and Ksionzky, 1972). In both of these experiments, one of the strangers was an experimental confederate; this was not evident to the other person, the subject in the experiment. Confederates were initially coached in detail regarding where to stand, how to orient, how much eye contact to have with the subjects, the degree of their facial pleasantness and positive vocalization, and the number and length of their verbal utterances. Two different sets of 22 confederates, equally divided as to sex, were trained to participate in each of the experiments. The detailed training of confederates and the use of a large number of confederates was designed to minimize the confounding of results by confederate attributes or physical appearance.
