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      The Nonverbal Basis of Attraction: Flirtation, Courtship, and Seduction

      Psychiatry
      Informa UK Limited

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          Abstract

          According to a familiar phrase, the "language" of love is universal. Recent ethological studies of nonlinguistic communication in courtship using facial expression, gesture, posture, distance, paralanguage, and gaze have begun to establish that a universal, culture-free, nonverbal sign system may exist (Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1975), which is available to all persons for negotiating sexual relationships. The nonverbal mode, more powerful than the verbal for expressing such fundamental contingencies in social relationships as liking, disliking, superiority, timidity, fear and so on, appears to be rooted firmly in man's zoological heritage (Bateson, 1966, 1968). Paralleling a vertebrate-wide plan, human courtship expressivity often relies on nonverbal signs of submissiveness (meekness, harmlessness) and affiliation (willingness to form a social bond). Adoption of a submissive-affiliative social pose enables a person to convey an engaging, nonthreatening image that tends to attract potential mates. This report explores several conspicuous nonlinguistic cues that appear to be used widely in contexts of flirtation, courtship, and seduction. The expressive units are discussed from the standpoint of their occurence in five phases of courtship, and are illustrated by four cases.

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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Psychiatry
                Psychiatry
                Informa UK Limited
                0033-2747
                1943-281X
                October 20 2016
                October 20 2016
                : 41
                : 4
                : 346-359
                Article
                10.1080/00332747.1978.11023994
                715095
                4aa0d901-6be3-4e1c-9d9e-45d73d1b9103
                © 2016
                History

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