Does body language communicate personality? Oberservable behavioural patterns of Berens Interactions Styles

Master’s Thesis from the year 2016 in the subject Psychology - Personality Psychology, grade: PM, University of Worcester (Health Sciences), course: Business Psychology, language: English, abstract: An experiment was conducted to assess whether the claims made about body language in Berens theory of Interaction Styles could be demonstrated in practice. The proposed differences in characteristics associated with appearance and talents were performed by an actor in 4 separate short film presentations. Participants were asked to watch each film and select words from the theory to describe the personality of the actors they saw. Positive evidence was found for the hypothesis that body language communicates personality characteristics and that these descriptions follow a recognisable pattern in line with Berens Interactions Styles. Some expected patterns suggested by the model were indicated with strong significance for 10 words from the theory indicating the discrete characteristics were present. Recommendations are made for applied research across a greater reach of the body language model proposed by Berens’ and for bespoke training materials to be created to help practitioners in the field.