Patterns of nonverbal parental communication: A social and situational contexts approach

Nonverbal communication plays an important role in parent-child interactions; however, previous studies have focused on patterns of verbal parental communication. The current study expands the existing research to patterns of nonverbal parental communication. This study presents a social and situational contexts approach to explain various nonverbal parental communication styles. Parent-child interactions (n = 240) in structured joint-game sequences were filmed in families' homes and analyzed using a mixed multivariant design. Confirmatory factor analysis produced a conceptualization of patterns of nonverbal parental communication: authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive. Multifaceted analyses revealed significant effects of a range of social and situational contexts. The findings delineated the contexts that activated diverse nonverbal parental communication styles. The proposed theoretical and analytical framework contributes to the research of parent-child interactions and establishes a social and situational approach for patterns of nonverbal parental communication.