The Secret Code of Nonverbal Communication

In this chapter we conceptualize culture as an adaptive system to understand the role culture plays in determining the distinct communication styles among individuals within and across diverse populations. We provide a model to deepen our understanding of communication and context dependence in the domains of message, relationship, time, and space, with a particular focus on nonverbal communication. We model how communication occurs and adapts within the ecological, subsistence, socio-cultural, individual, and inter individual systems of the interlocutors. These systems give rise to values, norms, and beliefs among cultural groups, precipitating standard operating procedures, behavioral patterns, and unwritten scripts, allowing the members of a given group to communicate with one another in various contexts and be understood.