Journal of Psychology & Psychotherapy
Open Access
ISSN: 2161-0487
ISSN: 2161-0487
Tsfira Grebelsky-Lichtman
Department of Communication, University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem
Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Psychol Psychother
Positive psychology has a central role in times of crisis. Specifically, the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a significant toll on mental health; people around the world have experienced high levels of stress and deteriorated wellbeing. Moreover, during crisis people are highly sensitive to the leader’s nonverbal communication, which is essential in the expressions of emotions. Research have found that leaders’ nonverbal expressions of positive emotions during crisis buffer resilient people against depression and fuel thriving, cultivating people within the complex situation, and the experiences of the crisis. This study analyzes leaders’ nonverbal communication and develops theoretical and analytical frameworks, grounded in the positive psychology theory. Furthermore, the study delineates the effect of gender on leaders’ nonverbal communication during the COVID-19 crisis. We analyzed 20 televised appearances by 10 heads of state (five males and five females) from democratic Western countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings revealed that gender had a significant effect on the leaders’ nonverbal communication in terms of positive psychology perspective. Male leaders presented nonverbal communication that is correlated with stress, fear arousing and pessimistic perspective expressing competitive conduct, warning, threatening and scaring behavior, aggressive beat gestures and broad proxemics, tension leakage, and rational intentional illustrative gestures.
Tsfira Grebelsky-Lichtman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and the Swiss Center for Conflict Research, Management and Resolution at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and in the Department of Education at Ono Academic College. Grebelsky-Lichtman’s area of research is verbal and nonverbal communication in political psychology. Her works have won Top Paper Awards from the International Communication Association.