Relationship Between Public Speaker Personality Traits and Audience Perception : The Role of Nonverbal Communication

Abstract

Modern public speaking heavily focuses on the delivery and performance of the speaker, and the speaker’s nonverbal behavior plays a key role in reflecting the underlying personality traits and shaping the perception about their performance. This study sought to assess the relationship between the predetermined speaker personality traits with the established audience perception. This quantitative research study that included a sample of 323 respondents from different universities adopted an experimental research design that replicated a virtual and modern public speaking scenario. Four actors, two female and two males, were commissioned to enact a similar speech content while shifting their nonverbal behavior based on predefined big five personality traits. The results showed that the predefined public speaker personality traits affected all the selected perception attributes thus affecting how the audience assessed the speaker. Many challenges were faced in this study especially because production and many variables were involved; however, it introduced practical contributions to the understanding of modern public speaking, nonverbal communication, and personality psychology.

Presenters

Emma Chacar
Student, PhD, Pompeu Fabra University, Spain

Details

Presentation Type

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

Theme

2025 Special Focus—From Democratic Aesthetics to Digital Culture

KEYWORDS

NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION, INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION, PUBLIC SPEAKING, COMMUNICATION, PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY