Effects of Nonverbal Warmth on the Learning of Eskimo and White Students

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Abstract
This study examined the effects of a nonverbally warm versus a nonverbally neutral impersonal teaching style on the learning, question answering, and question asking of 20 white and 20 Eskimo students. Each student attended both a warm and a neutral college guidance session which were introduced as a regular part of the counseling program. Warmth led to increased learning for both whites and Eskimos and to higher question answering among females of both ethnic groups in the neutral-warm sequence. The generally insignificant differences found in the warm-neutral sequence may result from carryover effects of warmth after an instructor is initially defined as a warm individual. Warmth had significant effects on questions asked for Eskimos but not for whites. While some comparisons raise the possibility that Eskimos are more sensitive to warmth than whites, ethnic group differences were few and not altogether consistent. These results have important educational application in suggesting that instructors who behave in a nonverbally warm style may increase the learning and verbalness of both the Eskimo and white students in their classrooms.