Nonverbal Assessment of Attitudinal Affect with the Smile-Return Technique

This investigation tested the validity of an unobtrusive measure of attitudinal affect. This method, the "smile-return" technique, requires only that a stimulus person initiate a smile at a potential respondent while simultaneously and symbolically representing the chosen attitudinal referent in some fashion (e.g., through appearance or dress). If the respondent returns the smile, it is assumed that his affective evaluation of that referent is more favorable than if he fails to do so. As evidence of the validity of the technique, the difference in the smile return rates of 100 male and 100 female college students to stimulus persons who wore a campaign button which supported either of two presidential candidates in the 1976 national election was similar to the difference in voter preference for the two candidates as found in opinion surveys of the same population. In a second study, 25 members of a women's studies class showed a higher smile-return rate to a stimulus person who wore a shirt with a feminist symbol on the front than 20 members of a home economics class. Both sets of results were interpreted as evidence of the validity of the smile-return technique.