An executive returns from a business trip and tells colleagues how the airline lost his luggage and how a late arrival on one flight resulted in waiting half a day at a foreign airport for the next available flight. While retelling his experience, colleagues grimace and make sounds that the executive might make when experiencing this ordeal. The verbal and nonverbal activities of the colleagues represent:
A)extremely rude communication behaviour.
B)emotional contagion.
C)a lack of media richness.
D)evidence that they have difficulty encoding their feedback message.
E)The verbal and nonverbal activities of the colleagues represent all of these.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The verbal and nonverbal activities of the colleagues represent emotional contagion, which is the phenomenon of the transfer of emotions from one person to another through social interaction. The colleagues are expressing empathy and mirroring the executive's emotions through their own expressions and sounds. The other answer choices (A, C, D, E) are not relevant or accurate in this context.

An Executive Returns from a Business Trip and Tells Colleagues