NONVERBAL IMMEDIACY AND COGNITIVE-LEARNING - A CROSS-CULTURAL INVESTIGATION

The current research was based on data drawn from the cultures of Aust ralia, Finland, and Puerto Rico as well as the dominant United States culture. The direction of the relationship between immediacy and perce ived cognitive learning did not differ among the cultures studied (a v ery positive relationship exists within each culture). However, the ma gnitude of the relationships varied substantially. The results support the theory that in highly immediate cultures the expectations for imm ediate teacher behavior are very high and violations of those expectat ions by being less immediate may be very detrimental to cognitive lear ning. On the other hand, in less immediate cultures where expectations for immediacy are low the violation of those expectations by being mo re immediate may have strong positive effects on cognitive learning.