Rapport

There are a number of techniques that are supposed to be beneficial in building rapport. These include matching body language (i.e., posture, gesture, etc.);[4] indicating attentiveness through maintaining eye contact;[9] and matching tempo, terminology, and breathing rhythm.[10] In conversation, some verbal behaviors associated with increased rapport are the use of positivity (or, positive "face management"[11]), sharing personal information of gradually increasing intimacy (or, "self-disclosure"), and reference to shared interests or experiences.[9]

Building rapport can improve community-based research tactics, assist in finding a partner, improve student-teacher relationships, and allow employers to gain trust in employees.[12]

Building rapport takes time. Extroverts tend to have an easier time building rapport than introverts. Extraversion accelerates the process due to an increase in confidence and skillfulness in social settings.[13]

A number of benefits from building interpersonal rapport have been proposed, all of which concern smoother interactions, improved collaboration, and improved interpersonal outcomes,[5][6][7] though the specifics differ by the domain. These domains include but are not limited to healthcare, education, business, and social relationships.

In the health domain, provider-patient rapport is often called the "therapeutic alliance" or "therapeutic relationship"—the collaboration quality between provider and patient—which can predict therapy outcomes or patients' treatment adherence.[5][17]

In education, teacher-student rapport is predictive of students' participation in the course, their course retention, their likelihood to take a course in that domain again, and has sometimes been used to predict course outcomes.[7] Some have argued that teacher-student rapport is an essential element of what makes an effective teacher, or the ability to manage interpersonal relationships and build a positive, pro-social, atmosphere of trust and reduced anxiety.[18] Student-student rapport, on the other hand, while largely out of the teacher's ability to control, is also predictive of reduced anxiety in the course, feelings of a supportive class culture, and improved participation in class discussions.[7] In these relationships, intentionally building rapport through individual meetings has shown an increase in student engagement and level of comfort in the classroom.[19]

In negotiation, rapport is beneficial for reaching mutually beneficial outcomes,[6] as partners are more likely to trust each other and be willing to cooperate and reach a positive outcome. However, interpersonal rapport in negotiation can lead to unethical behavior, particularly in impasse situations, where the interpersonal rapport may influence the negotiators to behave unethically.[20]

In terms of social relationships such as friendship and romantic relationships,[21] establishing rapport can build trust, increase feelings of closeness, and eliminate certain misunderstandings.[22] Rapport is necessary in establishing satisfaction and understanding acceptable behaviors in an interpersonal relationship.[21] Friendships and romantic relationships can overlap with other domains.

To better study how rapport can lead to the above benefits, researchers generally adopt one of three main approaches: self-report surveys given to the participants,[7] third-party observations from a naive observer,[4] and some form of automated computational detection, using computer vision and machine learning.[9]

Self-report surveys typically consist of a set of questions given at the end of an interpersonal interaction, asking the participants to reflect on their relationship with another person and rate various aspects of that relationship, typically on a Likert scale.[6][7] Though this is the most common approach, it suffers from unreliability of self-report data, such as the issue of separating participants' reflection on a single interaction with their relationship with the other person more broadly.[18]

A third-party observer can give a rapport rating to a particular segment (often called a "slice") of such an interaction.[4][9] Other recent work uses techniques from computer vision, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to computationally detect the level of rapport between members of a dyad.[9]

Man holds video conference

Look up rapport in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Empathy – Capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing
• Facial resemblance
• Grok – Neologism coined by Robert Heinlein, adopted by computer culture
• Mirroring in psychology – Subconscious imitative behaviourPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets

• Chapter 8. Communicating to establish rapport – Patient Practitioner Interaction: An Experiential Manual for Developing the Art of Health Care. Carol M. Davis, Helen L. Masin – ISBN 978-1-55642-720-6