User:Ajb321/Rapport

Rapport (ra-PORE) is a close and harmonious relationship in which the people or groups concerned are "in sync" with each other, understand each other's feelings or ideas, and communicate smoothly.

The word stems from the French verb rapporter which means literally to carry something back. In the sense of how people relate to each other means that what one person sends out the other sends back. For example, they may realize that they share similar values, beliefs, knowledge, or behaviors around politics, music or sports. This may also mean that the participants engage in reciprocal behaviors such as posture mirroring or in increased coordination in their verbal and nonverbal interactions.

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

Rapport has been shown to have benefits for psychotherapy and medicine, negotiation, education, and tourism, among others. In each of these cases, the rapport between members of a dyad (e.g. a teacher and student or doctor and patient) allows the participants to coordinate their actions and establish a mutually beneficial working relationship, or what is often called a "working alliance". In guided group activities (e.g., a cooking class, a wine tour and hiking group), rapport is not only dyadic and customer-employee oriented, but also customer-customer and group-oriented as customers consume and interact with each other in a group for an extended period.

Building
To achieve the benefits of interpersonal rapport in domains like education, medicine, or even sales, several methods have been shown to build rapport between people. These methods include coordination, showing your attentiveness to the other, building commonality, and managing the other's self-perception (also called "face" management). 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.

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.

Benefits
There have been a number of proposed benefits from building interpersonal rapport, which all revolve around smoother interactions, improved collaboration, and improved interpersonal outcomes, though the specifics differ by the domain. These domains include healthcare, education, business, and social relationships.

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

Studying[edit]
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, third-party observations from a naive observer, and some form of automated computational detection, using computer vision and machine learning.

Rapport and Technology
In the 21st century, online communication has had a huge impact on how business is conducted and how relationships are formed. In the era of Covid-19 and the shift to remote work and schooling, the way in which rapport is built has changed. Communicating solely through online channels has been found to result in challenges related to rapport building. Challenges included technical difficulties interrupting video calls and direct messaging, interruptions and distractions from the user's home, a lack of intimacy and the ability to observe one another, lack of eye contact, mundane interactions, and the 'pressure of presence.'