Originally posted by Kristoff Olafsson:
"What qualifies as being in Rapport, with specific reference to the ways in which two peoples "physiology" matches?"
It is a mental state, usually involving trust, familiarity, and liking the other person.
"What part of their physiology?"
It depends. Most often it is their posture. I think that is all the study covered. The textbook did not mention using the other person's words, matching their voice tone, or rate of speech, things I do more often. The next time you are on the phone, try matching the tone and rate of speech of the person you are talking to and see what happens.
"How accurately can we actually derive thoughts from a gross Physiological state?"
That depends on the skill of the person doing it. Actual thoughts are a stretch IMO, I just pointed out that the method of gaining rapport was very old, far older than 1993.
"What "sociological" studies reveal this?"
I no longer have my textbook. That was 7 years ago.
"The quote marks their reveal my contempt for sociology, not your assertion."
I debated my teachers all the time, using patterns similar to what you are using now. Are you trained in NLP or do you just do this naturally? 
"I understand the personal-level position on studies the problem is that we need to clarify what actually "is going on". The placebo effect, and subconscious suggestion may be what's happening. In other words, it might not matter the specific action of PRing. This doesn't make it less valuable necessarily. I like to think of it as the desire to understand how something works, rather than the workingness of something, because knowing how can become very useful."
This depends on your intention. If it is to use it for a psychological experiment what you are saying is a good idea. Some people in the study can skip certain steps while one group follows the whole system, for example. If it is simple to help you learn faster and more effectively, then a scientific study is not needed.
I do agree with you on sociology. I majored in Social Sciences but will be the first one to say it is not scientific. IMO it is pretty much a bunch of people using statistics and wierd logic to "prove" their political idiologies. They have an outcome and they then search for facts and psuedofacts to prove it.
