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The article presents a study which was designed to analyze the expressive or communicative significance of fidgeting and to investigate individual differences in fidgeting so as to clarify further this significance. "Fidgeting" was defined as engaging in actions that are peripheral or nonessential to ongoing focal tasks or events. When treated as a "state" variable, fidgeting frequency has been investigated as a function of experimentally induced emotional states of frustration, discomfort, or conflict. Alternatively, when studied as a "trait" variable, fidgeting tendency has been correlated with a variety of personality measures. Considerable success has been achieved in studies investigating fidgeting behaviors as a function of experimentally induced conditions. Researchers have found an increased incidence of nervous gestures when subjects were placed in conflict situations. There was a significant increase in nervous habits during the war years as compared with the prewar period, and as expected, there was a drop in nervous habits in the postwar period compared with wartime.