Abstract
The present chapter reviews the relation of a person’s power or status to their nonverbal communication. For the power/status dimension, we use the term “vertical dimension of social relations” to encompass a wide assortment of conceptually related definitions including hierarchical role (preexistent or manipulated), personality dominance, social status, social class, and feelings of power. The following topics in nonverbal communication are reviewed: (1) beliefs and stereotypes about the relation of the vertical dimension to nonverbal behavior, (2) perceptions of verticality based on viewing nonverbal behavior, (3) impact of power-relevant bodily positions on behavior and cognition (embodiment), (4) relation of people’s verticality to their nonverbal behavior, (5) accuracy of judging others’ verticality, and (6) relation of people’s verticality to accuracy in interpreting others’ states and traits, and in recalling their verbal or nonverbal behavior. In all domains, the evidence indicated that verticality is related to nonverbal communication though the relations can be complex and inconsistent. Much research remains to be done on mediators as well as moderators, including differences among the different definitions of the verticality construct.
Keywords
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Aguinis, H., & Henle, C. A. (2001). Effects of nonverbal behavior on perceptions of a female employee’s power bases. Journal of Social Psychology, 141, 537–549.
Alkire, A. A., Collum, M. E., Kaswan, J., & Love, L. R. (1968). Information exchange and accuracy of verbal communication under social power conditions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 9, 301–308.
Alvarez, G., & Fuentes, P. (1994). Recognition of facial expression in diverging socioeconomic levels. Brain and Cognition, 25, 235–239.
Ambady, N., & Gray, H. M. (2002). On being sad and mistaken: Mood effects on the accuracy of thin-slice judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 947–961.
Antonakis, J., & Dalgas, O. (2009). Predicting elections: Child’s play! Science, 323, 1183.
Barreto, M., Ellemers, N., & Fiske, S. T. (2010). “What did you say, and who do you think you are?” How power differences affect emotional reactions to prejudice. Journal of Social Issues, 66, 477–492.
Bente, G., Leuschner, H., Issa, A. A., & Blascovich, J. J. (2010). The others: Universals and cultural specificities in the perception of status and dominance from nonverbal behavior. Consciousness and Cognition, 19, 762–777.
Berger, C. R. (1994). Power, dominance, and social interaction. In M. L. Knapp & G. R. Miller (Eds.), Handbook of interpersonal communication (2nd ed., pp. 450–507). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Bohns, V. K., & Wiltermuth, S. S. (2011). It hurts when I do this (or you do that): Posture and pain tolerance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1, 341–345.
Briñol, P., & Petty, R. E. (2003). Overt head movements and persuasion: A self-validation analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 1123–1139.
Burgoon, J. K., & Le Poire, B. A. (1999). Nonverbal cues and interpersonal judgments: Participant and observer perceptions of intimacy, dominance, composure, and formality. Communication Monographs, 66, 105–124.
Burgoon, J. K., Manusov, V., Mineo, P., & Hale, J. L. (1985). Effects of gaze on hiring, credibility, attraction and relational message interpretation. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 9, 133–146.
Carney, D. R., Cuddy, A. J. C., & Yap, A. J. (2010). Power posing: Brief nonverbal displays affect neuroendocrine levels and risk tolerance. Psychological Science, 21, 1363–1368.
Carney, D. R., Hall, J. A., & Smith LeBeau, L. (2005). Beliefs about the nonverbal expression of social power. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 2, 105–123.
Carney, D. R., Yap, A. J., Lucas, B., Mehta, P., McGee, J., & Wilmuth, C. (2014). Power buffers stress—for better and for worse. Manuscript submitted for publication.
Chen, M., & Bargh, J. A. (1999). Nonconscious approach and avoidance behavioral consequences of the automatic evaluation effect. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 215–224.
Cuddy, A. J. C., Wilmuth, C., Yap, A. J., & Carney, D. R. (2014). Preparatory power posing gets the job. Manuscript submitted for publication.
Darwin, C. (1965). The expression of emotions in man and animals. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1872).
Dean, L. M., Willis, F. N., & Hewitt, J. (1975). Initial interaction distance among individuals equal and unequal in military rank. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32, 294–299.
Delgado-Hachey, M., & Miller, S. A. (1993). Mothers’ accuracy in predicting their children’s IQs: Its relationship to antecedent variables, mothers’ academic achievement demands, and children’s achievement. Journal of Experimental Education, 62, 43–59.
Dovidio, J. F., & Ellyson, S. L. (1985). Patterns of visual dominance behavior in humans. In J. F. Dovidio & S. L. Ellyson (Eds.), Power, dominance, and nonverbal behavior (pp. 128–149). New York: Springer.
Dovidio, J. F., Ellyson, S. L., Keating, C. F., Heltman, K., & Brown, C. E. (1988). The relationship of social power to visual displays of dominance between men and women. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 233–242.
Ellyson, S. L., Dovidio, J. F., Corson, R. L., & Vinicur, D. L. (1980). Visual dominance behavior in female dyads: Situational and personality factors. Social Psychology Quarterly, 43, 328–336.
Exline, R. V., Ellyson, S. L., & Long, B. (1975). Visual behavior as an aspect of power role relationships. In P. Pliner, L. Krames, & T. Alloway (Eds.), Nonverbal communication of aggression (pp. 21–52). New York: Plenum.
Fiske, S. T. (1993). Controlling other people: The impact of power on stereotyping. American Psychologist, 48, 621–628.
Galinsky, A. D., Magee, J. C., Inesi, M. E., & Gruenfeld, D. H. (2006). Power and perspectives not taken. Psychological Science, 17, 1068–1074.
Gifford, R. (1994). A lens-mapping framework for understanding the encoding and decoding of interpersonal dispositions in nonverbal behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 398–412.
Gonzaga, G. C., Keltner, D., & Ward, D. (2008). Power in mixed-sex stranger interactions. Cognition and Emotion, 22, 1555–1568.
Halberstadt, A. G., & Saitta, M. B. (1987). Gender, nonverbal behavior, and perceived dominance: A test of the theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 257–272.
Hall, J. A., Blanch, D. C., Horgan, T. G., Murphy, N. A., Rosip, J. C., & Schmid Mast, M. (2009). Motivation and interpersonal sensitivity: Does it matter how hard you try? Motivation and Emotion, 33, 291–302.
Hall, J. A., Carter, J. D., & Horgan, T. G. (2001). Status roles and recall of nonverbal cues. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 25, 79–100.
Hall, J. A., Coats, E. J., & Smith LeBeau, L. (2005). Nonverbal behavior and the vertical dimension of social relations: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 131, 898–924.
Hall, J. A., & Friedman, G. B. (1999). Status, gender, and nonverbal behavior: A study of structured interactions between employees of a company. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 1082–1091.
Hall, J. A., & Halberstadt, A. G. (1997). Subordination and nonverbal sensitivity: A hypothesis in search of support. In M. R. Walsh (Ed.), Women, men, and gender: Ongoing debates (pp. 120–133). New Haven: Yale University Press.
Hall, J. A., Halberstadt, A. G., & O’Brien, C. E. (1997). “Subordination” and nonverbal sensitivity: A study and synthesis of findings based on trait measures. Sex Roles, 37, 295–317.
Hall, J. A., Rosip, J. C., Smith LeBeau, L., Horgan, T. G., & Carter, J. D. (2006). Attributing the sources of accuracy in unequal-power dyadic communication: Who is better and why? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 18–27.
Hall, J. A., Schmid Mast, M., & Latu, I. (in press). Power and accurate interpersonal perception: A meta-analysis. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior.
Henley, N. M. (1977). Body politics: Power, sex, and nonverbal communication. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
Henley, N. M., & Harmon, S. (1985). The nonverbal semantics of power and gender: A perceptual study. In S. L. Ellyson & J. F. Dovidio (Eds.), Power, dominance, and nonverbal behavior (pp. 151–163). New York: Springer.
Horgan, T. G., & Smith, J. L. (2006). Interpersonal reasons for interpersonal perceptions: Gender-congruent purpose goals and nonverbal judgment accuracy. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 30, 127–140.
Huang, L., Galinsky, A. D., Gruenfeld, D. H., & Guillory, L. E. (2011). Powerful postures versus powerful roles: Which is the proximate correlate of thought and behavior? Psychological Science, 1, 95–102.
Kalma, A. (1992). Gazing in triads: A powerful signal in floor apportionment. British Journal of Social Psychology, 31, 21–39.
Keltner, D., Gruenfeld, D. H., & Anderson, C. (2003). Power, approach, and inhibition. Psychological Review, 110, 265–284.
Kraus, M. W., & Chen, T. D. (2013). A winning smile? Smile intensity, physical dominance, and fighter performance. Emotion (Washington, DC), 13, 270–279.
Kraus, M. W., Côté, S., & Keltner, D. (2010). Social class, contextualism, and empathic accuracy. Psychological Science, 21, 1716–1723.
Kraus, M. W., & Keltner, D. (2009). Signs of socioeconomic status: A thin-slicing approach. Psychological Science, 20, 99–106.
Letzring, T. D. (2008). The good judge of personality: Characteristics, behaviors, and observer accuracy. Journal of Research in Personality, 42, 914–932.
Magee, J. C., & Galinsky, A. D. (2008). Social hierarchy: The self-reinforcing nature of power and status. The Academy of Management Annals, 2, 351–398.
Moeller, S. K., Ewing Lee, E. A., & Robinson, M. D. (2011). You never think about my feelings: Interpersonal dominance as a predictor of emotion decoding accuracy. Emotion (Washington, DC), 11, 816–824.
Noller, P. (1980). Misunderstandings in marital communication: A study of couples’ nonverbal communication. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 1135–1148.
Nowicki, S. Jr., & Duke, M. (1994). Individual differences in the nonverbal communication of affect: The diagnostic analysis of nonverbal accuracy scale. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 18, 9–35.
Osgood, C. E., Suci, G. J., & Tannenbaum, P. H. (1957). The measurement of meaning. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Oosterhof, N. N., & Todorov, A. (2008). The functional basis of face evaluation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105, 11087–11092.
Overbeck, J. R., & Park, B. (2001). When power does not corrupt: Superior individuation processes among powerful perceivers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 549–565.
Pfaff, P. L. (1954). An experimental study of the communication of feeling without contextual material. Speech Monographs, 21, 155.
Phillips, L. H., Tunstall, M., & Channon, S. (2007). Exploring the role of working memory in dynamic social cue decoding using dual task methodology. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 31, 137–152.
Riggio, R. E. (2001). Interpersonal sensitivity research and organizational psychology: Theoretical and methodological applications. In J. A. Hall & F. J. Bernieri (Eds.), Interpersonal sensitivity: Theory and measurement (pp. 305–317). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Riskind, J. H., & Gotay, C. C. (1982). Physical posture: Could it have regulatory or feedback effects on motivation and emotion? Motivation and Emotion, 6, 273–298.
Rosenthal, R., Hall, J. A., DiMatteo, M. R., Rogers, P. L., & Archer, D. (1979). Sensitivity to nonverbal communication: The PONS test. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Rule, N. O., & Ambady, N. (2008). The face of success: Inferences from chief executive officers’ appearance predict company profits. Psychological Science, 19, 109–111.
Rule, N., Ishii, K., & Ambady, N. (2011). Cross-cultural impressions of leaders’ faces: Consensus and predictive validity. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 35, 833–841.
Russell, A. M., & Fiske, S. T. (2010). Power and social perception. In A. Guinote & T. K. Vescio (Eds.), The social psychology of power (pp. 231–250). New York: Guilford.
Saenz, D. S., & Lord, C. G. (1989). Reversing roles: A cognitive strategy for undoing memory deficits associated with token status. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 698–708.
Schmid Mast, M. (2002). Dominance as expressed and inferred through speaking time: A meta-analysis. Human Communication Research, 28, 420–150.
Schmid Mast, M., & Hall, J. A. (2004). Who is the boss and who is not? Accuracy of judging status. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 28, 145–165.
Schmid Mast, M., Jonas, K., & Hall, J. A. (2009). Give a person power and he or she will show interpersonal sensitivity: The phenomenon and its why and when. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97, 835–850.
Schmid, P. C., & Schmid Mast, M. (2012). A meta-analysis on how power relates to cognitive information processing. Manuscript under review.
Schmid, P. C., Schmid Mast, M., Bombari, D., & Mast, F. W. (2011). Gender effects in information processing on a nonverbal decoding task. Sex Roles, 65, 102–107.
Schubert, T. W., & Koole, S. L. (2009). The embodied self: Making a fist enhances men’s power-related self-conceptions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 828–834.
Shariff, A. F., & Tracy, J. L. (2009). Knowing who’s boss: Implicit perceptions of status from the nonverbal expression of pride. Emotion (Washington, DC), 9, 631–639.
Shariff, A. F., Tracy, J. L., & Markusoff, J. (2012). (Implicitly) judging a book by its cover: The power of pride and shame expressions in shaping judgments of social status. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38, 1178–1193.
Snodgrass, S. E., Hecht, M. A., & Ploutz-Snyder, R. (1998). Interpersonal sensitivity: Expressivity or perceptivity? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 238–249.
Stepper, S., & Strack, F. (1993). Propioceptive determinants of emotional and nonemotional feelings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 211–220.
Sternberg, R. J., & Smith, C. (1985). Social intelligence and decoding skills in nonverbal communication. Social Cognition, 3, 168−192.
Stokes, D. R. (1983). Nonverbal communication: Race, gender, social class, world view and the PONS test; Implications for the therapeutic dyad. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. The Ohio State University.
Strack, F., Martin, L., & Stepper, S. (1988). Inhibiting and facilitating conditions of the human smile: A nonobtrusive test of the facial feedback hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 768–777.
Thomas, D. L., Franks, D. D., & Calonico, J. M. (1972). Role-taking and power in social psychology. American Sociological Review, 37, 605–614.
Thomsen, L., Frankenhuis, W. E., Ingold-Smith, M., & Carey, S. (2011). Big and mighty: Preverbal infants mentally represent social dominance. Science, 33, 477–480.
Tracy, J. L., & Matsumoto, D. (2008). The spontaneous expression of pride and shame: Evidence for biologically innate nonverbal displays. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105, 11655–11660.
Tracy, J. L., Shariff, A. F., Zhao, W., & Henrich, J. (2013). Cross-cultural evidence that the nonverbal expression of pride is an automatic status signal. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 142, 163–180.
Wegner, D. M., Lane, J. D., & Dimitri, S. (1994). The allure of secret relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 287–300.
Wells, G. L., & Petty, R. E. (1980). The effects of head movement on persuasion: Compatibility and incompatibility of responses. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 1, 219–230.
Wiggins, J. S. (1979). A psychological taxonomy of trait-descriptive terms: The interpersonal domain. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 395–412.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hall, J., Latu, I., Carney, D., Schmid Mast, M. (2014). Nonverbal Communication and the Vertical Dimension of Social Relations. In: Cheng, J., Tracy, J., Anderson, C. (eds) The Psychology of Social Status. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-0867-7_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-0867-7_15
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-0866-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-0867-7
eBook Packages: Behavioral ScienceBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)