Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

A voluminous literature has examined how primates respond to nonverbal expressions of status, such as taking the high ground, expanding one’s posture, and tilting one’s head. We extend this research to human intergroup processes in general and interracial processes in particular. Perceivers may be sensitive to whether racial group status is reflected in group members’ nonverbal expressions of status. We hypothesized that people who support the current status hierarchy would prefer racial groups whose members exhibit status-appropriate nonverbal behavior over racial groups whose members do not exhibit such behavior. People who reject the status quo should exhibit the opposite pattern. These hypotheses were supported in three studies using self-report (Study 1) and reaction time (Studies 2 and 3) measures of racial bias and two different status cues (vertical position and head tilt). For perceivers who supported the status quo, high-status cues (in comparison with low-status cues) increased preferences for White people over Black people. For perceivers who rejected the status quo, the opposite pattern was observed.

Keywords

racial attitudes social dominance nonverbal cues status intergroup bias face perception

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Ambady

Weisbuch

(2010). Nonverbal behavior. In Gilbert

D. T.

Fiske

S. T.

Lindzey

(Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (5th ed., pp. 464-497). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Beaupré

Hess

(2005). Cross-cultural emotion recognition among Canadian ethnic groups. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 36, 355–370.

Devine

P. G.

Plant

E. A.

Amodio

D. M.

Harmon-Jones

Vance

S. L.

(2002). The regulation of explicit and implicit race bias: The role of motivations to respond without prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 835–848.

de Waal

F. B. M.

(1982). Chimpanzee politics: Sex and power among apes. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Fiske

A. P.

(1992). The four elementary forms of sociality: Framework for a unified theory of social relations. Psychological Review, 99, 689–723.

Giessner

S. R.

Schubert

T. W.

(2007). High in the hierarchy: How vertical location and judgments of leaders’ power are interrelated. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 104, 30–44.

Greenwald

A. G.

McGhee

D. E.

Schwartz

J. L. K.

(1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1464–1480.

Greenwald

A. G.

Nosek

B. A.

Banaji

M. R.

(2003). Understanding and using the Implicit Association Test: I. An improved scoring algorithm. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 197–216.

Hall

J. A.

Coats

E. J.

Smith LeBeau

(2005). Nonverbal behavior and the vertical dimension of social relations: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 131, 898–924.

10.

Levin

Sidanius

Rabinowitz

J. L.

Federico

(1998). Ethnic identity, legitimizing ideologies, and social status: A matter of ideological asymmetry. Political Psychology, 19, 373–404.

11.

Michinov

Dambrun

Guimond

Méot

(2005). Social dominance orientation, prejudice, and discrimination: A new computer-based method for studying discriminatory behaviors. Behavior Research Methods, 37, 91–98.

12.

Mignault

Chaudhuri

(2003). The many faces of a neutral face: Head tilt and perception of dominance and emotion. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 27, 111–132.

13.

Parks

G. S.

Hughey

M. W.

(Eds.). (2011). The Obamas and a (post) racial America? New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

14.

Preuschoft

van Shaik

C. P.

(2000). Dominance and communication: Conflict management in various social settings. In Aureli

de Waal

F. B. M.

(Eds.), Conflict resolution (pp. 77–105). Los Angeles: University of California Press.

15.

Rosenthal

(1991). Meta-analytic procedures for social research. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

16.

Rosenthal

Rosnow

R. L.

(1985). Contrast analysis: Focused comparisons in the analysis of variance. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

17.

Schubert

T. W.

(2005). Your highness: Vertical positions as perceptual symbols of power. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 1–21.

18.

Shariff

A. F.

Tracy

J. L.

(2009). Knowing who’s boss: Implicit perceptions of status from the nonverbal expression of pride. Emotion, 9, 631–639.

19.

Sidanius

Pratto

(1999). Social dominance: An intergroup theory of social hierarchy and oppression. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

20.

Tiedens

L. Z.

Fragale

A. R.

(2003). Power moves: Complementarity in dominant and submissive nonverbal behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 558–568.

21.

Tottenham

Tanaka

Leon

McCarry

Nurse

Hare

. . . Nelson

C. A.

(2009). The NimStim set of facial expressions: Judgments from untrained research participants. Psychiatry Research, 168, 242–249.

22.

Tracy

J. L.

Shariff

A. F.

Zhao

Henrich

(in press). Cross-cultural evidence that the nonverbal expression of pride is an automatic status signal. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

23.

Trawalter

Richeson

J. A.

Shelton

J. N.

(2009). Predicting behavior during interracial interactions: A stress and coping approach. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 13, 243–268.

24.

Vanman

E. J.

Paul

B. Y.

Ito

T. A.

Miller

(1997). The modern face of prejudice and structural features that moderate the effect of cooperation on affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 941–957.

25.

Winkielman

Cacioppo

J. T.

(2001). Mind at ease puts a smile on the face: Psychophysiological evidence that processing facilitation elicits positive affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 989–1000.

26.

Zeger

S. L.

Liang

K. Y.

(1986). Longitudinal data analysis for discrete and continuous outcomes. Biometrics, 42, 121–130.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.47 MB

Nonverbal Expressions of Status and System Legitimacy

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References

Supplementary Material