Dominance

Question 1

Behaviors

Answer 1

• Persuasion
• Feedback and reinforcement
• Deception
• Impression management

Question 2

Encoding (Gaze) - Dominance Ratio

Answer 2

• Dominance Ratio: percentage of time a person looks while speaking divided by the percentage of time a person looks while listening.

Question 3

Dominance Ratio in ROTC

Answer 3

• ROTC Officers have DR=1, Cadets have DR < 1.

- When people’s relative status in a convo changes, their DR changes

Question 4

Dominance Ratio and status

Answer 4

• Confederate introduced to college students as either high school student who wanted to work at gas station, or as chem honors student accepted into med school
• Results replicated same effects in ROTC study

Question 5

Dominance Ratio and reward power

Answer 5

• opposite sex dyads came to lab to have conversation for extra credit
• 1 member of dyad randomly selected to have reward power to give other member more extra credit or not
• Their DR went up because of their reward power

Question 6

Dominance Ratio in groups

Answer 6

• DR can be observed in group interactions
• High status people in a group displayed higher group VDR than low status people
• Especially true for female group members

Question 7

Encoding dominance - clothing

Answer 7

• Men of high status wear more formal clothing than males of lower status
• No association between female status and clothing formality
• All targets evaluated while at work

Question 8

Encoding dominance - posture & status

Answer 8

• In dyadic interactions, people of higher status exhibit more forward lean (toward the partner)
• This is done by men & women
• Also more open/relaxed posture

Question 9

Decoding dominance - gaze

Answer 9

• Male and female confederates told to manipulate their own dominance ratio by 55/45, 40/60, and 25/75
• Judges rated individuals for dominance
• increased DR lead to increase in judgements of dominance
• Didn’t differ depending on F or M confederate

Question 10

Decoding dominance - paralanguage

Answer 10

• Speech rate and duration correlated with power. Fast paced and longer speech seen as more powerful.
• Socially anxious people exhibit low status paralinguistic cues:
  non confident speech
  higher pitch
  lower vocal intensity in men
  lesser increase of goal intensity in command utterances
  in men only, social anxiety was also associated with slower speech rate in request sentences

Question 11

Decoding dominance - facial expressions

Answer 11

the study performed:

• Subjects rated photos of models posing different facial expressions of emotion
• Weak expressions had no impact on dominance ratings
• Strong facial affect influenced rating of dominance

Question 12

Order of strongest facial expressions

Answer 12

1. Happiness
2. Anger
3. Disgust
4. Sadness
5. Fear

Question 13

Shaved heads and dominance

Answer 13

• A slow sign vehicle
• Men with shaved heads are judged to be more dominant than men with hair
• Even when hair was digitally removed from photos of men’s heads
• But men with shaved heads were also viewed as older and less attractive

Question 14

Head tilt and dominance

Answer 14

• Subjects viewed 3D models of faces
• Head tilt of the faces varied
• Subjects rated them either more dominant or submissive
• Tilt more downward=submissive, upward=dominant

Question 15

Decoding status from posture

Answer 15

• Judges associate more forward lean with higher status
• An accurate cue to judging status because it is also ENCODED with forward lean
• Open posture also associated with higher status

Question 16

Decoding status from clothing

Answer 16

• Observers use formality of clothing as a cue to male’s status, but not females
• This is also accurate use of clothing formality as a cue because males, but not females, encode status through more formal attire

Question 17

Men wearing red

Answer 17

• Male model’s shirt photoshopped either red or blue
• Women perceive men to be more attractive and sexually desirable when wearing red clothing
• This is due to status perceptions
• Influence of red appears to be specific to women’s romantic attraction to men
• Red did not influence men’s perceptions of other men
• Also didn’t influence women’s perceptions of men’s overall likability, agreeableness, and extraversion

Question 18

Projecting nonverbal traits onto powerful others

Answer 18

STUDY:
- vignettes about two people who differed in organizational rank or personality dominance
- Rated imaginary characters on 70 behaviors
RESULTS OF STUDY:
- pays less attention to other
- initiates hand shaking
- engages in invasive behaviors
- touches
- facial disgust, facial anger, facial fear (down)
- more gesturing
- tilt head up
- straight posture
- interrupting more
- fewer filled pauses/hesitancies

Question 19

Do status cues activate parts of our brains?

Answer 19

STUDY:
- Participants show 4 sets of images
- Brow position, posture, gestures, and gaze
- High-status, low-status, and neutral for each
- Photos presented for 2 seconds
- fMRI scan of brain
RESULTS:
- The ventrolateral prefrontal cortex seems to be activated by nonverbal signs of status
- The VLPFC modifies behavior through behavioral inhibition - tells you to stop when you experience something that could be dangerous (i.e. hearing a rattlesnake on a hike)
- All this essentially means that the areas of the brain that are activated by high status are the same ones activated by warnings (even though high status is attractive)