People Can Read Dominance In A Split Second
Christopher Philip
A team of researchers led by Nicholas Rule, University of Toronto, Canada found that brief glimpses of faces and bodies where enough for subjects to detect dominance and submission in the body language of others.
The experiment simple had subjects view and rate images sets depicting dominance, submissiveness or neutral expressions for durations of 27 ms, 40 ms and 94 ms or self-timed (take as long as they wished).
The first study looked at only faces. Dominance was conveyed with head titled upwards whereas submission was depicted with a downward head orientation and averted eye gaze. The neutral condition had models pose with their head oriented head-on with a neutral facial expression.
The second study had subjects look at whole bodies. This time the models were posed to either take up a lot of space in the dominance condition, or a little bit of space in the submissive condition.
To express dominance, the targets were asked to pose with their backs arched, arms crossed across their chest, and to spread their legs out wide. While the arms crossed over the chest does not lead to an expansive posture exactly, crossing the arms does have the effect of boosting the width of the upper torso and shoulders. The targets were also asked to pose with their legs spread wide and arms akimbo. The final posture involved spreading the legs wide, tilting the shoulders forward, and spreading the arms aggressively.
To express submission, the targets were told to turn away with feet close together, shoulders hunched, and looking back over their shoulder at the camera. The second posture had targets move their feet close together, hunch their shoulders and cross their arms (this photo was taken in profile view). The final posture had subjects put their feet close together, hunch and roll forward their shoulders, hold their arms against the side of the body and place their hands in front of their pelvis.
In the neutral poses, the targets stood casually with their arms hanging down alongside their bodies and another where the hands were comfortably joined in front of their body.
The results showed that faces were judged accurately, even at the quickest pace of 27 ms. The self pace duration, meaning the pace at which most people rated the images when they were permitted to take their time was about 2000 ms. However, the extra viewing time didn’t improve the accurate of judgment proving that assessments of dominance and submission occur quickly and intuitively.
In the second study, the subjects were better in their judgments at 40 ms and greater, but as time increased to 94 ms, their accuracy improved.
When the results where combined, the researchers found that faces were significantly more accurately judged than were the bodies. However, when the faces and bodies were combined, they were most accurate when they were presented only as outlines.
Discussions And Conclusions
Both the face and body can provide reliable signals of dominance and submission. Cues can also be delivered in fractions of seconds. Mere glimpses of just an outline of a face or body – as brief as 1/25th of a second is enough to accurately read dominance and submission.
However, as time to view the images increased, so too did accuracy. When images were simplified, as was the case when they were reduced to outlines, accuracy also increased. This suggests that increasing detail serves to confuse rather than help.
The face also provided for more accurate reading than the body suggesting that it is more important in delivering visual cues likely because it contains more relevant information.
However, the researchers also revealed that static (unmoving) bodies depicted by images, accurately convey submission and dominance.
Image Credit: Stefan Schmitz
Resources
Rule, Nicholas, O.; Reginald B. Adams Jr.; Nalini Ambady and Jonathan B. Freeman. Perceptions Of Dominance Following Glimpses Of Faces And Bodies. Perception. 2019; 41: 687-706 doi:10.1068/p7023