Body Language of The Dominant Stance
Cue: Dominant Stance (The)
Synonym(s): N/A
Description: A stance where the feet lie flat on the ground, weight is across both feet, the arms are placed to the side rather than in pockets and hands do not prop up against a wall or table. The hips are forced forward slight, with the legs just wider than shoulder width.
In One Sentence: Standing with the feet even and stable shows others that one is in control of one’s body and prepared to stand one’s ground.
How To Use it: Use the dominant stance to show other that you are ready for action and also ready to stand your ground. A wide base shows others that you are confident. The cue is useful in many situations so as when pitching ideas in business, or for men, in dating, when trying to seduce. Those in charge of groups of people including various leaders should use a dominant stance nearly all of the time. This will help them gain and hold authority.
Context: General
Verbal Translation: “I’m right here, proud and confident. I don’t need to lean against anything and I can stand alone. I’ve got my feet firmly planted on the ground and my legs are wide enough to ‘show off my junk’ (genitals) and form a wide base.”
Variant: Related to Arms Akimbo, Cowboy Pose Stance, Broadside Display or Chest Protrusion.
Cue In Action: While presenting to the audience, Dave commanded respect by taking up lots of room and using his arms freely. When he wasn’t on the stage, he often stood at ease with his legs apart, flat and even across his feet. He appeared to be confident and in control.
Meaning and/or Motivation: The dominant stance is one that depicts confidence and authority.
Cue Cluster: The dominant stance can be coupled with expansive movements such as arms gesticulating, arms over the back of a chair, or out and relaxed, shoulders up and back, head held high, arms out and relaxed, legs apart. The greater the area the body takes up, the more dominant the body language.
Body Language Category: Authoritative body language, Crotch display, Dominant body language, Leadership body language, Relaxed body language.
Resources:
Atkinson A, Dittrich W, Gemmell A, Young A. Emotion perception from dynamic and static body expressions in point-light and full-light displays. Perception 2004;33:717–46.
Aviezer H, Trope Y, Todorov A. Body cues, not facial expressions, discriminate between intense positive and negative emotions. Science 2012;338:1225–9.
Allen, Jill; Sarah J. Gervais and Jessi L. Smith. Sit Big to Eat Big: The Interaction of Body Posture and Body Concern on Restrained Eating. Psychology of Women Quarterly 2013. 37(3): 325-336. DOI: 10.1177/0361684313476477pwq.sagepub.com
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/sit-big-to-eat-big-how-constrictive-postures-reduce-food-consumption/
Arnette, S. L., & Pettijohn, T. F., II. (2012). The effects of posture on self-perceived leadership. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 3, 8–13.
Bohns, Vanessa K. and Scott S. Wiltermuth. It Hurts When I Do This (Or You Do That): Posture And Pain tolerance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 2012. 48: 341-345.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/dominant-and-submissive-postures-affects-more-than-public-perception-it-also-affects-felt-pain-and-physical-strength/
Briñol, P., Petty, R. E., & Wagner, B. (2009). Body posture effects on self-evaluation: A self-validation approach. European Journal of Social Psychology, 39, 1053–1064.
Boyson, A. R., Pryor, B., & Butler, J. (1999). Height as power in women. North American Journal of Psychology, 1, 109–114.
Burgoon, J. K., & Hoobler, G. (2002). Nonverbal signals. In M. L. Knapp & J. A. Daly (Eds.), Handbook of interpersonal communication (3rd ed., pp. 240–299). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Burgoon, J. K., Johnson, M. L., & Koch, P. T. (1998). The nature and measurement of interpersonal dominance. Communication Monographs, 65, 308–335.
Bartholomewn, Morgan E.; Sheri L. Johnson. Nonverbal Dominance Behavior Among
Individuals at Risk for Mania. Journal of Affective Disorders. 2014. 159: 133-138.
Brandt, David R. 1980. A systemic approach to the measurement of dominance in human face-to-face interaction Source: Communication quarterly. 28 (1):31-43.
Brown, Clifford E.; Dovidio, John F.; Ellyson, Steve L. 1990. Reducing Sex Differences in Visual Displays of Dominance: Knowledge is Power. Personality And Social Psychology Bulletin. 16(2): 358-368.
Bertamini, Marco ; Byrne, Christopher ; Bennett, Kate M. Attractiveness is influenced by the relationship between postures of the viewer and the viewed person. i-Perception. 2013. 4(3): 170-179.
Blidstein, Gerald J. The Nonverbal Language of Prayer (review).Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies. 2007 25(2): 195-196.
Carney, Dana R.; Amy J.C. Cuddy; Andy J. Yap. Power Posing: Brief Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance. Psychological Science, 2010; 21 (10): 1363-1368.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/benefits-power-posing-high-stakes-performance/
Cesario, J., & McDonald, M. M. (2013). Bodies in context: Power poses as a computation of action possibility. Social Cognition, 31, 260–274.
Cuddy, Amy J.C., Caroline A. Wilmuth, and Dana R. Carney. The Benefit of Power Posing Before a High-Stakes Social Evaluation. Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 13-027, September 2012.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/benefits-power-posing-high-stakes-performance/
Cunha, U. ; Leduc, M. ; Nayak, U.S.L. ; Isaacs, B.. Why do old people stoop? Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics. 1987 6(4): 363-369.
Cashdan, Elizabeth. Smiles, Speech, and Body Posture: How Women and Men Display Sociometric Status and Power. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 1998. 22(4): 209-228.
Carney, D. R., Hall, J. A., & LeBeau, L. S. (2005). Beliefs about the nonverbal expression of social power. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 29, 105–123.
Dunn, Cynthia Dickel. Speaking politely, kindly, and beautifully: ideologies of politeness in Japanese business etiquette training. Multilingua: Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication. 2013. 32(2): 225(21).
Dovidio JF, Ellyson SL, Keating CF, Heltman K, Brown CE. 1988. The relationship of social power to visual displays of dominance between men and women. Source: Journal of personality and social psychology. 54: 233-42.
de Lemus, Soledad; Russell Spears and and Miguel Moya. The Power of a Smile to Move You: Complementary Submissiveness in Women’s Posture as a Function of Gender Salience and Facial Expression. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 2012. 38(11): 1480-1494.
Ellis, L. (1994). The high and the mighty among man and beast: How universal is the relationship between height (or body size) and social status? In L. Ellis (Ed.). Social stratification and socioeconomic inequality (Vol. 2, pp. 93–111). Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.
Fischer, Julia; Peter Fischer; Birte Englich; Nilüfer Aydin and Dieter Frey. Empower My Decisions: The Effects of Power Gestures on Confirmatory Information Processing. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 2011. 47: 1146-1154.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/downside-power-posing-body-language-looking-power-posing-action-study/
Glenn E. Weisfeld and Jody M. Beresford. 1982. Erectness of posture as an indicator of dominance or success in humans. Motivation and Emotion. 6(2):113 -131.
Gorkan Ahmetoglu, Viren Swami. Do Women Prefer “Nice Guys?” The Effect Of Male Dominance Behavior On Women’s Ratings. Social Behavior And Personality, 2012; 40(4), 667-672.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/how-to-significantly-increase-male-attractiveness-with-simple-body-language-nice-guys-finish-last-once-again/
Ginsburg, Harvey J. ; Pollman, Vicki A. ; Wauson, Mitzi S. Odom, Richard D. (editor). An ethological analysis of nonverbal inhibitors of aggressive behavior in male elementary school children. Developmental Psychology. 1977 13(4): 417-418.
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, 22, 95–102.
Hall, Judith ; LeBeau, Lavonia ; Reinoso, Jeannette ; Thayer, Frank. Status, Gender, and Nonverbal Behavior in Candid and Posed Photographs: A Study of Conversations Between University Employees. Sex Roles. 2001 44(11): 677-692.
Laird, J. D., & Lacasse, K. (2014). Bodily influences on emotional feelings: Accumulating evidence and extensions of William James’s theory of emotion. Emotion Review, 6, 27–34.
Lee, E. H., & Schnall, S. (2014). The influence of social power on weight perception. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143, 1719–1725.
Michalak, J., Mischnat, J., & Teismann, T. (2014). Sitting posture makes a difference: Embodiment effects on depressive memory bias. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 21, 519–524.
Minvaleev, R. S., Nozdrachev, A. D., Kir’yanova, V. V., & Ivanov, A. I. (2004). Postural influences on the hormone level in healthy subjects: I. The cobra posture and steroid hormones. Human Physiology, 30, 452–456.
Nair, S., Sagar, M., Sollers, J., III, Consedine, N., & Broadbent, E. (2014). Do slumped and upright postures affect stress responses? A randomized trial. Health Psychology. Advance online publication. doi:10.1037/hea0000146
Mondloch, Catherine J. Sad or Fearful? The Influence of Body Posture on Adults’ and Children’s Perception of Facial Displays of Emotion. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 2012. 111(2): 180-196.
Mehrabian, Albert Holzberg, Jules D. (editor). Inference of Attitudes From the Posture, Orientation and Distance of a Communicator. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 1968. 32(3): 296-308.
Mehrabian, Albert Deese, James (editor). Significance of posture and position in the communication of attitude and status relationships. Psychological Bulletin. 1969. 71(5): 359-372.
Matsumoto, D., & Willingham, B. (2006). The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat: Spontaneous expressions of medal winners of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91(3), 568–581.
Mouterde, S. C., Duganzich, D. M., Molles, L. E., Helps, S., Helps, R., & Waas, J. R. (2012). Triumph displays inform eavesdropping little blue penguins of new dominance asymmetries. Animal Behaviour, 83, 605–611.
Meier, B. P., Hauser, D. J., Robinson, M. D., Friesen, C. K., & Schjeldahl, K. (2007b). What’s ‘up’ with God?: Vertical space as a representation of the divine. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 699–710.
Meier, B. P., & Robinson, M. D. (2004). Why the sunny side is up: Associations between affect and vertical position. Psychological Science, 15, 243–247.
Meier, B. P., & Robinson, M. D. (2005). The metaphorical representation of affect. Metaphor and Symbol, 21, 239–257.
Meier, B.P., Robinson, M.D., & Caven, A.J. (in press). Why a big mac is a good mac: Associations between affect and size. Basic and Applied Social Psychology.
Melamed, T. (1992). Personality correlates of physical height. Personality and Individual Differences, 13, 1349–1350.
Middleton, W. C., &Moffett, D. C. (1940). The relation of height and weight measurements to intelligence and to dominance-submission among a group of college freshmen. Research Quarterly of the American Association for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation, 11, 53–59.
Montepare, J. M. (1995). The impact of variations in height on young children’s impressions of men and women. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 19, 31–47.
Matsumura, Shuichi ; Hayden, Thomas J. When should signals of submission be given?–A game theory model. Journal of Theoretical Biology. 2006. 240(3): 425-433.
Park, Lora E.; Lindsey Streamer; Li Huang and Adam D. Galinsky. Stand Tall, But Don’t Put Your Feet Up: Universal and Culturally-Specific Effects of Expansive Postures On Power. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 2013; 49: 965–971.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/are-expansive-postures-of-power-universal-or-cultural/
Prieto, A. G., & Robbins, M. C. (1975). Perceptions of height and self-esteem. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 40, 395–398.
Pitterman, Hallee ; Nowicki Jr, Stephen. A Test of the Ability to Identify Emotion in Human Standing and Sitting Postures: The Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy-2 Posture Test (DANVA2-POS). Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs. 2004. 130(2): 146-162.
Rule, Nicholas, O.; Reginald B. Adams Jr.; Nalini Ambady and Jonathan B. Freeman. Perceptions Of Dominance Following Glimpses Of Faces And Bodies. Perception. 2012; 41: 687-706 doi:10.1068/p7023
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/people-can-read-dominance-split-second
Robinson, Michael D. ; Zabelina, Darya L. ; Ode, Scott ; Moeller, Sara K. The vertical nature of dominance-submission: Individual differences in vertical attention. Journal of Research in Personality. 2008. 42(4): 933-948.
Riskind, John H. Manis, Melvin (editor). They stoop to conquer: Guiding and self-regulatory functions of physical posture after success and failure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1984 47(3): 479-493.
Riskind, J. H. (1984). They stoop to conquer: Guiding and selfregulatory functions of physical posture after success and failure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 479–493.
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.
Roberts, Tomi-Ann and Yousef Arefi-Afshar. Not All Who Stand Tall Are Proud: Gender Differences in the Proprioceptive Effects of Upright Posture. Cognition and Emtion. 2007. 21(4):714-727.
Ranehill, Eva; Anna Dreber; Magnus Johannesson; Susanne Leiberg; Sunhae Sul and Roberto A. Weber. Assessing the Robustness of Power Posing: No Effect on Hormones and Risk Tolerance in a Large Sample of Men and Women. Psychological Science, March, 2015. doi: 10.1177/0956797614553946
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/03/30/0956797614553946.full.pdf
Roberts, Tomi-Ann and Yousef Arefi-Afshar. Not All Who Stand Tall Are Proud: Gender Differences in the Proprioceptive Effects of Upright Posture. Cognition and Emtion. 2007. 21(4):714-727.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/do-women-benefit-from-power-posing-study-suggests-not/
Schubert, T. W. (2005). Your highness: Vertical positions as perceptual symbols of power. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 1–21.
Schwartz, B., Tesser, A., & Powell, E. (1982). Dominance cues in nonverbal behavior. Social Psychology Quarterly, 45, 114–120.
Stepper, S., & Strack, F. (1993). Proprioceptive determinants of emotional and nonemotional feelings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 211–220.
Schenkel, Rudolf. Submission: Its Features and Function in the Wolf and Dog. American Zoologist. 1967. 7(2): 319-329.
Stanton, Steven J. and Robin S. Edelstein. The Physiology of Women’s Power Motive: Implicit Power Motivation is Positively Associated With Estradiol Levels in Women. Journal of Research in Personality. 2009. 43: 1109-1113.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/the-estrogen-factor-the-search-for-nonverbal-power-in-women/
Stanton, Steven J. The Essential Implications of Gender in Human Behavioral Endocrinology Studies. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience. 2011. 5(9): 1-3. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2011.00009
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/a-critical-commentary-on-amy-cuddys-power-posing/
Stepper, S., & Strack, F. (1993). Proprioceptive determinants of emotional and nonemotional feelings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 211–220.
Strelan, P., Weick, M., & Vasiljevic, M. (2013). Power and revenge. British Journal of Social Psychology, 53, 521–540.
Tracy, J. L., & Matsumoto, D. (2008). The spontaneous expression of pride and shame: Evidence for biologically innate nonverbal displays. Proceedings from the National Academy of Sciences, 105(33), 11655–11660.
Tracy, J. L., & Robins, R. W. (2007). The prototypical pride expression: Development of a nonverbal behavior coding system. Emotion, 7(4), 789–801.
Tiedens, Larissa Z. and Alison R. Fragale. Power Moves: Complementarity in Dominant and Submissive Nonverbal Behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2003, 84(3): 558–568.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/power-posing-no-effect-hormones-amy-cuddy-wrong/
Tiedens, Larissa Z ; Fragale, Alison R. Power moves: complementarity in dominant and submissive nonverbal behavior. Journal of personality and social psychology. 2003. 84(3): 558-68.
Tracy, J. L., & Robins, R. W. (2004). Show your pride: Evidence for a discrete emotion expression. Psychological Science, 15, 194–197.
Locke, Connson C. and Cameron Anderson. The Downside of Looking Like a Leader: Leader’s Powerful Demeanor Stifles Follower Voice in Participative Decision-Making.. Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings. 2010. 8(1): 1-6.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/power-body-language-goes-far/
Walsh, Joseph ; Eccleston, Christopher ; Keogh, Edmund. Pain communication through body posture: The development and validation of a stimulus set. Pain. 2014 155(11): 2282-2290.
Welker, Keith M. ; Oberleitner, David E. ; Cain, Samantha ; Carré, Justin M. Upright and left out: Posture moderates the effects of social exclusion on mood and threats to basic needs. European Journal of Social Psychology. 2013 43(5): 355-361.
Walsh, Joseph ; Eccleston, Christopher ; Keogh, Edmund. Pain communication through body posture: The development and validation of a stimulus set. Pain. 2014. 155(11): 2282-2290.
Yap, Andy J. Abbie S. Wazlawek, Brian J. Lucas, Amy J. C. Cuddy, Dana R. Carney. The Ergonomics of Dishonesty: The Effect of Incidental Posture on Stealing, Cheating, and Traffic Violations, 24(11); 2281-2289.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/body-posture-physical-environment-determine-feelings-and-behaviour-study/