Tag Archive for Respect

The Cowboy Pose

by  • March 5, 2013 • 0 Comments

The cowboy has all fingers "drawn" - so you check 'it' out.

The cowboy has all fingers “drawn” – so you check ‘it’ out.

The cowboy pose happens by placing the thumbs in the belt loops with the remaining fingers pointed downwards towards the crotch. Popularized by old western movies cowboys would use a combination of this posture and the hands-on-hips (or gun) posture to show how macho they were. Because it draws attention once again to the crotch, it is rarely used by women. Women tend to have to use less aggressive, yet more sensual means to show off, such as thrusting their chest outward by rolling their shoulders back, or parting the legs slightly leaving them uncrossed. When amongst other men, the cowboy pose says that they are unafraid and can dominate. This posture is tolerable as a dominance display in men because it lacks the pompousness we can sometimes find coming from in-your-face displays. The cowboy pose is equal to the figure-four-leg cross with respect to perception by others and use acceptability. This not withstanding, the posture still needs to be used with caution.

Status, Context And Personal Space

by  • March 5, 2013 • 0 Comments

Status and context affect spatial and proximity rules. For example, bosses are in charge of determining what level of closeness is appropriate and permitted as it relates to subordinate employees. This isn’t to say that employees enjoy this arrangement but rather that employees are not permitted to reverse proximity rules onto employers. Subordinate employees have many roles and one of them is tolerance of the rules set for them by their seniors. For example, a boss might pat the back of one his employees or put his or her arm around the new associate as a form of bonding. Reversal of the situation would be seen as an infringement on the status of the boss. When it comes to touching, a subordinate should never encroach on the personal space of someone holding a dominant position.

Contextual rules also exist with respect to personal space. In the office, it would be un-acceptable for sexual partners to touch one another or carry on in front of others. However, in the same office hosting a year-end business party with all of the same employees and their spouse’s, touching and even kissing would be common place.
Therefore, status and context are two other factors we should be conscious of as they relate to proximity and space.