Status, Gender, and Nonverbal Behavior in Candid and Posed Photographs: A
Study of Conversations Between University Employees
Judith A. Hall
Sex Roles, Volume 44, Numbers 11-12, June 2001, pp. 677-692(16)
Ninety-six male and female university employees (93% White, 6% African American, 1% Asian) were
photographed in dyads while they conversed about working at their university (candid photographs) and again
while they deliberately faced the camera (posed photographs). Eight nonverbal behaviors were coded from the
photographs, and relative status was ascertained from a postexperimental questionnaire. Status differences were
found for upward (chin-up) head tilt and for resting elbows on leg or furniture; candid versus posed differences
were found for upward head tilt, smiling, and raising the eyebrows; and gender differences were found for
smiling, erect posture, forward lean, and touching self Interactions involving gender, candid/posed
photographs, and/or status suggested limitations to generalizations about main effects.
Everyday observation suggests that people who differ in social status behave differently from one another. It
has been proposed that subtle nonverbal behaviors are one way that status differences are displayed and
maintained (e.g., Henley, 1977, 1995). Most studies that have examined status and nonverbal behavior have
used college students who interacted in experimentally determined roles. In one paradigm, for example,
participants are assigned their roles, which may be manager-employee (Hall, Horgan, & Carter, 2001; Johnson,
1994), teacher-student (Leffler, Gillespie, & Conaty, 1982), or interviewer-interviewee (Deutsch, 1990; Hecht
& LaFrance, 1998). Only a few studies have been conducted among people in established or naturally occurring
status positions (e.g., Dean, Willis, & Hewitt, 1975; Hall, Carter, Jimenez, Frost, & Smith LeBeau, in press;
Hall & Friedman, 1999). Although the experiments using assigned roles have value in that they hold extraneous
factors constant while manipulating status, such stud ies raise concerns about the impact of the status
manipulations and the "as-if" nature of the social interactions that follow.
In this study, university employees had a conversation with someone from their department or unit while
photographs were taken of them. We call these photographs "candid" because, although participants knew they
were being photographed, the photographs were taken at unannounced intervals as the conversation proceeded.
For each pair of employees the research assistant also obtained a "posed" photograph by terminating the
conversation after 4 mm and asking the participants to look at the camera for a final picture. We then related
self-reported relative status, type of photograph (candid vs. posed), and gender to eight nonverbal behaviors:
upward (chin-up) head tilt, erect posture, forward lean, smiling, raised eyebrows, crossed arms, self-touching,
and resting elbows on leg or furniture.
In seeking to relate status to candid nonverbal behavior we would, ideally, have used unobtrusive observation,
in order to obtain samples of completely authentic behavior. However, this was not possible for ethical reasons
and, moreover, uncontrolled observation creates interpretational ambiguities (due to confounding with tasks
and settings). In this study we standardized the conversational task, and we sought to reduce reactivity by
taking photographs in the participants' own department or unit, by taking photographs at unannounced intervals
during their conversation, and by not inquiring about status until after all of the photographs were taken.
Discussion of the relation of status to nonverbal behavior has been closely linked with discussion of gender
differences in nonverbal behavior (e.g., Henley, 1977, 1995). Men and women differ on numerous nonverbal
behaviors, and the magnitudes of these differences rival or exceed those of other psychological gender
differences as well as other correlates of the same nonverbal behaviors (Hall, 1984, 1998; Hall, Carter, &
Horgan, 2000). The literature indicates that women smile and gaze more, lean forward more (sit in a lessrelaxed manner), approach others more closely, and touch the self more, among other differences (Hall, 1984;
Hall et al., 2000; LaFrance & Hecht, 2000). Henley (1977) proposed that gender differences in status underlie
nonverbal gender differences, that is, high-status or dominant individuals behave as men do, while low-status or
submissive individuals behave as women do. Relatively few studies (e.g., Hall & Friedman, 1999) have
measured both status and gender in the same study and therefo re few studies have been able to test this
hypothesis directly. In this study we evaluated our results for evidence that status differences might underlie
nonverbal gender differences.
Nonverbal gender differences, though ubiquitous, have nevertheless been shown to be situationally variable.
For example, Hall and Halberstadt, in their meta-analysis of moderator variables, found that the tendency of
women to smile more than men was greater when the situation suggested anxiety or tension (Hall &
Halberstadt, 1986). Both Hall (1984) and LaFrance and Hecht (2000), in meta-analyses, noted that the gender
difference in smiling is greatest in face-to-face interaction and dwindles to negligibility when individuals are
assessed in nonsocial situations. In our study, "candid" versus "posed" photographs represents a potential
situational moderator.
In all likelihood, both gender role expectancies and characteristics of situations exert influence on men's and
women's behavior (Deaux & Major, 1987), and on expressive behavior in particular (LaFrance & Hecht, 2000).
LaFrance and Hecht proposed that situations that encourage self-conscious social display should accentuate
gender-typical behavior. Accordingly, in our study we predicted that posed photographs would elicit a more
extreme gender difference than would candid photographs. Of those behaviors we examined, the only one that
has been examined under differing circumstances is smiling. In meta-analyses, Hall and Halberstadt (1986) and
LaFrance and Hecht (2000) both found that when being observed was more salient (e.g., the camera's presence
was more obvious), the tendency for men to smile less than women became more pronounced. Studies of posed
(i.e., camera very salient) photographs have previously been virtually unanimous in showing that women smile
more than men under such circumstances (Berman & S mith, 1984; Dodd, Russell, & Jenkins, 1999; Mills,
1984; Morse, 1982; Otta, 1998; Regan, 1982). To our knowledge, however, no previous study has included
both candid and posed photographs of the same individuals.
METHOD
Participants
Participants were 96 faculty and staff at Northeastern University in Boston, MA. Half (18 women, 30 men) of
these individuals were randomly selected from the university faculty/staff telephone directory by research
assistants; the remaining half (28 women, 20 men) were other university faculty and staff who were recruited
by the first group to serve as interaction partners. Based on visual inspection of the photographs, the sample
was White, with the exception of four African American men, two African American women, and one Asian
woman. Hereafter, those recruited by our research assistants will be called employees, and those who were in
turn recruited by the employees will be called partners. In total there were 13 female employee-female partner
dyads, 5 female employee-male partner dyads, 15 male employee-female partner dyads, and 15 male employeemale partner dyads. Restrictions imposed during recruiting were that the employees could not be students,
could not be known to the research assistant, and could not be from the Psychology Department. Employees
had a mean age of 47 years (SD = 10.62, range = 29-69). Partners had a mean age of 38 years (SD = 13.14,
range = 19-68).
Raters
Sixty male and female undergraduate students who received partial credit in their Introductory Psychology
course made judgments of nonverbal behavior from the photographs. No data on ethnicity were collected, but
the population from which the raters were recruited is predominantly White and middle-class.
Procedure
Four research assistants (1 male, 3 female) recruited the employees over the telephone. Employees were asked
if they would be interested in participating in a study conducted by a professor in the Psychology Department.
Any employee who could not be reached after five attempts was eliminated from consideration. Once reached,
employees were told that they would be photographed during a conversation in order to study social interaction
in a "real life" situation. If employees were willing to participate they were asked to recruit someone from their
department or unit who was not a close personal friend to participate with them. Once employees were sure
they had a partner interested in participating, the research assistant scheduled an appointment at the employee's
office. The employee and partner were asked to have a 4-mm conversation on "work and life at Northeastern";
many dyads talked about specific work-related topics. They were informed that during this conversation the
research assistant would be taking photographs at unannounced intervals. When the research assistant had taken
four photographs at 40-s intervals (henceforth called "candid" photographs), he/she asked the participants to
look at the camera for one final photograph ("posed" photograph). The research assistant explicitly refrained
from asking participants to smile or to say "cheese." Throughout, research assistants were permitted to interact
in a natural manner with the participants. Photographs were taken with a 35-mm flash camera using color print
film.
After the last photograph was taken, all participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire on which they rated,
on a 9-point scale, their status relative to the other person: "How would you describe your hierarchical relation
(in terms of rank, authority, or chain of command) to your partner in your office, department, or unit?" (much
lower than my partner! much higher than my partner). Participants were also asked to write down their job title.
Examples of high-status job titles were vice president and professor; examples of low-status job titles were
secretary and scheduling assistant.
Finally, participants rated the degree to which they knew the other person and their comfort, enjoyment, and
tenseness during the conversation (on 9-point scales).
Photograph Ratings
Because of technical problems, 235 photographs rather than 240 (48 dyads x 5 photographs) were available for
rating. These were assembled in a random order in photograph albums. The left and right halves of each
photograph were alternately covered with opaque paper, so that a given rater could see only one member of the
dyad. Raters were run in small groups with the forms distributed at random within the group. Altogether, each
participant was rated by 5 raters for each nonverbal rating item. Each rater rated only one of the following for
all 235 photographs (only the person on the left or on the right): head position down/head position up;
eyebrows lowered/eyebrows raised; posture slouched-slumped/posture stiff-erect; leaning backward/leaning
forward; not smiling/intensely smiling (all on 9-point scales); or a checklist that listed (1) arms crossed, (2)
touching self (did not include hands resting in lap, arms crossed, or hands clasped), and (3) elbow(s) resting on
table, chair arm, or knee. Raters in the c hecklist condition could check as many as applied for each photograph.
(2) In scoring, items on the checklist were converted to three dichotomous (present/absent) variables.
Interrater reliability among the five raters who judged each item was assessed using Cronbach's alpha
coefficient. Reliability was separately assessed for employees and partners; as these were virtually identical, we
present the mean coefficient across employees and partners: head position, .88; eyebrows, .76; posture, .76;
lean, .88; smiling, .92; arms crossed, .70; touching self, .68; and resting elbows, .60.
In the analyses reported below, sample sizes vary slightly because of missing photographs (see above) and also
because occasionally a participant moved off camera or oriented his/her head away from the camera and
therefore could not be coded for all of the nonverbal behaviors.
Analysis
First, for each photograph the ratings made by the five observers were averaged for each nonverbal behavior.
Next, for each participant for each behavior item, the ratings of the four photographs taken during the
conversation (candid photographs) were averaged together. These were analyzed separately from the final
photograph, which is called the posed photograph.
Employees and partners both rated their own relative status. Because they agreed highly on their relative status
(see Results), we created a composite of employee and partner status ratings by averaging them after reversing
the partner's rating so that for both participants ratings at the upper end of the scale indicated that the employee
had higher status than the partner, whereas ratings at the lower end indicated that the employee had lower status
than the partner (range of composite = 2.5-9.0). This composite status rating was used to identify who was the
higher-status and who the lower-status member of each dyad.
The relations of status, candid/posed photographs, and gender to nonverbal behavior were examined in fourway mixed-model univariate analyses of variance (ANOVA) having two between-dyads and two within-dyads
factors; in these ANOVAs the dependent variables were the nonverbal behaviors, the between-dyads factors
were gender of the lower-status person and gender of the higher-status person, and the within-dyads factors
were behavior of the lower-versus higher-status person and type of photograph (candid/posed). These
ANOVAs excluded the seven dyads that had exactly equal status.
Gender differences were additionally examined using point-biserial correlations between gender (0 male; 1 :
female) and the nonverbal behaviors.
RESULTS
Preliminary Analyses
Employees and their partners agreed very well on their relative status, r(46) = -.64, p < .0001; the negative
correlation indicates that the higher one person rated his/her relative status, the lower the other rated his/her
own relative status. As indicated in the previous section, there was a wide spread in the status disparity between
the dyad members: on the composite status rating, the range was 2.5-9 on a 1-to-9 scale where numbers farther
in either direction from the midpoint indicate a greater disparity. Most of the time, employees selected partners
of lower status than themselves, as evidenced by comparison between the employee's and partner's ratings of
their own relative status, matched t(47) = 5.37, p < .0001 (employees, M = 6.33, range = 1-9; partners, M =
3.77, range = 1-9). Thirty-five of the 48 employees picked a partner of lower status, 6 picked a partner of higher
status, and 7 picked a partner of equal status.
Higher- and lower-status dyad members did not differ significantly on comfort, enjoyment, or tenseness, ps >
.46 by matched t test (for higher-status participants: comfort, M = 7.63, SD = 2.03; enjoyment, M = 7.66, SD =
1.32; tenseness, M = 2.15, SD = 1.90; and for lower-status participants: comfort, M = 7.90, SD = 1.77;
enjoyment, M = 7.41, SD = 1.55; tenseness, M = 2.34, SD = 1.89). These means indicate that, in general,
participants reported high comfort and enjoyment and low tension.
Correlations were run between these self-ratings and the nonverbal behaviors--separately for the lower-status
and higher-status dyad members. Among higher-status members in posed photographs, more erect posture was
associated with more tenseness, r(37) = p < .05, and more smiling was associated with more comfort, r(37) =
.38, p < .05. Among lower-status individuals in posed photographs, more upward head tilt was associated with
more tenseness, r(37) = .36, p < .05, and more forward lean was associated with less enjoyment, r(37) = -.33, p
< .05, as well as more tenseness, r(37) = .34, p < .05. Among lower-status individuals in candid photographs,
more upward head tilt was associated with less comfort, r(39) = -.34, p < .05; more smiling was associated with
less comfort, r(39) = -.31, p < .05, as well as more tenseness, r(39) = p < .01; more raised eyebrows were
associated with more enjoyment, r(39) = .31, p < .05; and more self-touching was associated with more
comfort, r(39) = .35, p < .05.
Status, Candid/Posed Photographs, and Gender in Relation to Nonverbal Behavior
Table I presents main effects of lower versus higher status from the ANOVAs described above, and Table II
presents main effects of candid versus posed photographs from the same ANOVAs. Other effects from these
ANOVAs are reported in the text.
Upward Head Tilt
As shown in Table I, the lower-status members tilted their heads up more than did the higher-status members (p
< .05; higher values mean more upward tilt). There was also a highly significant (p < .0001) effect of
candid/posed photographs, as shown in Table II; participants tilted their heads up more in the posed than the
candid photographs. This is not surprising considering that they looked up at the research assistant for the posed
picture. There were no other significant (p < .05) effects.
Smiling
As Table I shows, status was not significantly related to smiling. However, as Table II shows, participants
smiled much more in the posed than candid photographs (p < .0001). In addition, there was a Candid/Posed
Photographs x Lower-Status Gender interaction, F(1, 35) = 14.54, p < .001. For candid photographs, smiling
(for both participants combined) was unrelated to the gender of the lower-status person (lower-status male, M =
2.81; lower-status female, M 2.32), but for posed photographs smiling (for both participants combined) was
substantially greater when the lower-status person was female (M = 5.67) than when the lower-status person
was male (M = 3.89).
For smiling there was also a three-way interaction: Candid/Posed Photographs x Lower-Status Gender x
Higher-Status Gender, F(1, 35) = 4.02, p = .05 (Table III). One can clearly see the candid/posed main effect in
Table III (i.e., all posed means are larger than all candid means). However, candid and posed photographs were
different in the patterning over the four cells created by the crossing of the two participants' genders. What is
most striking is the amount of smiling in the cells in which both participants were female, relative to the other
cells. For candid photographs, there was the least smiling in female-female dyads (M = 2.12) compared with
the other gender combinations, but for posed photographs, there was the highest level of smiling in this cell (M
= 6.46), compared with the other gender combinations. Thus, the greatest responsivity to the circumstances of
photography appears to be among women.
Self-Touch
Neither status nor candid/posed photographs was significantly related to self-touch. There were two significant
interaction effects. First, there was a Status x Lower-Status Gender interaction, F(1, 35) = 4.56, p < .05. Status
had a different relation to self-touch, depending on the lower-status person's gender; when the lower-status
person was male, the higher-status person touched himself/herself more (M = .28) than did the lower-status
person (M = .11), but when the lower-status person was female there was no status difference (lower-status
female, M = .16; higher-status female, M = .15).
Second, there was a Candid/Posed Photographs x Lower-Status Gender effect, F(1, 35) = 4.20, p < .05. In
candid photographs, participants touched themselves somewhat more when the lower-status person was female
(M = .18) than male (M = .12), but this gender difference was reversed for the posed photographs: participants
touched themselves more when the lower-status person was male (M = .26) than female (M = .14).
Resting Elbows
Table I shows that the higher-status person rested his/her elbows on a leg or furniture more than did the lowerstatus person (p < .01). Also, the Status x Lower-Status Gender effect was significant, F(1, 35) = 5.60, p < .05.
When the lower-status person was male, the higher-status person rested his/her elbows more (M = .71) than the
lower-status person did (M = .39), but there was not much difference when the lower-status person was female
(higher-status, M = .56, lower-status, M = .53). There was one other significant effect, the Status x LowerStatus Gender x Higher-Status Gender interaction, F(1, 35) = 7.25, p = .01. This effect showed that the Status x
Lower-Status Gender effect just described was mainly true when the higher-status member was female.
Erect Posture, Forward Lean, Raised Eyebrows, and Crossed Arms
Tables I and II show that neither status nor candid/posed photographs was significantly related to these
behaviors. There were also no other significant effects in the ANOVAs for these behaviors.
Gender Differences in Nonverbal Behavior
Although gender differences were examined in the ANOVAs just described, it is also instructive to examine
gender differences as simple pairwise comparisons. Instead of doing this with t tests, we did it with pointbiserial correlations, which yield the same p-value as the t would but also indicate the effect magnitude in terms
of the correlation between gender and each nonverbal behavior. For these correlations, gender was dummycoded 0 (male) and 1 (female). These correlations, which are shown in Table IV, were examined separately for
lower- and higher-status individuals because their interdependence precluded pooling them into one combined
sample.
There were some significant gender differences. Though not consistent across participants and candid/posed
photographs, there was evidence that women sat with more erect posture, leaned forward more, smiled more,
and raised their eyebrows more than men did. Of all the differences between candid and posed gender
differences, the most notable was for smiling: there were no smiling differences for candid photographs but in
posed photographs lower-status women smiled markedly more than lower-status men (the difference for
higher-status individuals was also positive but did not achieve significance, p < .12).
DISCUSSION
In this study, dyads composed of faculty or staff of a university were photographed in their office or department
as they conversed about work. Four photographs were taken at unannounced intervals (candid photographs),
and one final photograph (posed) was taken with the participants facing the camera. Following this, participants
filled in a questionnaire which asked, among other things, about their status relative to each other.
We found that the higher- and lower-status individuals within a dyad behaved differently from one another on
two behaviors. The higher-status participant tilted his/her head down more and was more likely to rest his/her
elbows on a leg or furniture than did the lower-status participant.
Our results for status and upward head tilt are consistent with the metaphorical phrases "looking up to" and
"looking down on"; however, we can only speculate that this is the psychological meaning of tilting the head up
or down in the present context. (3) When we correlated participants' self-ratings with their behavior, we found
that among lower-status individuals more tenseness was associated with more upward head tilt in posed
photographs and more comfort was associated with less upward tilt in candid photographs. However,
considering that there was no difference between lower- and higher-status individuals' self-rated tenseness,
these within-group correlations cannot explain why lower-and higher-status individuals differed in their head
position.
Resting one's elbow on one's leg or furniture is previously unstudied with regard to status. Possibly, this
behavior indicates more relaxation, although it was not significantly correlated with sell-rated tenseness in this
study. Two behaviors associated with relaxation, erect posture and forward lean, did not show status effects,
even though role-playing experiments by Mehrabian (summarized in Mehrabian, 1972) indicated that lower
status was associated with more forward lean and erect posture. Recently, Hall and Friedman (1999) found a
relation between forward lean and lower status in a study of employees in the corporate offices of a
convenience foodstore chain. Possibly, a status difference in posture or lean requires a difference between
higher- and lower-status individuals in anxiety or tension. In the present study, higher- and lower-status
individuals did not differ in self-reported tenseness. We did, however, find within-group correlations suggesting
that more tenseness and less enjoyment were associ ated with more forward lean or more erect posture or both.
The absence of a relation between status and smiling is consistent with a number of previous studies, including
Hall et al. (2001), Hall and Friedman (1999), Hecht and Lafrance (1998), and Johnson (1994). Deutsch (1990)
found that role-playing interviewees smiled more than role-playing interviewers, but the interviewees were
instructed to make a favorable impression, whereas the interviewers were not, thus confounding status with the
motive to ingratiate. Not too surprisingly, the motive to ingratiate has been shown to produce increased smiling
(e.g., Godfrey, Jones, & Lord, 1986; Rosenfeld, 1966). But not all low-status people are motivated to ingratiate;
for example, some might be hostile, demoralized, or self-involved (Hall et al., 2001). The absence of a status
effect for smiling in the present study suggests that ingratiation might not have been the prevailing
psychological motive on the part of the lower-status individuals.
Correlations between self-reported feelings and smiling did show some within-group effects. Among higherstatus individuals in posed photographs, more smiling was positively associated with more comfort, whereas
among lower-status individuals in candid photographs, more smiling was associated with less comfort and
more tenseness. Thus, smiling seemed to have different psychological meanings in lower- versus higher-status
people (Hecht & LaFrance, 1998).
Another behavior for which we did not find a status effect was brow position. Although experimental work has
revaled that lowered brows are perceived as more dominant than raised brows (Keating et al., 1981; Keating &
Bai, 1986; Keating, Mazur, & Segall, 1977), the lowered-brow stimuli used in those studies appear quite
threatening. It is unknown whether the subtle, naturalistic variations in brow position such as occurred in our
study would produce similar effects. Of course, finding that observers attribute status or dominance to a
nonverbal behavior (as in the Keating studies) does not necessarily mean that people who are high or low in
status or dominance will actually emit that behavior.
Other behaviors that did not show any evidence of a status effect were arm-crossing and self-touching. Because
self-touching has been associated with increased anxiety (e.g., Waxer, 1977), we might predict a status effect to
the extent that lower-status individuals felt more anxiety. Our lack of a difference between lower- and higherstatus individuals in self-reported tenseness may explain why no status effect occurred for self-touching.
Candid versus posed photographs showed overall effects for three behaviors. In posed photographs, people
tilted their heads up, raised their brows, and smiled more than in the candid photographs. The first two of these
are likely the natural consequences of individuals looking up from their conversation. The smiling effect
demonstrates that people have a strong inclination to "smile for the camera." They did this of their own
volition, however, and not in response to any prompting from the experimenter.
Turning now to nonverbal gender differences, we found some but not a large number of gender differences.
Our findings that women tended to do more smiling and to have more erect posture and more forward lean are
consistent with the literature (Hall, 1984). Our findings for smiling were importantly qualified by the
distinction between candid and posed photographs. Negligible gender differences were found for candid
photographs whereas significant or near-significant gender differences were found for posed photographs.
Indeed, the interactive roles of gender and candid/posed photographs were among the most interesting results of
this study. For smiling and self-touching, the gender of the lower-status person interacted with photograph type:
notably in posed photographs, participants smiled and touched themselves more when the lower-status person
was female. For smiling, it was further found that the gender of the higher-status person interacted with
candid/posed photographs and the gender of the lower-status person. When both participants were female,
smiling was very low in candid photographs but very high in posed photographs. This finding is consistent with
the arguments of LaFrance and Hecht (2000) that norms prescribing smiling in women are especially operative
in more self-conscious situations. Their theory does not explain why women's smiling was unusually low in
candid photographs, however. Perhaps women took a more task-oriented approach to the conversational task
than men did, with the consequence that their faces had a somewhat more serious demeanor than men's did in
the candid photographs. Another possibility is that women were more aware than men of what behaviors are
most normatively appropriate in each of the tasks, so that they showed both more seriousness in the
conversation about work and more pleasantness in the posed photograph compared to men.
Another question of interest in this study is whether nonverbal gender differences could be explained by gender
differences in status (Henley, 1977). There were, indeed, gender differences in status. Relative to their
representation in the sample as a whole, women were significantly underrepresented among higher-status dyad
members, 12/39, [chi square] (1, N = 39) = 4.63, p < .05, and similarly overrepresented, with marginal
significance, among lower-status dyad members, 26/39, [chi square] (1, N = 39) = 3.36, p < .10. However, the
behaviors that showed significant status differences were not the behaviors that showed significant gender
differences. Thus the parallelism between gender and status effects posited by Henley (1977) was not in
evidence. A similar pattern of dissimilar nonverbal behavior correlates of status and gender was found in Hall
and Friedman's study of employees in a convenience foodstore chain (Hall & Friedman, 1999). These results
raise doubts about whether status can be considered a via ble explanation for nonverbal gender differences
(Hall et al., 2000; Hall & Halberstadt, 1997).
In summary, this study found evidence that several nonverbal behaviors varied with status, candid versus posed
photographs, and gender. However, evidence of interactions among these factors suggests there may be limited
usefulness in generalizing about any of these variables individually in relation to nonverbal behavior. Status
effects were not always constant across gender, and gender differences were not always constant across
candid/posed photographs. It was particularly interesting that gender differences in smiling appeared to be
especially sensitive to situational demands (candid vs. posed photographs). Replication efforts are needed to
establish the generality of these effects across different settings, different operational definitions of status, and
different recording methodologies (e.g., videotape).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation to the first author. The authors
wish to acknowledge Julie Cunningham, Natasha Frost, Alycia Piccone, and Maranda Reynolds for their
assistance in conducting this study.
(1.) To whom correspondence should be addressed at Department of Psychology, Northeastern University,
Boston, Massachusetts 02115; e-mail: hall1@neu.edu.
(2.) We a]so coded whether the hands were clasped in the lap. However, results for this behavior were marked
by a single deviant (very large) mean for the lower-status person in the posed photograph in dyads made up of
lower-status male and higher-status female. This behavior is not discussed further.
(3.) Inection of the photographs rules out the possible artifactual explanation that the higher-status participant
tended to stand over the other person and had his/her head tilted down for that reason.
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Table I
Behavior Differences between Lower- and Higher-Status Member of Dyads
Behavior
Lower
Upward head tilt
Erect posture
Forward lean
Smiling
4.81
5.17
5.14
3.62
Higher
4.46
4.83
5.03
3.73
F
5.86 (*)
1.60
.36
.15
Raised eyebrows
Crossed arms
Self-touch
Resting elbows
5.62
.03
.14
.46
5.52
.07
.22
.64
.16
.99
2.13
8.46 (**)
Note. Degrees of freedom are (1,35). The first five behaviors were measured on a
1-9 scale and the last three behaviors were measured on a dichotomous scale (0:
absent; 1: present).
(*)p <.05.
(**)p <.01.
Table II
Behavior Differences as a Function of Candid vs. Posed Photographs
Behavior
Upward head tilt
Erect posture
Forward lean
Smiling
Raised eyebrows
Crossed arms
Self-touch
Resting elbows
Candid
Posed
4.18
4.90
5.24
2.57
5.44
.04
.15
.54
5.09
5.10
4.93
4.78
5.70
.05
.20
.56
F
33.01 (****)
.99
2.51
54.80 (****)
3.07 (+)
.10
1.52
.27
Note. Degrees of freedom are (1,35). The first five behaviors were measured on a
1-9 scale and the last three behaviors were measured on a dichotomous scale (0:
absent; 1: present).
(+)p <.10.
(****)p <.0001.
Table III
Smiling in Candid vs. Posed Photographs as a Function of the Lower-Status and the
Higher-Status
Person's Gender
Lower-status gender
Photograph type and
higher-status gender
Male
Female
Candid
Male
Female
2.49
3.14
2.52
2.12
Posed
Male
Female
3.77
4.00
4.89
6.46
Table IV
Gender Differences in Nonverbal Behavior
Behavior
Upward head tilt
Erect posture
Forward lean
Smiling
Raised eyebrows
Crossed arms
Self-touch
Resting elbows
Lower-status
Candid
Posed
-.02
.16
.34 (*)
-.05
.01
-.18
.01
.08
-.27 (+)
.15
.04
.48 (**)
.35 (*)
-.08
-.07
.14
Higher-status
Candid
Posed
-.18
.36 (*)
.20
-.13
.19
.20
-.27 (+)
-.24
-.03
.05
.09
.26
.15
.01
-.21
.02
Note.: Ns range from 39 to 41. Entries are point-biserial correlations (0 : male;
1 : female)
(+)p < .10.
(*)< .05.
(**)p < .01.