Sex differences in nonverbal behavior Flashcards
Henley’s argument on sex differences
- Nancy Henley’s book “Body Politics” in 1977.
- descriptive claim: signs of low status exhibited nonverbally are also the typical signs exhibited by females, high status signs are exhibited by males
- Reason: the reason is the power base of society- society is structured so that women are in low status and men are in high status positions (NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE FOR THIS)
space
- men take up more space than women
- FF dyads use the least, MM the most space
- Is this just because men are, on average, bigger than women?
touch
- low status people are the object of touch more than high status people
- women touch others more than men do
- no clear pattern of touch asymmetry in M > F or F>M touch.
posture and movement
- Ms exhibit more body movement than Fs when conversing
- Fs gesture more than M, but M use more large body movements
- Fs sit in a more upright posture and exhibit more forward lean (toward partner)
- Men sit in a more open posture and women in closed posture
Gaze
- staring (dominant), monitoring (submissive)
- females gaze more than men
- sex differences in gaze increases with age
- females are gazed at more than males
- does gaze=high status (stare), or low status (monitor environment)?
effects of sex vs. status on dominance ratio
- F expert, M nonexpert= F>M
- M expert, F nonexpert= M>F
- F expert, M expert= M>F
- when status cues are altered so is gaze pattern
- the social status cues of maleness disappear when expertise is altered
- expertness trumps sex
sex differences in attention to regions of the face
- presented subjects with images of people in outdoor (?) settings
- tracked the viewers eye movements
- male focus on the mouth region of the target
- females focus more on the eye region of the target
- males may have a preference for dynamic features of the face
- attracted to movement, may also aid in speech recogntion
facial expression
- females smile more than males
- females are smiled at more than males
- females are more facially expressive
- females are better decoders of facial expression
- effect is evident in studies of infants, children, and adolescents, but it is weak; 53% of girls perform above average, compared to 46% of boys
- females pay greater attention to visual info
- males better recall for verbal information
talk time (2007)
- 396 subject (210 W, 186 M)
- electronically activated recording (ear device)
- randomly records 30 sec every 12.5 minutes for 17 hours
- women average 16,215 words
- men avg 15, 669
- not significantly different
- D2L slide*
influences on male and female styles of interaction (3 that all have minor differences between males and females)
- ATTENTION: females pay more attention to vocal, facial, and body cues compared to males
- RESPONSIVENESS: females are more influenced by nonverbal than verbal cues, relative to men
- KNOWLEDGE: females seem more aware of the relationship between particular nonverbal cues various emotional states
4 factors that influence female decoding sensitivity/skill
- empathy hypothesis
- masculinity/ femininity hypothesis
- oppression hypothesis
- the accommodation hypothesis
empathy hypothesis (myth)
-women are accurate judges of nonverbal cues because they are more sensitive to others emotional experiences
masculinity/femininity hypothesis (myth)
-women are good decoders because they are feminine (i.e. have trait of being considerate, harmonious with others, etc.)
oppression hypothesis (myth)
-women decode well because oppressed people are forced to develop such skills in order to cope with society (animals, not humans)
not yet proven wrong: the accommodation hypothesis
- women are brought up to be socially accommodating so they attend to and decode best those cues that are most controlled, so as to interpret the message that the sender WANTS to send
- easier to deceive women than men
