Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • Article
  • Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Visual Attention to Powerful Postures: People Avert Their Gaze from Nonverbal Dominance Displays

By: Elise Holland, Elizabeth Baily Wolf, Christine Looser and Amy Cuddy
  • Format:Print
ShareBar

Abstract

This paper investigates whether humans avert their gaze from individuals engaging in nonverbal displays of dominance. Although past studies demonstrate that both humans and nonhuman primates direct more visual attention to high-status others than low-status others, nonhuman primates avert their gaze when high-status conspecifics engage in nonverbal dominance displays (e.g., chest pounding). In two experiments, participants were eye-tracked while viewing photographs of men and women adopting either dominant, high-power (i.e., expansive and open) or submissive, low-power (i.e., contractive and closed) nonverbal postures. Results demonstrated that humans, like primates, avert their gaze from the faces and upper bodies of individuals displaying dominance compared to those displaying submissiveness. Not only did participants look less often at the faces and upper bodies of dominance-displaying individuals, they also fixated on these regions for shorter durations. Our findings ultimately suggest that nonverbal dominance displays influence humans’ visual attention in ways that are likely to shape how social interactions unfold.

Keywords

Nonverbal Behavior; Eye-tracking; Dominance; Nonverbal Communication; Interpersonal Communication; Power and Influence

Citation

Holland, Elise, Elizabeth Baily Wolf, Christine Looser, and Amy Cuddy. "Visual Attention to Powerful Postures: People Avert Their Gaze from Nonverbal Dominance Displays." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 68 (January 2017): 60–67.
  • Find it at Harvard

More from the Authors

    • Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

    Managing Perceptions of Distress at Work: Reframing Emotion as Passion

    By: Elizabeth Baily Wolf, Jooa Julia Lee, Sunita Sah and Alison Wood Brooks
    • Forthcoming
    • Faculty Research

    Racism, Causal Explanations, and Affirmative Action

    By: Theresa K. Vescio, Amy Cuddy, Faye Crosby and Kevin Weaver
    • 2016
    • Faculty Research

    Competent but Cold: The Stereotype Content Model and Envy in Organizations

    By: Elizabeth Baily Wolf and Peter Glick
More from the Authors
  • Managing Perceptions of Distress at Work: Reframing Emotion as Passion By: Elizabeth Baily Wolf, Jooa Julia Lee, Sunita Sah and Alison Wood Brooks
  • Racism, Causal Explanations, and Affirmative Action By: Theresa K. Vescio, Amy Cuddy, Faye Crosby and Kevin Weaver
  • Competent but Cold: The Stereotype Content Model and Envy in Organizations By: Elizabeth Baily Wolf and Peter Glick
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College