title: The power of a smile to move you: complementary submissiveness in women's posture as a function of gender salience and facial expression.
abstract: Extending evidence that nonverbal complementary behavior can occur in dyads to the intergroup domain, the authors predicted that women assume a relatively submissive (narrow) posture when confronted with a male instructor adopting a dominant (broad) posture, but only when he smiles (affiliation motive) and when gender is salient. Male affiliation (smiling vs. not smiling) and gender salience were manipulated in Study 1 by focusing on sex differences (vs. individual differences) in presentation style, strengthened by the instructor making a sexist remark. As predicted, women adopted a more submissive posture when gender was salient and the male instructor smiled. In Study 2, male posture was manipulated (dominant vs. submissive) to examine postural complementarity in women. Study 3 replicated the postural effect, especially when the sexist remark is present. This effect was mediated by the instructor's perceived warmth. Implications for gender, benevolent sexism, and intergroup power relations are discussed.
authors.affiliation: University of Granada, Spain. slemus@ugr.es
authors.forename: Soledad
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: de Lemus
authors.forename: Russell
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Spears
authors.forename: Miguel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Moya
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D004291:Dominance-Subordination; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D011187:Posture; D011209:Power, Psychological; D011287:Prejudice; D012737:Sex Factors; D012904:Smiling; D006113:United Kingdom; D014741:Video Recording; D055815:Young Adult