SCLoA Outcome Link: Explain the formation of stereotypes and their effect on behaviour (perception of rich and poor)
Nonverbal cues give away a person's socioeconomic status (SES)
A new study in Association for Psychological Science has found exactly that.
After reflecting on the comments provided by my fans, I have decided that my last post was not enough, as such, this is a continuation of my previous post.
As mentioned before, the implicit actions of groups or individuals are conducive to their appearance. People are perceived differently by what they wear or have. Obvious pointers include the flashy cars one would own, the clothes they wear, the house they live in, or where they work. However, there is actually more to that. A person's nonverbal cues- their body language and gestures, and perhaps even their facial expressions, can give off a certain vibe of their SES!
What happened in the experiment was participants having a one-to-one interview. These were videotaped and later analyzed. What the researchers found was that there were two obvious behaviours that separated the upper and lower SES groups. The two types of behaviors were disengagement behaviors (including fidgeting with personal objects and doodling) and engagement behaviors (including head nodding, laughing and eye contact).
Results showed that participants who were from upper SES backgrounds displayed more disengagement-related behaviors compared to participants from lower SES backgrounds. To complement this, when a separate group of observers were shown 60 second clips of these video recordings, they were able to correctly guess the participants' SES background, based on their body language. This is all only through the perception of body language! Not the participant's car or house!
This was a very interesting article to read as it is one of the first, if not the first study to show that there is a correlation between nonverbal cues and SES. Perhaps one could exploit this and act a certain way to give off a vibe that they are rich, or poor. Spies may find this useful, or even in a basic job interview. Who do you want to look like? How should you act? It is not only the things you say that are taken into account, it is also the little things you do.
It is interesting that although there can be numerous confounding variables in the experiment/interview, somehow, all the participants guessed correctly the SES from the videotapes. This supports the validity of the experiment, that the independent variable was very clear, it was either a poor or rich person on video tape, and thus gave a very consistent result in the dependent variable. In terms of generalizability, it could possibly be generalized into Western cultures, since different people from different cultures behave differently. Furthermore, some cultures do not practice a "hierarchy" as such, where money determines status, if even there was money. The experiment in the end did provide some insights into how very implicit actions and behaviours can give off a "vibe" that others can feel, further supporting the need to invest in psychology and to understand these nonverbal phenomenons.
Link to article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090204121515.htm
Nonverbal cues give away a person's socioeconomic status (SES)
A new study in Association for Psychological Science has found exactly that.
After reflecting on the comments provided by my fans, I have decided that my last post was not enough, as such, this is a continuation of my previous post.
As mentioned before, the implicit actions of groups or individuals are conducive to their appearance. People are perceived differently by what they wear or have. Obvious pointers include the flashy cars one would own, the clothes they wear, the house they live in, or where they work. However, there is actually more to that. A person's nonverbal cues- their body language and gestures, and perhaps even their facial expressions, can give off a certain vibe of their SES!
What happened in the experiment was participants having a one-to-one interview. These were videotaped and later analyzed. What the researchers found was that there were two obvious behaviours that separated the upper and lower SES groups. The two types of behaviors were disengagement behaviors (including fidgeting with personal objects and doodling) and engagement behaviors (including head nodding, laughing and eye contact).
Results showed that participants who were from upper SES backgrounds displayed more disengagement-related behaviors compared to participants from lower SES backgrounds. To complement this, when a separate group of observers were shown 60 second clips of these video recordings, they were able to correctly guess the participants' SES background, based on their body language. This is all only through the perception of body language! Not the participant's car or house!
This was a very interesting article to read as it is one of the first, if not the first study to show that there is a correlation between nonverbal cues and SES. Perhaps one could exploit this and act a certain way to give off a vibe that they are rich, or poor. Spies may find this useful, or even in a basic job interview. Who do you want to look like? How should you act? It is not only the things you say that are taken into account, it is also the little things you do.
It is interesting that although there can be numerous confounding variables in the experiment/interview, somehow, all the participants guessed correctly the SES from the videotapes. This supports the validity of the experiment, that the independent variable was very clear, it was either a poor or rich person on video tape, and thus gave a very consistent result in the dependent variable. In terms of generalizability, it could possibly be generalized into Western cultures, since different people from different cultures behave differently. Furthermore, some cultures do not practice a "hierarchy" as such, where money determines status, if even there was money. The experiment in the end did provide some insights into how very implicit actions and behaviours can give off a "vibe" that others can feel, further supporting the need to invest in psychology and to understand these nonverbal phenomenons.
Link to article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090204121515.htm
http://easyhometutor.com/educationtimes/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Differentiating-Between-Rich-and-Poor-By-Money-and-Conduct.jpg