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Trait dominance promotes reflexive staring at masked angry body postures.
PLoS One. 2014; 9(12):e116232.Plos

Abstract

It has been shown that dominant individuals sustain eye-contact when non-consciously confronted with angry faces, suggesting reflexive mechanisms underlying dominance behaviors. However, dominance and submission can be conveyed and provoked by means of not only facial but also bodily features. So far few studies have investigated the interplay of body postures with personality traits and behavior, despite the biological relevance and ecological validity of these postures. Here we investigate whether non-conscious exposure to bodily expressions of anger evokes reflex-like dominance behavior. In an interactive eye-tracking experiment thirty-two participants completed three social dominance tasks with angry, happy and neutral facial, bodily and face and body compound expressions that were masked from consciousness. We confirmed our predictions of slower gaze-aversion from both non-conscious bodily and compound expressions of anger compared to happiness in high dominant individuals. Results from a follow-up experiment suggest that the dominance behavior triggered by exposure to bodily anger occurs with basic detection of the category, but not recognition of the emotional content. Together these results suggest that dominant staring behavior is reflexively driven by non-conscious perception of the emotional content and triggered by not only facial but also bodily expression of anger.

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Authors+Show Affiliations

Hortensius R
Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands.
van Honk J
Department of Experimental Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands; Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa; Institute of Infectious Diseases and Molecular Medicine, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.
de Gelder B
Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands; Brain and Emotion Laboratory, Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands; Brain and Emotion Laboratory Leuven, Division of Psychiatry, Department of Neurosciences, KU Leuven, Leuven Belgium.
Terburg D
Department of Experimental Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands; Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.

MeSH

AdultAngerDominance-SubordinationEye MovementsFacial ExpressionFemaleHappinessHealthy VolunteersHumansMalePostureYoung Adult

Pub Type(s)

Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Language

eng

PubMed ID

25549321

Citation

Hortensius, Ruud, et al. "Trait Dominance Promotes Reflexive Staring at Masked Angry Body Postures." PloS One, vol. 9, no. 12, 2014, pp. e116232.
Hortensius R, van Honk J, de Gelder B, et al. Trait dominance promotes reflexive staring at masked angry body postures. PLoS One. 2014;9(12):e116232.
Hortensius, R., van Honk, J., de Gelder, B., & Terburg, D. (2014). Trait dominance promotes reflexive staring at masked angry body postures. PloS One, 9(12), e116232. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0116232
Hortensius R, et al. Trait Dominance Promotes Reflexive Staring at Masked Angry Body Postures. PLoS One. 2014;9(12):e116232. PubMed PMID: 25549321.
* Article titles in AMA citation format should be in sentence-case
TY - JOUR T1 - Trait dominance promotes reflexive staring at masked angry body postures. AU - Hortensius,Ruud, AU - van Honk,Jack, AU - de Gelder,Beatrice, AU - Terburg,David, Y1 - 2014/12/30/ PY - 2014/05/10/received PY - 2014/12/06/accepted PY - 2014/12/31/entrez PY - 2014/12/31/pubmed PY - 2015/9/1/medline SP - e116232 EP - e116232 JF - PloS one JO - PLoS One VL - 9 IS - 12 N2 - It has been shown that dominant individuals sustain eye-contact when non-consciously confronted with angry faces, suggesting reflexive mechanisms underlying dominance behaviors. However, dominance and submission can be conveyed and provoked by means of not only facial but also bodily features. So far few studies have investigated the interplay of body postures with personality traits and behavior, despite the biological relevance and ecological validity of these postures. Here we investigate whether non-conscious exposure to bodily expressions of anger evokes reflex-like dominance behavior. In an interactive eye-tracking experiment thirty-two participants completed three social dominance tasks with angry, happy and neutral facial, bodily and face and body compound expressions that were masked from consciousness. We confirmed our predictions of slower gaze-aversion from both non-conscious bodily and compound expressions of anger compared to happiness in high dominant individuals. Results from a follow-up experiment suggest that the dominance behavior triggered by exposure to bodily anger occurs with basic detection of the category, but not recognition of the emotional content. Together these results suggest that dominant staring behavior is reflexively driven by non-conscious perception of the emotional content and triggered by not only facial but also bodily expression of anger. SN - 1932-6203 UR - https://www.unboundmedicine.com/medline/citation/25549321/Trait_dominance_promotes_reflexive_staring_at_masked_angry_body_postures_ DB - PRIME DP - Unbound Medicine ER -