Perceiving threat in others: The role of body morphology

Abstract

People make judgments of others based on appearance, and these inferences can affect social interactions. Although the importance of facial appearance in these judgments is well established, the impact of the body morphology remains unclear. Specifically, it is unknown whether experimentally varied body morphology has an impact on perception of threat in others. In two preregistered experiments (N = 250), participants made judgments of perceived threat of body stimuli of varying morphology, both in the absence (Experiment 1) and presence (Experiment 2) of facial information. Bodies were perceived as more threatening as they increased in mass with added musculature and portliness, and less threatening as they increased in emaciation. The impact of musculature endured even in the presence of faces, although faces contributed more to the overall threat judgment. The relative contributions of the faces and bodies seemed to be driven by discordance, such that threatening faces exerted the most influence when paired with non-threatening bodies, and vice versa. This suggests that the faces and bodies were not perceived as entirely independent and separate components. Overall, these findings suggest that body morphology plays an important role in perceived threat and may bias real-world judgments.

Identifying criminals: No biasing effect of criminal context on recalled threat

“…This aligns with earlier research that suggests that inherently threatening or negative stimuli are likely to be recalled more accurately than neutral or positive stimuli (e.g., Mattarozzi et al, 2015;Mealey et al, 1996;Oda, 1997;Rule et al, 2012). Thus, it may be in Experiment 1 that the most muscular bodies were recalled with the highest accuracy because they appeared more threatening, consistent with our manipulation check and earlier work (McElvaney et al, 2021).…”

“…These results suggest that, as per the CMEI prediction, the suspect was perceived and later recalled in a biased fashion to match the appearance of a stereotypically threatening criminal. Indeed, perceived threat in computer-generated (CG) body stimuli has previously been shown to increase linearly with increases in musculature (McElvaney et al, 2021 ).…”

Covariation between formidability inferences and perceptions of men's preferred humor styles

“…This signal value could reflect a specific connotation of a body as appearing emaciated. Men with less body mass overall could be seen as particularly nonthreatening (McElvaney et al, 2021). The lack of body mass for this particular target could have connoted a lack of overall social capital to a perceiver, thus fostering a perception of an interest in using self-defeating humor for its ingratiation function.…”

Covariation Between Formidability Inferences and Perceptions of Men’s Preferred Humor Styles

“…Adiposity from reduced testosterone levels would conversely implicate high-fat men as non-aggressive, resulting in perceptions of such men exhibiting warmth (Gray et al, 2012;Sacco et al, 2020). Emaciation is further perceived as a nonthreatening morphology in men (McElvaney et al, 2021).…”