Posing while black: The impact of race and expansive poses on trait attributions, professional evaluations, and interpersonal relations.

Abstract

A large literature on nonverbal behavior demonstrates that information from body cues can inform our impressions of others. This work, however, has largely focused on perceptions of White targets. The current experiments extend this research by investigating the impact of body poses on trait attributions, professional evaluations, and interpersonal relations for both White and Black targets. In four studies, participants were presented with images of White and Black targets with expansive and constrictive poses. Not surprisingly, Experiment 1 revealed that expansive relative to constrictive poses increased perceptions of dominance for targets of both races. Furthermore, for White and Black targets, perceptions of dominance from expansive poses were mediated by greater attributions of competence. For Black but not White targets, however, perceptions of dominance from expansive poses were mediated by greater attributions of aggression. Three additional experiments examined the influence of poses on evaluations in professional and interpersonal contexts. Experiment 2 indicated that expansive compared to constrictive poses led to greater expectations of professional success for White than Black targets. Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated that expansive compared to constrictive poses led to a greater willingness to interact in an interpersonal setting with White but not Black targets. Attributions of aggression related to expansive poses by Black targets reduced the likelihood that they were chosen as interaction partners. The implications of these findings for understanding body perception and race relations are discussed.

Impact of face masks on perceptions of black and white targets during the COVID‐19 pandemic

“…Black targets with compared to without masks, however, were perceived to be more attractive, though this effect was smaller than for White targets. These findings are notable and suggest that certain nonverbal cues that work to the advantage of White targets, do not have the same effect for Black targets (Karmali & Kawakami, 2023), potentially exacerbating existing racial disparities during the pandemic.…”

“…Knowing how masks increase or decrease these trait ratings is important because attribution of these characteristics have a range of implications from affiliative behavior to higher pay to judicial sentencing decisions (Fiske et al., 2007; Hugenberg & Bodenhausen, 2003; Kawakami et al., 2017; Porter et al., 2010; Todorov et al., 2015; Xie et al., 2019). This information is particularly important during the COVID‐19 pandemic because lower attributions of certain traits (e.g., trustworthiness warmth, competence, attractiveness) can impact the extent to which we feel concern for the health of members of racialized groups such as Blacks (Cikara et al., 2010) and higher attributions of other traits (e.g., threat) can influence our willing to interact with and care about them (Karmali & Kawakami, 2023).…”

“…In addition to these key dimensions, we also examined the impact of masks on attributions of threat, a construct that is particularly relevant in an intergroup context in the United States and Canada (Eberhardt et al, 2004;Karmali & Kawakami, 2023;Kawakami et al, 2017Kawakami et al, , 2020. Given that common stereotypes of Black people are related to anger, physical threat, and dominance (Goff et al, 2014;Hugenberg & Bodenhausen, 2003;MacLin & Herrera, 2006;March et al, 2021;Wilson et al, 2017), we examined the impact of masks on negative associations of threat for Black and White targets.…”

“…However, as with much of the research in social psychology, these results are related to predominantly White targets (Roberts et al, 2020). This is a problem because the universality of these models has been challenged (Jones et al, 2021;Oswald & Adams, 2022) and because research has indicated that the race of targets can have a significant impact when forming impressions (Hugenberg & Bodenhausen, 2003;Karmali & Kawakami, 2023;Kawakami et al, 2009Kawakami et al, , 2020. The primary goal of the present research, therefore, was to examine the impact of masks on trait attributions related to both White and Black targets.…”

“…Although studies by Oldmeadow and Koch (2021) investigated the impact of masks on competence, their measure included ratings of dominance. Given that these two constructs are conceptually distinct (Cheng et al., 2013; Cheng & Tracy, 2014; Witkower et al., 2019) and are associated in different ways with Black and White targets (Karmali & Kawakami, 2023), our research included separate attributions of warmth, competence, and threat.…”