DOMINATIONA college student needed to get to the airport to fly home for spring break.
As with most college students, money was tight, so she made a reservation
with a shuttle service that would take her to the airport for only $15. The
shuttle had a regular schedule of stops, and she arranged to be picked up at
a nearby hotel at 12:30 pm.
She didn’t start to get nervous until 1:00. When 1:30 rolled around
and there was still no car, she knew something was wrong. By 2:00 she was
beginning to sweat. She had called the service repeatedly, and each time she
had been assured that “the driver is on his way.” She had declined the door-
man’s friendly offer to call her a taxi, but now she was running out of time.
Thirty minutes and $40 later she stepped out of a taxi at the airport
and headed straight to the shuttle reservation desk. She demanded that they
reimburse her for the difference between the shuttle and the taxi. It was
clearly their fault. They had promised to pick her up at 12:30 and they
had failed to keep their promise. It wasn’t fair that she should have to pay
the difference. It was a matter of justice. The clerk at the reservation desk
had no authority to give her the money, but the woman was so sure she was
right, that it was inconceivable to her that she would not prevail. It didn’t
take long before the clerk opened the cash register, and handed over $25.How does this work? How does a confident expectation of success
cause others to give way, even when it seems like it’s not in their interest
to do so? It’s usually because of things that are happening outside of
their conscious awareness.
Researchers from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford
University wanted to know how subtle, nonverbal behavior affected
people’s perceptions of one another. They noted that when people
expand themselves, taking up a large amount of space, they’re per-
ceived as dominant. Conversely, when they constrict themselves, taking
up as little space as possible, they’re perceived as submissive.
They designed a study to explore the effects of nonverbal displays
of dominance or submission. The researchers put two people of the
same sex in a room and asked them to discuss photos of famous paint-
ings. They did this in order to conceal the true nature of the study.
Only one of the people was an actual test participant. The other was