254 Chapter 7than low-status people (Mast, Jonas, & Hall,
2009). In a second study, the same authors
included a control condition and found that
high status increased interpersonal sensi-
tivity rather than low status decreasing in-
terpersonal sensitivity. Because women are
of a lower status than men and women are
typically better at decoding than men, the
findings from this study cannot explain why
women would be better at decoding.
Status clearly cannot account for the sex
difference in smiling (Hall, Horgan, & Carter,
2002). In experimental studies where status is
manipulated, there is no effect of status ma-
nipulations or people’s perceptions of status
on smiling. Interestingly, people have stereo-
types that low-status people smile more than
high-status people, but this stereotype has
not been confirmed by the data. Hecht and
LaFrance (1998) assigned undergraduates to
interact in dyads in which members were ei-
ther equal or unequal in power. The status of
the person did not predict smiling. There was
more total smiling in the equal power con-
dition than in the unequal power condition.
In terms of sex differences, females engaged
in more smiling than males, but only in the
equal power condition. Status was related to
thefreedom to smilerather than the tendency
to smile, meaning that the high-status person
could smile whenever he or she was in a good
mood but the low-status person could not.
The investigators suggested that people in
positions of low power have constraints im-
posed on them in terms of how they behave;
they are not as free as those in higher-power
positions to express their feelings.
The relation of status to touch is not
clear, partly because there are different kinds of
touch. In an observational study of people at an
academic conference, high-status people (mea-
sured by number of publications and job rank)
were observed to engage in more affectionatetouching, such as touching an arm or shoulder,
whereas low-status people were more likely
to engage in formal touching, such as a hand-
shake (Hall, 1996). Hall concluded that high-
and low-status persons may be equally likely
to engage in touching, but that they initiate
touch for different reasons: High-status people
may touch to display their power, whereas low-
status people may touch to gain power.
From these and other studies, there is
growing evidence that status cannot account
for sex differences in nonverbal behavior.
A meta-analytic review of the literature ex-
amined whether status was related to per-
ceptions of nonverbal behavior as well as to
actual nonverbal behavior (Hall, Coats, &
LeBeau, 2005). Status was described as the
“vertical dimension of relationships” and in-
cluded power, dominance, and hierarchy. Al-
though people perceived a relation between
the vertical dimension of relationships and
less smiling, more gazing, more touch, more
interruptions, less interpersonal distance, and
more expressive faces, in actuality there was
little relation between the vertical dimension
of relationships and nonverbal behavior.TAKE HOME POINTS
■ Status theory suggests that sex differences in commu-
nication are due to the status differences between men
and women.
■ The best tests of this theory have been laboratory stud-
ies in which women and men are randomly assigned to
high- and low-status positions.
■ Status theory is most viable as an explanation for sex
differences in interaction styles and some aspects of
language.
■ Status theory does not seem to be a good explanation
for sex differences in nonverbal behavior.M07_HELG0185_04_SE_C07.indd 254 6/21/11 8:11 AM