Nonverbal behavior contrasts the respectful, coercive, affectionate, and ignoring domineering strategies
Abstrakt
Studies of the nonverbal behaviors associated with dominance have yielded various, sometimes incompatible, findings. One of the possible reasons is that nonverbal behavior associated with dominance is stereotypically thought to be dynamic and active, which has led to an overestimation of direct domineering over indirect domineering behavior.
The latter has attained little attention in the frame of nonverbal behavior. Herein, we aimed to increase the known spectrum of nonverbal behaviors employed in domineering within the context of long-term relationships using a model of four domineering strategies; these strategies are based on combinations of dimensions of prosociality and power.
Thirty-three raters (24 women and 9 men) were asked to (1) read four vignettes regarding the four domineering strategies and imagine a romantic partner of each type in a typical domineering situation, (2) outline typical nonverbal behaviors of the imagined person within 10 nonverbal modalities. Approximately 2000 statements were collected.
These were categorized by a second group of twelve students (nine women and three men), separately by modalities and domineering strategies. Finally, brief summaries about typical behaviors for each domineering strategy were written by compiling all categories found.
The attributed nonverbal behaviors clearly differentiate among the four domineering strategies (i.e., the "respectful", "affectionate", "coercive", and "ignoring" strategy). Moreover, content analysis disclosed two subtypes for each strategy which we termed "active" and "passive".
These differed in the amount of expressiveness, movement, and contact with the partner. The nonverbal profiles of the ignoring and affectionate strategies largely deviate from the common view of dominant behavior found in literature.