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The Vertical Dimension of Social Relations and Accurate Interpersonal Perception: A Meta-Analysis

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Abstract

There is little consensus regarding how verticality (social power, dominance, and status) is related to accurate interpersonal perception. The relation could be either positive or negative, and there could be many causal processes at play. The present article discusses the theoretical possibilities and presents a meta-analysis of this question. In studies using a standard test of interpersonal accuracy, higher socioeconomic status (SES) predicted higher accuracy defined as accurate inference about the meanings of cues; also, higher experimentally manipulated vertical position predicted higher accuracy defined as accurate recall of others’ words. In addition, although personality dominance did not predict accurate inference overall, the type of personality dominance did, such that empathic/responsible dominance had a positive relation and egoistic/aggressive dominance had a negative relation to accuracy. In studies involving live interaction, higher experimentally manipulated vertical position produced lower accuracy defined as accurate inference about cues; however, methodological problems place this result in doubt.

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Notes

  1. Henley (1977) tied this hypothesis to the established finding that women (considered to be low power) score higher on most interpersonal accuracy tests than men (considered to be high power) [for summaries of these gender differences see Hall (1984), or Hall and Gunnery (2013)].

  2. A small number of studies did not fit these categories and were not included in the meta-analytic summaries. Their verticality definitions were self-rating of dominance in one’s job, observer ratings of dominance during an interaction, influence that emerged in a group interaction according to peer or observer reports (emergent leadership), and self-reported power within one’s family. Another study was not included because though the power definition fitted our categories (personality dominance), it was the only personality study using recall as the accuracy measure. The effects for these left-out studies were small and inconsistent, with only two being significant but both showing that higher verticality was associated with greater interpersonal accuracy. In one, female medical students who scored higher on judging affective cues were rated by observers as more dominant when interacting with a standardized patient (Hall et al. 2009c). In the other, undergraduate business students who scored higher on judging affective cues were more likely to emerge as leaders within task groups to which they were assigned (Walter et al. 2012). Finally, although we initially conceptualized “status” as a broader topic than just SES, no studies using a broader definition (such as others’ respect) emerged in the literature search.

  3. A priori, we did not include studies of young children because it was not clear how directly applicable the verticality construct is to that age group. In fact, it was a moot point because there were few if any such studies.

  4. Although it is true that high sociometric status (i.e., popularity, peer regard) has implications for power and social influence in the peer group, the two are not synonymous. Popularity furthermore merges with other constructs that become increasingly tangential to the verticality construct, such as physical attractiveness, personality traits (e.g., extraversion), and general social competence. Previous research has found that accurate interpersonal perception is positively correlated with popularity and general social competence (Hall et al. 2009c).

  5. When the three studies in question were classified as being of the other type of dominance, and the results recalculated, little changed.

  6. This description is not what was given in the Kraus et al. (2010) article. The correct description was provided by personal communication from Kraus (May 9, 2011).

  7. Although meta-analysis has shown that training to improve interpersonal accuracy is effective, the specific mechanisms underlying the effectiveness of training are not well understood (Blanch-Hartigan et al. 2012).

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Magali Ecabert for her assistance in coding, and the authors who provided their unpublished results.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, 02115, USA

    Judith A. Hall

  2. Department of Organizational Behavior, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Marianne Schmid Mast

  3. Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, Camden, USA

    Ioana-Maria Latu

Authors
  1. Judith A. Hall
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  2. Marianne Schmid Mast
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  3. Ioana-Maria Latu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Judith A. Hall.

Appendix: Coded Study Attributes

Appendix: Coded Study Attributes

Year of study

Gender of first author

Sample type (college/university students, hereafter referred to as college students, employees in organization, community people, or mix of groups)

Sample age (mean or median) and sample age group (13–17, 18–22, 23–27, 28–32, 33–37, 38–42, 43 and older, or mixed ages)

Sample size

Percentage of participants who were male

Type of design/analysis (experimental manipulation, known groups comparison, or continuous correlation)

Type of comparison (within-dyads comparison between higher and lower vertical partners or between-groups comparison of groups that differed in verticality)

Location (laboratory or field)

Verticality definition (role-played/assigned high and low vertical roles/imagined vertical position, measured hierarchical position in organization, measured hierarchical position in group, self-reported dominant personality, other-reported dominant personality, behavioral measurement, SES, psychological induction other than assigned roles and if yes, was it concept priming or autobiographical writing, self-reported feelings of verticality in or after a situation, being minority or majority within a group, or self-reported power vis-à-vis other family members)

If personality dominance was measured, a moderator was coded to capture the type of dominance scale (egoistic/aggressive or empathic/responsible).

Accuracy paradigm (testing paradigm or in vivo)

Accuracy method (test, recall, correlation between perceiver and target ratings, or difference between perceiver and target ratings)

If a test was used, which one: PONS (Rosenthal et al. 1979), DANVA (Nowicki and Duke 1994), or other

If a test was given, content of accuracy inference (affect/emotion, personality, other’s thoughts/feelings about self and partner, or other)

If recall was measured, content of recall (words, nonverbal cues or appearance, or other).

Additional coding was done to estimate, from an observer’s perspective, the psychological states that the higher and lower vertical people in each study might have been experiencing. Two coders who were blind to the studies’ results (IML and a research assistant) performed ratings of psychological states based on the studies’ methodologies, using two items for each of four constructs that were rated on nine-point unipolar scales: (1) prosocial: helpful/cooperative, attentive to others’ feelings or thoughts, (2) self-centered: egocentric/concerned with own needs, wanting to promote self/self-aggrandizing, (3) angry affect: angry/irritated, cheerful/pleasant (reversed), and (4) anxious affect: uncomfortable/awkward, fearful/worried. The two coders’ ratings were averaged, and the two items belonging to each construct were averaged. These combined ratings were then correlated with the effect sizes separately for the higher and lower vertical participants and also after subtracting the ratings of the lower participants from the ratings of the higher participants on each moderator, thus creating difference scores reflecting the disparity in psychological states. Finally, given the predictions made by the social distance theory of power (Magee and Smith 2013), namely that high power results in less interpersonal accuracy (because high power results in feeling more distant and less similar to social interaction partners and empathic accuracy is reduced between dissimilar interaction partners), the two coders also directly rated the verticality gap (social distance) between the higher and lower individuals on a 9-point scale that went from only a small gap to a very big gap. Correlations between these variables and effect sizes were few and inconsistent. Therefore, these moderator ratings are not discussed further.

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Hall, J.A., Schmid Mast, M. & Latu, IM. The Vertical Dimension of Social Relations and Accurate Interpersonal Perception: A Meta-Analysis. J Nonverbal Behav 39, 131–163 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-014-0205-1

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