Social status is a measurement of social value. More specifically, it refers to the relative level of respect, honor, assumed competence, and deference accorded to people, groups, and organizations in a society. Some writers have also referred to a socially valued role or category a person occupies as a "status". Status is based in beliefs about who members of a society believe holds comparatively more or less social value. By definition, these beliefs are broadly shared among members of a society. As such, people use status hierarchies to allocate resources, leadership positions, and other forms of power. In doing so, these shared cultural beliefs make unequal distributions of resources and power appear natural and fair, supporting systems of social stratification. Status hierarchies appear to be universal across human societies, affording valued benefits to those who occupy the higher rungs, such as better health, social approval, resources, influence, and freedom.
Nonverbal communication (NVC) is the transmission of messages or signals through a nonverbal platform such as eye contact, facial expressions, gestures, posture, and the distance between two individuals. It includes the use of visual cues such as body language (kinesics), distance (proxemics) and physical environments/appearance, of voice (paralanguage) and of touch (haptics). It can also include the use of time (chronemics) and eye contact and the actions of looking while talking and listening, frequency of glances, patterns of fixation, pupil dilation, and blink rate (oculesics).
Social behavior is behavior among two or more organisms within the same species, and encompasses any behavior in which one member affects the other. This is due to an interaction among those members. Social behavior can be seen as similar to an exchange of goods, with the expectation that when you give, you will receive the same. This behavior can be effected by both the qualities of the individual and the environmental (situational) factors. Therefore, social behavior arises as a result of an interaction between the two—the organism and its environment. This means that, in regards to humans, social behavior can be determined by both the individual characteristics of the person, and the situation they are in.
Confidence is a state of being clear headed either that a hypothesis or prediction is correct or that a chosen course of action is the best or most effective. Confidence comes from a latin word fidere' which means "to trust"; therefore, having a self-confidence is having trust in one's self. Arrogance or hubris in this comparison is having unmerited confidence – believing something or someone is capable or correct when they are not. Overconfidence or presumptuousness is excessive belief in someone succeeding, without any regard for failure. Confidence can be a self-fulfilling prophecy as those without it may fail or not try because they lack it and those with it may succeed because they have it rather than because of an innate ability.
Face-ism or facial prominence is the relative prominence of the face in the portrayal of men and women; media tend to focus more on men's faces and women's bodies.
Aversive racism is a theory proposed by Samuel L. Gaertner & John F. Dovidio (1986), according to which negative evaluations of racial/ethnic minorities are realized by a persistent avoidance of interaction with other racial and ethnic groups. As opposed to traditional, overt racism, which is characterized by overt hatred for and discrimination against racial/ethnic minorities, aversive racism is characterized by more complex, ambivalent expressions and attitudes nonetheless with prejudicial views towards other races.
Attractiveness or attraction is a quality that causes an interest, desire in, or gravitation to something or someone. Attraction may also refer to the object of the attraction itself, as in tourist attraction.
William Ickes is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas at Arlington. He is a personality and social psychologist who is known primarily for his research on unstructured dyadic interaction. His first major line of research within this tradition concerns the phenomenon of empathic accuracy. This research is summarized in his 2003 book Everyday Mind Reading: Understanding What Other People Think and Feel. His second major line of research concerns the influence of personal traits and characteristics on people's initial interactions with each other. This research is summarized in his 2009 book Strangers in a Strange Lab: How Personality Shapes Our Initial Encounters with Others.
Power and dominance-submission are two key dimensions of relationships, especially close relationships in which parties rely on one another to achieve their goals and as such it is important to be able to identify indicators of dominance.
Expectation states theory is a social psychological theory first proposed by Joseph Berger and his colleagues that explains how expected competence forms the basis for status hierarchies in small groups. The theory's best known branch, status characteristics theory, deals with the role that certain pieces of social information play in organizing these hierarchies. More recently, sociologist Cecilia Ridgeway has utilized the theory to explain how beliefs about status become attached to different social groups and the implications this has for social inequality.
Amy Gene Halberstadt is an American psychologist specializing in the social development of emotion. She is currently Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor of Psychology at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, and is an editor of the journal Social Development.
Affiliative conflict theory (ACT) is a social psychological approach that encompasses interpersonal communication and has a background in nonverbal communication. This theory postulates that "people have competing needs or desires for intimacy and autonomy". In any relationship, people will negotiate and try to balance out their own behavioral acts of to maintain a comfortable level of intimacy.
Machiavellianism in the workplace is a concept studied by many organizational psychologists. Conceptualized originally by Richard Christie and Florence Geis, Machiavellianism refers to a psychological trait concept where individuals behave in a cold and duplicitous manner. It has in recent times been adapted and applied to the context of the workplace and organizations by many writers and academics.
Marianne Schmid Mast is Professor of Organizational Behavior in the Faculty of Business and Economics (HEC) of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
An interruption is a speech event when one person breaks in to interject while another person is talking. Linguists, social psychologists, anthropologists, and sociologists are among the social scientists who have studied and identified patterns of interruption that may differ by gender, social status, race/ethnicity, culture, and political orientation.
Intergroup relations refers to interactions between individuals in different social groups, and to interactions taking place between the groups themselves collectively. It has long been a subject of research in social psychology, political psychology, and organizational behavior.
Social rank theory provides an evolutionary paradigm that locates affiliative and ranking structures at the core of many psychological disorders. In this context, displays of submission signal to dominant individuals that subordinate group members are not a threat to their rank within the social hierarchy. This helps to achieve social cohesion. According to social rank theory, anxiety and depression are natural experiences that are common to all mammalian species, and it is the pathological exaggeration of anxiety and depression that contributes to psychological disorders.
Toni Falbo is a social psychologist known for her research on power dynamics in relationships, sibling status, and development of only children. She is a Professor of Educational Psychology and Faculty Research Affiliate of the Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
The Nature of Prejudice is a 1954 social psychology book by American psychologist Gordon Allport, on the topic of prejudice.
Nalini Ambady was an Indian-American social psychologist and a leading expert on nonverbal behavior and interpersonal perception. She was born in Calcutta, India and earned her bachelor’s degree at Lady Shri Ram College for women, Delhi University. She furthered her education by moving to the United States for her master’s degree in psychology, from the College of William and Mary, and later received her PhD in social psychology from Harvard. While completing her research at Harvard, she met her husband Raj Marphatia, who was studying at Harvard Law school.
