Sartorial symbols of social class elicit class-consistent behavioral and physiological responses: A dyadic approach.

Abstract

Social rank in human and nonhuman animals is signaled by a variety of behaviors and phenotypes. In this research, we examined whether a sartorial manipulation of social class would engender class-consistent behavior and physiology during dyadic interactions. Male participants donned clothing that signaled either upper-class (business-suit) or lower-class (sweatpants) rank prior to engaging in a modified negotiation task with another participant unaware of the clothing manipulation. Wearing upper-class, compared to lower-class, clothing induced dominance--measured in terms of negotiation profits and concessions, and testosterone levels--in participants. Upper-class clothing also elicited increased vigilance in perceivers of these symbols: Relative to perceiving lower-class symbols, perceiving upper-class symbols increased vagal withdrawal, reduced perceptions of social power, and catalyzed physiological contagion such that perceivers' sympathetic nervous system activation followed that of the upper-class target. Discussion focuses on the dyadic process of social class signaling within social interactions.

Measuring physiological influence in dyads: A guide to designing, implementing, and analyzing dyadic physiological studies.

“…First, some techniques consider the relationship between two people's physiology at the same time point (e.g., Papp, Pendry, Simon, & Adam, 2013;Saxbe & Repetti, 2010;Waters et al, 2014), which is important for examining shared experiences. Other techniques use a time-lagged design to examine whether one partner's physiology at one time point predicts the other partner's physiology at a later time point (e.g., Helm et al, 2014;Kraus & Mendes, 2014;Liu, Rovine, Klein, & Almeida, 2013), which is important for examining whether one partner's physiological state is predicted by the other partner's state.…”

“…We focus on this form of interdependence because it allows researchers to examine which member of a dyad influences the other and how. For example, researchers could examine how mothers soothe infants (Bernard, Kashy, Levendosky, Bogat, & Lonstein, 2017), how spouses regulate each other's emotions (Reed, Barnard, & Butler, 2015), and how higher-status people influence others (Kraus & Mendes, 2014). …”

Reductions in Goal-Directed Cognition as a Consequence of Being the Target of Empathy

“…Because power tends to be complementary, with one person's greater power being linked to an interaction partner's lesser power (see, for example, Kraus & Mendes, 2014;Tiedens & Fragale, 2003), increases in actors' psychological sense of power should be accompanied by decreases in targets' psychological sense of power. In short, to the extent that power is on some level transparent, whatever raises actors up should essentially serve to push targets down.…”

Intergroup dissimilarity predicts physiological synchrony and affiliation in intergroup interaction

“…Few studies have attempted to induce physiological synchrony by changing how people see themselves relative to others (for an exception, see Kraus & Mendes, 2014). Most studies examine the emergence of physiological synchrony as a function of relationship type (e.g., parent-child synchrony as a function of relationship quality; Baker, et al, 2015), social experience (e.g., synchrony between audience and performers at a dance recital; Bachrach, Fontbonne, Joufflineau, & Ulloa, 2015), or some combination of relationship type and social experience (e.g., mother-infant synchrony after exposing mother to a stressor; Waters, et al, 2014).…”

“…In social interactions, the physiological activity of interaction partners can synchronize (e.g., Kaplan & Bloom, 1960;Kraus & Mendes, 2014;Levenson & Gottman, 1983), a phenomenon called physiological synchrony. Physiological synchrony is striking because physiological states are relatively uncontrollable and are difficult for an interaction partner to perceive.…”