The power games of smiling at work

    Researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), found that people in a low-power position tended to mimic the smile of a person with high status. On the other hand, people who feel powerful return smiles of lower status individuals but refrain from smiling back to others in a high-status position. “Mimicry has been shown to help build relationships, and both power and status seem to affect how we unconsciously employ this strategy,” said Evan Carr, the lead researcher. Participants’ facial responses were detected as minuscule, unconscious movements of facial muscles fractions of a second after being shown videos of people of varying social status.
    All fifty-five subjects in the study mimicked frowns of people they were told were high-status individuals, like doctors, more than those from low-status jobs like fast-food workers. The author of The Nonverbal Advantage: Secrets and Science of Body Language at Work, Carol Kinsey Goman, who is not affiliated with the study, said humans are wired from birth to mimic the facial expressions and body language of others, and subordinates are more prone to this type of behavior of submission. “Subordinates will smile more, they’ll nod more, they’ll tilt their heads more, which is a kind of universal sign of listening”, she said.
    In line with the UCSD study’s findings, Goman said these responses come naturally. The implication of studies like these is that employees can be more conscious of their body language in order to give off the proper signals in specific situations. “Learning what these cues mean, to use it to make a point you want to make, is when body language is helpful”, Goman said.

Internet: <www.cnn.com> (adapted).