Posing while black: The impact of race and expansive poses on trait attributions, professional evaluations, and...

A large literature on nonverbal behavior demonstrates that information from body cues can inform our impressions of others. This work, however, has largely focused on perceptions of White targets. The current experiments extend this research by investigating the impact of body poses on trait attributions, professional evaluations, and interpersonal relations for both White and Black targets. In four studies, participants were presented with images of White and Black targets with expansive and constrictive poses. Not surprisingly, Experiment 1 revealed that expansive relative to constrictive poses increased perceptions of dominance for targets of both races. Furthermore, for White and Black targets, perceptions of dominance from expansive poses were mediated by greater attributions of competence. For Black but not White targets, however, perceptions of dominance from expansive poses were mediated by greater attributions of aggression. Three additional experiments examined the influence of poses on evaluations in professional and interpersonal contexts. Experiment 2 indicated that expansive compared to constrictive poses led to greater expectations of professional success for White than Black targets. Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated that expansive compared to constrictive poses led to a greater willingness to interact in an interpersonal setting with White but not Black targets. Attributions of aggression related to expansive poses by Black targets reduced the likelihood that they were chosen as interaction partners. The implications of these findings for understanding body perception and race relations are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).