| Abstract: | We investigated whether people were accurate at judging other people's status, what behavioral and appearance cues they relied on when assessing status, whether the way those cues were used was accurate, and whether target gender affected any of the results. Targets (N = 48) were university employees (faculty and staff) who were photographed while interacting with a coworker. One sample of perceivers (66 females, 42 males) rated the relative status of the two people in the photograph to each other, and another sample (60 females and males) rated each target in the photograph on status. Additionally, an array of behavioral and appearance cues of targets in the photograph was assessed. Results showed that (1) people were able to assess status in others, (2) the cues they used to assess female and male targets were somewhat different, and (3) how much people relied on specific cues corresponded to how status was expressed in these cues. |
