Fact or Fiction

In a previous study we showed that people generally perceive members of low status groups to be more expressive of anger and less of calm compared to their higher status counterparts. In that study we operationalised status in terms of race and perceivers were asked to rate the extent to which they expected either a low status (African targets) or high status (Caucasians targets) to be expressive of anger and calm. Although the results confirmed our theorising in terms of the hunchback stereotype, the specific racial context we used may be conceived by some as having pre-existing stereotypes regarding emotional expressions. That is, Black Africans are generally perceived to be more aggressive than Caucasians and this racial bias introduces another explanation to the patterns we found, over and above the theorised hunchback effect. For this reason, we plan to replicate the same experiment using the same racial context, but this time introducing another status variable - weight. Weight is generally negatively regarded in most societies and people often attach low social status to those who are ‘large’ compared to those who are thin. Note that individuals who are large generally score highly on warmth (Durante et al., 2014) and this physical feature provides a stringent test of the hunchback stereotype rather than a biased test of it, because the positive warmth perceptions should work against a negative anger perception. That is, if the hunchback stereotype is true, then beyond an effect of status based on race, one should also see a similar effect based on size – such that large people of any of the two racial groups would be expected to be (a) more expressive of anger, and (b) less expressive of calm, compared to thin targets. For applied reasons, we would also include clothing type (formal vs. casual) to explore whether or not members of low status group (race and size) are buffered against the hunchback stereotype if they are dressed in clothing that is presumed to accord high status in society (formal attire).