GENDER DIFFERENCES IN NONVERBAL CORRELATES OF SOCIAL-STATUS

Previous attempts to find the theoretically predicted association betw een nonverbal communication skills and social status have been inconsi stent, especially among adults. It was hypothesized that these inconsi stencies were produced by a failure of earlier research to differentia te the two genders and different emotions. Hypothesizing that various emotions may be differentially important in male and female friendship s, the current study investigated the ability of 146 men and women to nonverbally communicate (encode) three emotions. Results showed that w omen are better able to encode happiness and that men are better able to encode anger Additionally, ability to encode happiness is correlate d with the sociometric status of women, whereas ability to encode ange r is correlated with the sociometric status of men. Together, these re sults suggest that happiness and anger play different roles in the soc ial lives of men and women.