The effects of status differentiation on nonverbal behaviour

An experiment was conducted to investigate relationships between status and nonverbal behavior. Subjects were randomly assigned to a high status position (teacher) or a low status position (student). Status was crossed with gender to produce four treatment conditions: males teaching males, males teaching females, females teaching males, and females teaching females. Statuses were then reversed on a second trial: former students became teachers and former teachers became students with the same partners. Nonverbal behavior from both interactions was recorded and coded from videotape. Findings indicate that status structures nonverbal behavior. In general, high specic status subjects (teachers) claimed more direct space with their bodies, talked more, and attempted more interruptions than their low status counterparts. And, by means of touching and pointing (both to their partner and to the partner's possessions), they symbolically intruded upon their partners noticeably more than their partners intruded upon them. Similarly, gender affected nonverbal behavior: males took more horizontal space, pointed to possessions more often, touched more frequently, and laughed less than females. The set of behaviors organized by specc status differed somewhat from the set of behaviors that showed diffuse status effects

Isolated housewives and complex maternal worlds: the significance of social contacts between women with young children in industrial societies.

This article reconsiders the picture of the mother of young children in industrialised societies as the 'isolated housewife', suggesting this notion is by no means straightforward. We suggest there is considerable evidence for the existence of mothers' social contacts and their significance both as 'work' and 'friendship' in industrial societies. A pre-occupation with the notion of the 'isolation' of 'housewives' has led social researchers to neglect sustained examination of the social relationships within which many/most mothers are involved on a day-to-day basis. Complexities of interpretation, for example what 'isolation' can actually mean, need to be drawn out from the existing literature. Evidence presented from two recent ethnographic studies shows patterned opportunities/constraints occurring in relation to mothers' social contacts within localised settings, whether through organised groups or other personal ties. The complex nature of individual women's social contacts is thus brought out. Some key questions are raised for the importance to sociology, anthropology and social policy of these apparently insignificant or invisible women's networks