Perceiving Assertiveness and Anger from Gesturing Speed in Different Contexts

More frequent gesturing, talking faster, and talking louder are aspects of nonverbal behavior often associated with being perceived as more dominant, assertive, influential, or as leader. The causal hypothesis in Study 1 was that people perceive an individual who gestures faster as more assertive and angrier in the context of a work or task-based interaction such as between coworkers. In the between-subject design of all six studies, participants observed at different speeds a cropped silent video of a dyadic interaction. Only hands, arms, and torsos could be seen, and one individual gestured throughout while the other hardly moved. In Studies 1–6, participants perceived the individual as more assertive and less anxious with faster gesturing, which were small effects across the workplace and other contexts. Findings as a function of context consistently emerged for perceived anger and warmth. In Studies 1, 3, and 4, participants perceived more anger and less warmth at slow and fast relative to moderate speed for the workplace and similar contexts. In Studies 5 and 6, there were no differences for perceived anger and warmth for the context of a one-time meeting between unacquainted students. To a varying degree across studies, participants who perceived the individual as more assertive and angrier rated the individual’s gesturing speed as faster, which contributed to these speed ratings being inflated in the slow video speed condition in Studies 1–4. Findings are discussed in terms of the cropped silent video methodology, context, and the identity of the gesturing individual.