Americans respond faster to those with high social status: Study

Washington, Feb 17 (ANI): Past research has shown that people respond faster to their own faces than to the faces of others, suggesting we have a different and privileged system for processing ourselves versus others.

Now, a group of researchers from the University of Southern California and Peking University in Beijing has examined how White Americans and Chinese people in China respond to pictures of their boss, suggesting cultural differences in our responses to authority figures.

The study found that unlike people in China, who responded fastest to pictures of their direct supervisor, White Americans responded faster to pictures of their own face than to pictures of their boss.

However, the American tendency toward individualism is less pronounced if the supervisor is considered someone with high social status.

"What constitutes a social threat may differ across cultures," said Sook-Lei Liew, a doctoral student with the Brain and Creativity Institute at USC and lead author of the study.

"Americans may be influenced more by one's social status than one's hierarchical position as a boss," she said.

In other words, we are quicker to react to faces we think are important.

Most of the time this is our own face, but certain individuals may interfere with how one thinks of oneself, the researchers said.

"The very concept of a 'boss' may be different in different cultures," said Lisa Aziz-Zadeh, assistant professor with the Brain and Creativity Institute at USC.

"These findings are particularly salient as globalization increases and, along with it, the prevalence of multicultural collaboration, particularly between East Asian and Western partners," she said.

While Americans did not respond faster to photos of their boss than to themselves, they did respond faster to photos of their boss compared to photos of their peers, suggesting that for Americans, the boss figure is influential in the social arena without directly affecting one's self-concept.

Yina Ma and Shihui Han of Peking University, both authors on this study, first identified the so-called 'boss effect' among people in China in 2009.

The study is published in PLoS ONE. (ANI)