The goal of this paper was to examine whether a positive relationship exists between positive non-verbal behaviours and the anticipated feelings of inclusion through the perception of warmth and whether it changes when there is a match between the race of the perceiver and the non-verbal actor.
This study provided partial evidence on the positive relationship between positive non-verbal behaviours and warmth perception (H1a and H1b). The frequency of smiling turned out to be a better indicator of this relationship than the openness of posture. There can be several explanations for this outcome. It can be said that the findings of this paper align with Scharlemann et al.'s (2001) and Bellou and Gkorezis's (2016) studies of smiling being related to cooperation, trust, and friendly intentions which are elements of someone perceived as warm.
Interestingly this conclusion goes against a finding stating that smiling does not always lead to positive judgements, such that extensive smiling can be seen as unprofessional in less people-oriented jobs (Min & Hu, 2022). The reason for that can be that the respondents of the survey were not told beforehand that they would see CEOs in the videos. So, it can be inferred that if the context is not entirely clear for the perceiver, smiling stays connected to positive perceptions. This could be further backed up by the findings that due to the salience of mouth movements, individuals immediately evaluate others as happy and sociable (Calvo et al., 2012;
Cunningham, 1988). Similarly, warmth is also quickly evaluated by people (Cuddy et al., 2011), thus the salience of both smiling and warmth perception can be an explanation for the results of this study.
The non-findings in the case of posture openness are closer to the conclusion of Mehrabian (1968) stating that there is more interaction between different non-verbal behaviours leading to perceptions instead of open posture in itself being salient. Other research also refers to more types of non-verbal behaviours such as nodding, eye contact, body orientation, etc.
(Sundaram & Webster, 2000) which can add to the assumption that posture can be an element of an interaction effect. In their research Cuddy et al. (2011) rather emphasised leaning forward and positioning in direction to the audience as positives and tenseness as cold. Thus, even though tense body posture was found to be perceived as cold it does not necessarily mean that open posture is automatically warm. Furthermore, open posture is related to a lot of other perceptions and feelings other than warmth, like pride and love which can have an effect on the non-findings as well (Sauter, 2017). Finally, literature also says that individuals of high status or with higher levels of dominance tend to adopt a more open posture (Carney et al., 2005;
Peters et al., 2017). Hence, this can indicate a shift in how individuals perceive open posture and connect it with dominance which is more related to the competence branch of SCM (involving competence and status) (Cuddy et al., 2008).
The positive relationship between warmth perception and the perceiver’s anticipated feeling of inclusion is also supported by this paper (H2). This means that this connection adds to the findings of Wagoner and Hogg (2016) stating that warmth also means acceptance and inclusion and can therefore act as a cue for the feeling of inclusion. Furthermore, this result also aligns with De Waal-Andrews and Van Beest's (2012) study concluding that inclusion needs to be accompanied by warmth. This can be explained by that warmth covers friendliness, sociability, communion, and the evolutionary need to belong (Abele et al., 2021; Kervyn et al., 2015; van Dijk et al., 2017; Wagoner & Hogg, 2016). This aligns with the characteristics of inclusion which are interpersonal relationships, and belongingness through positive interactions (Chung et al., 2020; Shore et al., 2011).
Additionally, in the field of transformational leadership both warmth and inclusion appear. In this modern style of leadership, the importance of soft skills and warmth emerges (Den Hartog & Koopman, 2001; Kark et al., 2003) but it also promotes inclusivity through inclusive leadership elements (Ashikali et al., 2021; Ashikali & Groeneveld, 2015; Carmeli et al., 2010; Randel et al., 2018). So, the correlation between these variables seen in the literature is further supported by evidence in this paper. Moreover, although this study focused on the overarching belongingness dimension between warmth and inclusion and not uniqueness, the results were still significant. This could mean that in terms of warmth perception, the uniqueness element of anticipated feelings of inclusion is less important.
On the other hand, based on the analyses, there is no connection between positive non-verbal behaviours and the perceiver’s anticipated feeling of inclusion (H3a and H3b) Next to that, due to the lack of this relationship, there is also no mediation through warmth.
Interestingly, the paper provided evidence for the positive connections between smiling frequency and warmth, and between warmth and inclusion. The reason for not finding anything similar between smiling and the feeling of inclusion can be because warmth is generally easily
and quickly detectable by people (Cuddy et al., 2011). Contrary to that, inclusion is more complex as instead of being studied as a trait like warmth, it is rather looked at as an environment that can be created at a workplace or in a group (Jansen et al., 2014; Nishii, 2013).
This is further supported by the three different dimensions that actually make up inclusive climate perception (Nishii, 2013), or Shore et al.'s (2011) model stating that both belongingness and uniqueness are needed for inclusion. As inclusion is mostly created through getting support from a leader, a diverse climate, fair systems, openness, and endorsement of everyone’s uniqueness (Carmeli et al., 2010; Chung et al., 2020; Nishii, 2013; Randel et al., 2018; Shore et al., 2011), interpersonal interactions and verbal communication seem to be more prevalent actors. Therefore, not only it is difficult to measure the feeling of inclusion based on non-verbal behaviour alone, but also it may not significantly affect inclusion in itself at all.
Lastly, the moderating effect of the match between the perceiver’s and displayed person’s race was insignificant too (H4a and H4b). A reason for this result can be the fact that the data analysed only had White or Non-white variables for the non-verbal actors which prevented the opportunity to observe different races in more detail. This drawback will be further explained in the limitations section. Furthermore, the proposed possibility of non-verbal actors’ race overpowering perception due to the SCM may have also affected the results as the match itself does not appear to be significant.
On the contrary, this result supports Kammeyer-Mueller et al.'s (2011) finding stating that although surface-level similarity can be important for increased sympathy and sociability, the ethnicity aspect of it is insignificant. Additionally, the lack of explanatory value of match in the race can also mean that deep-level similarity is a more important factor in interpersonal relations than surface-level (Harrison et al., 1998; Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2011). Also, even though Pichler et al.'s (2019) study found support for surface-level and nationality-based similarities being more important for improved exchange, this does not necessarily mean that a
match in race would yield similar results as nationality involves more complex values other than looks.
Another explanation for the non-finding can be Elfenbein and Ambady's (2002) finding that the initial in-group advantage concerning the ease of decoding non-verbal cues decreases over time when diverse people are exposed to each other for a longer time. Due to globalisation and the Internet, people are less isolated from different cultures and ethnicities. Additionally, as mentioned before there is a rather colour-blind approach taken in the EU (where the majority of the participants are from) when dealing with different ethnicities (Simon, 2012) which may also contribute to this. Furthermore, this exposition of diverse people can also be seen in the fact that a quarter of Dutch people (another majority of participants) are foreign-born or have foreign-born parents (CBS, n.d.).
5.1 Strengths and limitations
This research broadened the literature by providing additional results on the connection between perceived warmth and anticipated feelings of inclusion. It also contributes to the field of non-verbal behaviours by showing the importance of smiling and warmth perception.
Additionally, though it was not the scope of this research, it was noticed that the gender of the displayed person and smiling frequency correlate which can be a further addition to the literature on stereotyping. Besides this, the study’s researcher pairs had to agree on how they coded videos which means that a higher level of objectivity was ensured for the coding data, resulting in better reliability as well (Halperin & Heath, 2017).
On the other hand, the study also had some limitations to it. Due to time constraints and the smaller scope of the research, the non-probability convenience sampling method was used which resulted in rather similar respondents regarding ethnicity, nationality, and education.
Because of this, the generalisability of the research results can be harmed to a certain extent which means that these findings might be less applicable in different settings (Field, 2018).
Next to that, posture was difficult to examine in the videos and most coding data resulted in only ‘neutral’ or ‘hard to see’ postures. Thus, a negligible amount of ‘open’ and ‘withdrawn’
posture data probably does not lead to valid results.
Additionally, as mentioned in the theoretical background section not only ethnicity and gender but also age plays a role in the SCM (Cuddy et al., 2008, 2009). Hence, the age of the displayed person could have also been an interesting control variable. Unfortunately, this characteristic of the videos was not gathered beforehand, so later only rudimentary information could have been concluded from them (in other words, roughly how old the people displayed seem to be). So, it can be assumed that age might influence the other variables, but it could not be measured in this paper.
Another limitation of this research is that it was difficult to observe the potential effects of the race since the vast majority of respondents and people in the videos were White.
Furthermore, while participants’ ethnicity was collected based on various criteria, the pre-set race of individuals in the videos was measured binarily. Thus, the matching variable also became binary and faulty since for instance Hispanics and African Americans are indeed falling in the Non-white category, but they cannot be categorised as having the same race. This means that the similarity aspect was not measured with the right precision.
5.2 Future research
Because of the limitations explained in the previous section, the following improvements and future research ideas could be focused on. First, a more varied and larger sample should be gathered to yield a more generalisable dataset. Thus, similar surveys should be distributed in more countries targeting respondents with more diverse backgrounds.
Furthermore, more videos could be utilised as well as coding for the displayed individuals’ age as another surface-level diversity characteristic. This way this variable could also be looked at either as a moderator between non-verbal behaviours and warmth perception or as a control
variable. Since the videos did not allow much for being able to code posture due to a lot of times not seeing the displayed people in full body, other non-verbal cues could be studied too.
For example, according to the literature eye contact and positive hand gestures also influence inclusion and warmth perceptions (Kraft-Todd et al., 2017; Talley & Temple, 2015).
Alternatively, other videos could be used with less subtle non-verbal behaviours and more overt, theatrical gestures – similar to work that has established how to signal charisma (Antonakis et al., 2011). Videos could include individuals who received leadership or action-trainings before so it would be interesting to see whether these individuals could convey non-verbal actions more precisely (Antonakis et al., 2011). Finally, it could be studied whether there is, and how big of a difference may be in non-verbal behaviour perception online and offline.
Also, the race of the displayed individuals should be coded more precisely, similarly to how the respondents were measured. This would allow researchers to observe a more precise match and similarity. On another note, similarity does not only cover racial features. Since surface-level characteristics also cover gender and age, a similarity measure could be created based on the sum of these variables to be able to measure the effects of similarity more in-depth (Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2011). Additionally, according to literature deep-level characteristics are also important for people’s perception of actual similarity which includes skills and knowledge like education, work style, and goals (Harrison et al., 1998; Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2011). Thus, this level of similarity could also be investigated as a moderator in an experiment. Also, an experimental design would allow for studying other inclusion measures such as team-based ones like Perceived Group Inclusion (Jansen et al., 2014).
Next, according to Brescoll (2016), there is an interactive role of ethnicity and race with regard to gender stereotypes. For instance, studies showed that Black women as less emotional than White women, or that although gender-emotion stereotypes are similar in ethnic groups, there are greater differences for Whites (Brescoll, 2016). So, this interaction effect could also
be researched in more detail. Finally, instead of focusing on race, the cultural backgrounds of participants could be examined as moderators between non-verbal cues and warmth. The reason for that is that different nations have their own characteristics. For example, according to Hofstede's (2011) cultural dimensions model, countries score differently on masculinity, power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation. Schwartz (2006) also created a model based on cultural values that could be a baseline for research. Another interesting study could be checking for suspiciousness of respondents as a moderator for the warmth and non-verbal behaviours. This also leads to the possibility of taking respondents’
personality traits as moderators as well.
5.3 Practical implications
Although most of the hypotheses of this research were not supported, some managerial implications can still be established based on the paper. Organisations are aiming at diversifying their workforce since it can lead to improved creativity, innovation mindset, and better decision-making (Buengeler et al., 2018). But diversity alone does not automatically lead to inclusion, especially if not managed correctly (Buengeler et al., 2018; Dobbin & Kalev, 2016; Nishii, 2013). As the feeling of inclusion leads to increased creativity, performance, and lower turnover rate it is something that management should pay attention to (Carmeli et al., 2010; Randel et al., 2018). A climate of inclusion is usually made up of equity-based employment practices, respect and promotion of differences, and inclusion in organisational processes such as decision-making (Nishii, 2013). Thus, these aspects like making sure that leaders treat everyone equally and that they facilitate a psychologically safe environment where employees are free to contribute (Edmondson, 1999) should be paid attention to in organisations.
This study has shown that when someone is perceived as warm it also positively affects others’ anticipated feelings of inclusion. This means that managers, as well as the work environment, should signal warmth to boost feelings of inclusion. As warmth also affects these,
other processes could also be introduced which amplify warmth perception. For instance, as warmth is closely related to signals of collaboration and friendliness (Van Dijk et al., 2017), more team-building exercises could be implemented. Additionally, as mentioned before belongingness can be seen as a common factor for both warmth and inclusion especially since these factors interact (De Waal-Andrews & Van Beest, 2012). In practice, belongingness can be boosted by leaders utilising shared decision-making processes which enhances psychological ownership and provides a sense of inclusion to the group (Randel et al., 2018).
Also, managers should clearly communicate belongingness, support individuals as team members, and facilitate an environment where supporting each other is an important value (Randel et al., 2018).
This research has also shown that more frequent smiling can have a positive effect on warmth perception. Although smiling can be faked (Calvo et al., 2012), it still means that non-verbal behaviour affects some perceptions. So, managers should be trained to be more aware of their non-verbal cues in order to be able to facilitate a warmer and more inclusive environment.
Also, since there is a boost in hybrid working lately, being aware of facial non-verbal behaviour may gain more practical importance. Additionally, training on non-verbal behaviour awareness can also be useful for detecting deception which could cancel out the faking issue as well is it could be an important skill for more people-facing jobs (e.g., consultancy) (Levine et al., 2005).
According to Bonaccio et al. (2016), non-verbal trainings should be incorporated into existing programs like civility trainings, communication across cultures, and charismatic leadership trainings in order to arrive at better results in the end. Finally, to overcome stereotypes, managers should facilitate a climate of discovery and curiosity which would lead to employees challenging stereotypical assumptions (Van Dijk et al., 2017). To further support an environment like this, appropriate behaviour should be rewarded, and coaching should be utilised if needed.