Emotional cues to group hierarchy Inferences about dominance- versus prestige-based hierarchies from members' emotional expressions

Dominance and prestige are both strategies to attain rank. They are differentially effective depending on whether the group's hierarchy is based primarily on dominance or prestige. Insight into the nature of the group's hierarchy is therefore essential for upward mobility. But how do people obtain such insight? In five studies (two pre-registered; combined N = 2470), we investigated whether people use group members' emotional expressions to draw inferences about the degree to which a group's hierarchy is dominance- or prestige-based. We distinguished among three theoretical accounts: (1) a valence account, which posits that negative emotions convey that hierarchies are more dominance- and less prestige-based than positive emotions; (2) a social engagement account, which holds that socially engaging emotions convey that hierarchies are more prestige- and less dominance-based than socially disengaging emotions; and (3) a discrete-emotions account, which suggests that only a few specific emotions convey information about the predominant hierarchy type. We tested these predictions from the perspective of group members and outside observers, reporting experimental evidence on the effects of five emotional expressions (happy, proud, neutral, sad, angry). Our findings support a combined valence and social engagement account: Expressions of positive emotions signal a more prestige- and less dominance-based hierarchy than negative emotions, and among emotions of similar valence, expressions of socially engaging emotions signal a more prestige- and less dominance-based hierarchy than disengaging emotions. Extending the work on affective processes in hierarchy, we conclude that emotional expressions provide important cues about how rank is typically attained in groups.