The easiest way to think about how much strength and warmth someone projects is to consider the emotions we feel in response, according "Compelling People: The Hidden Qualities That Make Us Influential" by co-authors John Neffinger and Matthew Kohut.
Machiavelli saw that high strength can elicit fear, while lots of warmth can elicit love. The picture is slightly more complex when we look at different combinations of strength and warmth.
Amy Cuddy, at Harvard University did some seminal work in this area with her colleagues Susan Fiske and Peter Glick. While their research initially focused on understanding how stereotypes work, they went on to identify these two factors as universal dimensions that shape our judgments of others.
Strength + Warmth = Admiration
Our emotional responses to people project different levels of strength and warmth. Strength and warmth in a business or professional woman seems to be winning admirers based on the reactions of those around her, and we suspect we would feel the same way if we got to know her.
Notice that our judgments do not depend on what we usually think of as personality types; personality factors do not explain whom we like or respect. We find some extroverts wonderful and others aggravating. We like some introverts and cannot be bothered with others. And while many neurotic people stress us out, Woody Allen and Jerry Seinfeld have found fame and fortune entertaining us.
When we make value judgments about people, we look past these personality factors to strength and warmth, because a person's strength and warmth are ultimately the factors most likely to affect our lives.
It is important to note that as with beauty, strength and warmth exist in the eye of the beholder. For the most part, we all recognise the basic signals of strength and warmth. They are like a shared language, easy to identify in others because they are rooted in our shared culture and biology. But the judgments each of us makes are also coloured by our own idiosyncrasies.
Some people are sceptical of traditional displays of strength, suspecting weakness behind the bluster. Faced with a friendly salesperson, some people will appreciate the cheerfulness, but others will feel put off and prefer to be left alone. In either case, everyone recognises the traditional strength and warmth signals, but some people do not see the salesperson as particularly strong or warm.
The ultimate measure of whether someone projects strength or warmth is the feelings they evoke in others. When you feel respect for a particular person, you see a kind of strength in them. And when you feel some kinship or affection for someone, you see them as warm.
Source: “Compelling People: The Hidden Qualities That Make Us Influential” by John Neffinger and Matthew Kohut.
Business Tips
Strength plus Warmth
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