Body Language and Assault Prevention:

A Review of the Literature

by Brad Binder, Ph.D.

© 1999, 2007

Please do not reprint or repost this article without first obtaining permission from the author.

Introduction

It is a commonly held belief that training in self defense or a martial art leads to greater self-confidence and a reduced likelihood of being attacked. A number of studies support the idea that training of either sort leads to greater self-confidence (Fuller, 1988; Weiser et al., 1995; Heyden et al., 1999). What has been less studied is whether or not displaying a high degree of self-confidence reduces the likelihood of assault.

One often hears that assertiveness in walking, standing, talking, eye contact, etc. will help reduce the likelihood of being targeted and assaulted by a criminal. While this advice makes a great deal of sense, and is probably true, it would be nice to know if the idea is supported by research.

Research in this area falls into two general categories: 1) comparing the psychosocial profiles of survivors of assault to either non-assaulted subjects or survivors of an attempted assault; and 2) analysis of non-verbal cues to isolate behaviors that are interpreted as conveying vulnerability to assault.

At this point, some disclaimers should be made. First, this paper summarizes published data about body language as related to assault prevention. In no way do I wish to infer that victims of assault are inviting attack or are in any way responsible for the assault on their person. Second, there are many factors relevant to assault prevention. For instance, Bart and O'Brien (1985) identified variables such as: the time of the assault (day or night), locale of the assault (inside or outside), use of physical force, and use of a weapon as factors that influenced the outcomes in sexual assault. Finally, it is clear that one may have to use multiple strategies in self defense. Research supports the idea that using several strategies leads to a better likelihood of escaping assault (Bart and O'Brien, 1984, 1985; Quinsey and Upfold, 1985; Zoucha-Jenson and Coyne, 1993), at least in the case of sexual assaults. While this paper examines one strategy to reduce the likelihood of assault, it would be wise to remember that other strategies such as fleeing, making noise, verbal techniques, and physically resisting may be necessary.

Are Survivors of Assault Different from Survivors of Attempted Assault or Non-assaulted People?

An early study by Selkin (1978) compared 32 women who had survived rape to 23 women who had survived attempted rape. He calls the first group "victims" and the second group "resisters", although, it is unclear from the report whether either group resisted. For this reason, I will use the terminology of Bart and O'Brien (1985) and refer to them as raped women and avoiders. All subjects were volunteers recruited from public appeal and through community groups. The study was conducted over a one year period and used the Cornell Medical Index (CMI), the California Psychological Inventory (CPI), and a questionnaire about rape. Results from the CMI showed that the raped women had higher scores for fear and inadequacy, depression, nervousness and anxiety, neurocirculatory symptoms, and startle response while results from the CPI showed that avoiders had higher scores for dominance and scales related to social skills. The rape questionnaire evaluated the subjects' emotions experienced during the assault. Rape victims were more likely to report feelings of fright, terror, humiliation, and feeling "frozen" than avoiders.

Myers et al. (1984) compared the coping skills of 72 survivors of rape to 72 non-assaulted (control) subjects. They focused on vulnerability to rape as a function of coping skills in 5 domains including: psychosocial characteristics, mental health as determined by psychiatric histories, drug or alcohol abuse (past or present), cognitive abilities, and physical characteristics (height, weight, strength, handicaps, athletic ability, participation in self defense classes). Using the CPI, women who had survived a rape scored lower in assertiveness, social presence, achievement via independence, and dominance than women in the control group. Significant others of survivors rated the assertiveness of their partners lower than significant others of control women.

While these reports show psychosocial differences between survivors of sexual assault and either non-assaulted subjects or survivors of attempted sexual assault, it is unclear whether or not these differences predate the sexual assault or not. It seems likely that at least some of the differences have to do with the assault experience itself. For this reason, it is hard to draw any concrete conclusions. However, they do suggest that there may be some differences and at least some of these differences (such as increased social skills, dominance, and assertiveness) may help prevent sexual assault. In order for this to occur, there must be some sort of behavioral cues that assailants pick up on.

What are the Non-verbal Cues That Convey Vulnerability?

Several studies have examined how nonverbal cues affect perceptions of submissiveness and vulnerability. Grayson and Stein (1981) made black and white videotapes (no sound) of 60 people walking in New York City. The videotaping was done at the same location for all people and was done without the knowledge of the videotaped individuals. The taped subjects were divided into 4 groups (men who appeared under 35, men who appeared over 40, women who appeared under 35, women who appeared over 40). A scoring system to rank assault potential was developed with the aid of 12 prison inmates incarcerated for violent assaults. Videotapes were then shown to 53 prison inmates (out of 80 solicited) incarcerated for a variety of violent assaults. They were asked to the rank assault potential of each person on the videotape. Each of the 4 groups had individuals perceived as easy victims. An equal number from each group was chosen to fill the non-victim group. The movement of each was analyzed using Labananalysis. This analysis looks at a variety of movement characteristics including: stride, arm movement, tempo, uprightness, weight shift, gaze, head movement, type of walk, and energy in the movement. Under the conditions of this study, only 4 of these characteristics showed significant differences between the victim and non-victim groups. These were: type of weight shift, body movement, type of walk, and foot movement. Essentially, people in the non-victim group tended to move with a normal stride and with postural movement; that is they moved their entire body with coordination rather than each part (hand, arm, leg, foot, head, etc.) moving in an uncoordinated manner. People in the victim group tended to move in a non-synchronous or anti-synchronous manner with a stride that was either too long or too short for their height .

Murzynski and Degelman (1996) followed this study with one where they trained 3 female models to walk in two typical victim profiles and one typical non-victim profile as described by Grayson and Stein (1981). They videotaped each of the models performing each of the walks. They showed the videotapes to 41 college students and 33 police officers. No sound was used for these tests. For each person, each profile was shown with a different model. Each model was used for all the profiles equally throughout the study. Each subject was asked to first rank the confidence of the person, and, after seeing the videotape a second time, rank the vulnerability to sexual assault of that person. Both victim profiles had significantly lower scores for confidence and higher scores for vulnerability to sexual assault than the non-victim profile. Neither victim profile significantly differed from each other.

Richards et al. (1991) showed men tend to select submissive women for exploitation. They selected 4 women who had low scores and 4 who had high scores for dominance on the CPI. They videotaped these women and showed one submissive and one dominant woman under 4 of 16 conditions to male college students. The men were first asked to rate the women using a standard semantic differential instrument consisting of 17 scales. Under the conditions used in this study, the men were able to differentiate the submissive woman from the dominant woman based on the videotapes. This occurred independent of whether sound was used or not. The men were then asked to evaluate which of the two women he would prefer to approach to do something she did not want to do. The men picked the submissive woman. These researchers also evaluated the differences in non-verbal cues between dominant and submissive women. They found that the submissive women generally gestured with less expansive movements and wore more body concealing clothing than dominant women.

All three of these studies suggest that there is a causal relationship between body language and judgments of vulnerability. In addition, the study by Richards et al. (1991) suggests that this perception of vulnerability is used in the selection process for exploitation.

Summary

The papers summarized above support the idea that non-verbal cues can affect perceptions about vulnerability and ease of exploitation by criminals and potential criminals. These cues are probably used (either consciously or subconsciously) when criminals are assessing whether or not to perpetrate an assault. It seems that a person with assertive body language is less likely to be chosen as a target for  assault or exploitation. At least some non-verbal cues have been identified that convey vulnerability or not. This research supports the advice commonly given by self defense instructors. Obviously, this will not prevent all assaults from happening. However, it fits in well with using multiple other strategies (such as fleeing, making noise, verbal techniques, and physical resistance) to survive a violent assault.
 

References

Bart, P.B. and O'Brien, P.H. (1984) Stopping Rape: Effective Avoidance Strategies. Signs 10(1): 83-101.

Bart, P.B. and O'Brien, P.H.  (1985) Stopping Rape: Successful Survival Strategies Pergamon Press, NY.

Fuller, J.R. (1998) Martial Arts and Psychological Health. British Journal of Psychology 61: 317-328.

Grayson, B. and Stein, M.I. (1981) Attracting Assault: Victims' Nonverbal Cues. Journal of Communication 31 (1): 68-75.

Heyden, S.M., Anger, B.F, Jackson, T.T-W., and Ellner, T.D. (1999) Fighting Back Works: The Case for Advocating and TEaching Self-Defense Against Rape. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance 70(5): 31-34+.

Murzynski, J. and Degelman, D. (1996) Body Language of Women and Judgments of Vulnerability to Sexual Assault. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 26 (18): 1617-1626.

Myers, M.B., Templer, D.I. and Brown, R. (1984) Coping Ability of Women Who became Victims of Rape. Journal of Clinical Psychology 52: 73-78.

Quinsey, V. and Upfold, D. (1985) Rape Completion an dVictim Injury as a Function of Femail Resistance Strategy. Canadian Journal of Behavioral Science 17(1): 40-50.

Richards, L., Rollerson, B. and Phillips, J. (1991) Perceptions of Submissiveness: Implications for Victimization. The Journal of Psychology 125 (4): 407-411.

Selkin, J. (1978) Protecting Personal Space: Victim and Resister Reactions to Assaultive Rape. Journal of Community Psychology 6: 263-268.

Weiser, M., Kutz, I., Kutz, S.J. and Weiser, D. (1995) Psychotherapeutic Aspects of the Martial Arts. American Journal of Psychotherapy 49(1) : 118-127.

Zoucha-Jenson, J.M. and Coyne, A. (1993) The Effects of Resistance Strategies on Rape. Public Health Briefs 83 (11).

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