ABSTRACT
It happens that a theme, a method, and two quotations-all from the writings of Ralph Rosnow-perfectly set the stage for the research that we describe in this chapter. The theme is rumor, the method is meta-analysis, and the two quotations are “surely, God loves the .06 nearly as much as the .05” (Rosnow & Rosenthal, 1989, p. 1277) and “some things you learn aren’t so” (Rosnow & Rosenthal, 1995, p. 3). Each of these reflects a different and important way in which Ralph Rosnow has influenced both content and methodology in social psychology. The relevance of the theme, the method, and the quotations become clearer as we discuss our research on the relation between how much a person smiles and that person’s position on the vertical dimension of social relations (the term vertical, as used here, represents dominance, status, power, and other related concepts). The first author of this chapter has been studying the relation of nonverbal behavior,
including smiling, to these and other manifestations of the vertical dimension for a number of years, and the second and third authors joined with her in performing a meta-analysis of the literature pertaining to smiling and other nonverbal behaviors (Hall, Coats, & Smith LeBeau, in press).
