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Body Language and Assault Prevention:

A Review of the Literature

by Brad Binder, Ph.D.

© 1999

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 Dance70(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).