Where you stand in a lift mirrors your social standing

People decide where they stand in an elevator based on a micro social hierarchy, established within seconds of entering the lift, a new study has claimed.
The study by Australian researcher Rebekah Rousi found that in an elevator older men tend to stand at the back while younger men stand in front of them.
Women of all ages keep to the front. While men stare at the floor, monitor or mirrors, women look at the monitor and all eye contact is avoided, news.Com.Au reported.
Rousi conducted an ethnographic study of elevator behaviour in two of the tallest office buildings in Adelaide.

She took a total of 30 lift rides in the two buildings, and discovered there was an established order to where people tended to stand, News Limited Network reported.
In a blog for Ethnography Matters, she wrote that more senior men seemed to direct themselves towards the back of the lift cabins.

"In front of them were younger men, and in front of them were women of all ages," she wrote.
She also noticed that there was a difference in where people looked half way through the ride.
"Men watched the monitors, looked in the side mirrors (in one building) to see themselves, and in the door mirrors (of the other building) to also watch others.

"Women would watch the monitors and avoid eye contact with other users (unless in conversation) and the mirrors," Rousi wrote.
It was only when the women travelled with other women that they would look at the mirrors.
People also related a sense of playfulness at recognising and purposelessly disrupting usage norms and hierarchies.
"Both men and women mentioned how they would either purposely stare at other elevator users to draw attention, or that one woman in particular would enter the elevator and stand facing the back, rather than the doors, which other users found disconcerting," she said.