A person’s posture may subtly affect both emotional state and decision-making, according to new research from McGill University. In a laboratory study, participants who sat upright reported more positive feelings and performed better during a task involving risk and reward than participants who slouched or sat in the control condition.
The effects were relatively small and were observed under controlled conditions. Still, the findings offer new evidence that physical position can influence mood and behavior, said Jorge Armony, a professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology at McGill and the study’s senior author.
Researchers Changed Posture Without Revealing the Study’s Goal
Armony worked with graduate student Soren Wainio-Theberge, who developed the original idea for the research and coauthored the paper. The team recruited nearly 200 people from the McGill community.
Participants first completed tests using a computer monitor. They were then asked to perform another task on a tablet while being told that the researchers were evaluating a mobile application.
The tablet setup was designed to subtly influence how each person sat. In one group, the device was placed on a stand supported by an adjustable table, encouraging participants to remain upright. In another group, the tablet lay flat on a desk set at a lower height, which encouraged participants to lean forward and hunch over.
Upright Participants Took More Effective Risks
The participants next completed a risk-taking game involving a virtual balloon. Players could earn larger rewards by continuing to inflate the balloon, but they could lose everything from that round if it burst.
People in the upright group generally took greater risks and earned larger rewards over the course of the game. The researchers concluded that these participants were not simply behaving more recklessly.
“This suggests they were not acting more impulsively but rather were engaging in more effective risk-taking,” explained Armony.
Responses to a questionnaire also showed that participants in the upright group reported significantly stronger feelings of pride, an emotion associated with a more positive mood.
A New Test of the Posture and Mood Connection
Scientists have long debated whether body posture can meaningfully affect thoughts, emotions, and behavior. The McGill researchers designed the experiment to address several concerns raised by earlier studies.
Rather than directly instructing participants to sit in a particular way, the team altered the environment so that posture changed without the participants knowing why. This approach helped address a major criticism of earlier “power pose” research: that participants may have behaved differently because they understood what the researchers expected.
During interviews conducted after the experiment, most participants said they had not realized that their posture was being manipulated.
The team also used video software to measure each participant’s neck angle and verify whether the physical setup produced the intended posture. Earlier studies had not often included this type of objective measurement.
Desk Design May Subtly Influence Behavior
Armony cautioned that simply changing posture is unlikely to produce a dramatic transformation in someone’s life. However, the results raise questions about whether ordinary environmental features, including workplace ergonomics, may have small but measurable effects on emotions and decision making.
“Manipulating posture implicitly through environmental constraints influences mood and risk-taking behaviour,” by Soren Wainio-Theberge and Jorge Armony, was published in the British Journal of Psychology.
The research received support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.