The Embodiment of Nonverbal Posture – Thinking About Pride or Shame Literally Changes Body Language
Christopher Philip
A team of researchers from The Netherlands and Canada have found evidence that our brain and body are wired – so called “embodiment,” and that when we think of words related to pride, or conversely, words related to shame, body posture reacts correspondingly by stiffening up or slumping over, respectively.
The experiment was simple in its design. Participants were instructed to generate words over three scenarios including: kitchen; bathroom (the control), success/pride; failure/disappointment. In each trial the participants started with a neutral task such as kitchen or bathroom followed by an emotional task such as failure or success. The dependent measure was the participant’s standing height (erectness of posture).
The participants wore a set of headphones marked with a yellow stripe. This helped the researchers note any changes to the participant’s relative height during the course of the trial. Throughout the experiment the participant were tracked with a hidden camera which permitted the researchers to calculate changes in posture at the completion of the trails.
Results showed that participants decreased their overall postural height up to 6.1 pixels or 6 mm regardless of the words they heard.
However, in the pride condition participants tended to decrease their height far less than the failure/disappointment condition. In fact, while listening to pride words, the subjects only slouched 2.3 pixels or 2 mm.
This suggests only partial support to the hypothesis that slouching or erectness of posture is driven by words.
To deal with these findings, the researchers had to tease apart the data.
The researchers note, that in the first part of the data for pride (the first moments of the task), height did in fact increase compared to the neutral task which followed. By comparing the data from the early and late stages of the experiment, the researchers where able to find a moderate difference for height in the pride condition as expected.
This, thus supported their findings that height did indeed increase relatively during the generation of pride words, but only at the onset of the experiment. Over time, gravity took over and the subjects all began to slouch to varying degrees.
“Embodiment theories predict that activating conceptual knowledge about emotions can be accompanied by reexperiencing bodily states, since simulations of sensory, motor, and introspective experiences form the foundation of conceptual representations of emotion,” say the researchers.
In laymen’s terms, when the brain emotes, the body reacts in kind. When our brains generate thoughts related to shame, our bodies slump. When our brains generate thoughts of pride, our bodies become more erect.
Interestingly, the researchers did not find any movement along the horizontal axis (left and right), only the vertical axis (up and down).
While the results are simple, the implications of the findings are profound.
“The current study provides the first evidence for the claim that the activation of conceptual knowledge about emotion can instantiate spontaneous simulations at a behavioral level,” say the researchers.
When the subjects were questioned at the completion of the experiment, they reported feelings corresponding to the relative task. That is, they felt “bad about themselves” to a greater extent after they generated disappointing words than when generating pride words. This is consistent with the words and phrases generated which tended to deal with personal affairs including “doing bad,” “losing,” “bad preparation,” “failing an exam” or “getting an F.” When pride was generated it also evoked personal experiences including “winning a game,” “good marks,” “diploma,” “did well.”
The study suggests that by modifying your inner (and outer) dialogue, for example, you can create a more positive outer being and this will leak into your nonverbal communication.
Other studies have shown the exact complimentary situation; that changing our outer being, correspondingly changes your inner being.
Your brain and body are intimately entwined. Having better control of your outer being and inner well-being will, as theory predicts, create a more positive “upright” self.
While many mental health practitioners focus nearly exclusively on the inner workings of our minds, theories of embodiment suggest that they aught to pay more attention to our otter nonverbal expressions. Rectifying the body language of those suffering from mental health issues could help mitigate some of the harmful effects.
Resources
Oosterwijk, Suzanne; Mark Rotteveel; Agneta H. Fischer and Ursula Hess. Embodied Emotion Concepts: How Generating Words About Pride and Disappointment Influences Posture. European Journal of Social Psychology. 2019. 39: 457–466. DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.584