How You Lean Can Affect How You Make Decisions

A qwirky study out of the Netherlands indicates that the posture of a person can change the way they make decisions. In researching studies on the brain I came across this research and it definitely seemed strange, and interesting.
Researchers at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam have found that humans tend to estimate figures differently based on how their body is leaning. This could influence the way we make decisions.

Their work was published in the journal Psychological Science, indicating that the scientists set out to prove that body stance tends to influence the way a person makes estimates. It is a little off-beat for a scientific study theme, but the findings are interesting.

The research team, led by Anita Eerland, put 91 undergraduate students to the test of proving their theory. The subjects were asked to reply to questions while standing on a balancing board of a Wii game. The researchers then subtly maneuvered the game through a video screen to make the volunteers lean to the right or left, or remain level, to see if it would affect their number estimates. The subjects were not aware of the changes that were taking place.

Volunteers were asked to maintain a straight posture as they balanced on the board, and were told the computer screen in front of them would help them stay level. The researchers, however, moved the bar so it tilted slightly one way or another, or left it level.

In the first experiment, one group of the volunteers were asked to make visual estimations based on things they could see in their mind - such as the height of a building or the population of a city. The second group were asked to make guesses based on a scale from one to ten, such as how many grandchildre
Queen Beatrix has.

The volunteers were split into six groups for both experiments, with the only changes being the order of the questions asked and the induced posture.

When the tests were finished the volunteers were each asked to complete another questionnaire to find out if they actually knew any of the answers, or were aware that their posture had been altered. It was validated that none in the group knew any of the answers, which means all of the answers were true estimates. In addition, none of them had caught on to the fact that their posture had been manipulated.

After studying the results, the team found that every answer given by those leaning left was lower than the estimates of those leaning right or standing straight upright. As an example, those leaning left gave estimates of the height of the Eiffel Tower that were 12 meters shorter, on average, than the other two groups.

The conclusion of the study was that our bodies actually have an impact on our minds in ways that most of us are totally unaware of, and as a result the way we make decisions may be changed in strange and bizarre ways.