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Body posture effects on self‐evaluation: A self‐validation approach
Author(s) -
Briñol Pablo,
Petty Richard E.,
Wagner Benjamin
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
european journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.609
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1099-0992
pISSN - 0046-2772
DOI - 10.1002/ejsp.607
Subject(s) - embodied cognition , psychology , self confidence , social psychology , sitting , quality (philosophy) , cognition , epistemology , artificial intelligence , computer science , medicine , philosophy , pathology , neuroscience
Building on the notion of embodied attitudes, we examined how body postures can influence self‐evaluations by affecting thought confidence, a meta‐cognitive process. Specifically, participants were asked to think about and write down their best or worse qualities while they were sitting down with their back erect and pushing their chest out (confident posture) or slouched forward with their back curved (doubtful posture). Then, participants completed a number of measures and reported their self‐evaluations. In line with the self‐validation hypothesis, we predicted and found that the effect of the direction of thoughts (positive/negative) on self‐related attitudes was significantly greater when participants wrote their thoughts in the confident than in the doubtful posture. These postures did not influence the number or quality of thoughts listed, but did have an impact on the confidence with which people held their thoughts. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.