Basic body language could be all you need to spot a master manipulator in just a few seconds, a new study has revealed.
The psychologists conducted five separate studies analyzing a total of 608 subjects, finding a consistent link between those who frequently stand upright in open, expansive postures and “antisocial and manipulative personality traits.”
The discovery adds a new twist to the debate over the ‘power stance’, a posture with legs spread and chest out that was once believed to confer a boost of confidence to those who adopt it.
“We were surprised that antisocial traits were more consistently associated with posture,” the study authors said, “rather than depression and negative emotion.’
The team suspects that the preference may reflect an “unconscious use of intimidation to enhance one’s access to environmental resources at the expense of others.”
“Previous studies on clinical depression have found more slouched postures in depressed patients,” the McGill University researchers explained.
“And while we saw some evidence of this in our data,” they noted, “antisocial traits were much more consistent.”
The researchers suspect that the preference for a tall stance may reflect an “unconscious use of intimidation to enhance one’s access to environmental resources at the expense of others.”
The first study asked subjects to complete a personality survey and submit four photographs of your natural posture from various angles: front, back, left and right.
The photos were then analyzed using a machine learning tool called OpenPOSE, which identified key points on the body (the location or angle of the neck, eye line, shoulders, spine and hip) to assign measurable numbers to his posture.
The second study double-checked the connections found, while the third asked 104 participants to adopt dominant and submissive postures on purpose, based on their own subjective interpretation, to verify further.
At this point, the team found that participants who naturally adopted a “power pose” scored higher in having a “social dominance” orientation.
These test subjects also scored higher on ‘Primary’ or more probable genetic psychopathyalthough they also obtained lower scores in both empathy and anger control.
“The usual caveat in this type of research is the sample,” Wainio-Theberge and Dr. Armony added. “We studied young adults, most of whom were college students and the vast majority of whom identified as female.”
“While we recently expanded this to a broader age range, up to age 80,” as they said PsyPost“There is a lot of variability in the general population that we did not capture in this study.”
Psychologists at McGill University tracked their test subjects to find a connection between antisocial or psychopathic traits (x-axis above) and each subject’s posture (y-axis above)
Photographs of the subjects in the studies were analyzed using a machine learning tool called OpenPOSE, which identified key points on the body (shown in figure d, above) and calculated angles to assign measurable numbers to their posture, such as angles of the neck, shoulders, spine and hip placement
The team’s fourth study added a physiological and neurological element, recording muscle activity related to two key neck muscles in 129 subjects.
A surface electromyography (EMG) device was used to track a muscle used in head and neck movement.the sternocleidomastoid, and another that helps stabilize the shoulders and neck, the upper trapezius.
The McGill team found that the head and neck connector, the sternocleidomastoid, played a much larger role in what is commonly considered a “dominant” posture.
His fifth and last study, published with the rest in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Last November, he attempted to look for links between the posture and other related traits, “Machiavellianism (manipulation), narcissism and aggression.”
These results reinforced the posture-personality connection, revealing that more upright postures corresponded to participants who had a greater desire for power and a willingness to follow manipulative or aggressive strategies to get what they wanted.
But the researchers noted that this should not be interpreted as an excuse to slouch.
“People should NOT accept that being upright will change your personality (for better or worse),” they said.
“We observed a correlation between body posture and personality and therefore cannot make inferences about causality,” they explained.
Dr. Susan Krauss Whitbourne, a psychologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, only reviewed the McGill study and acknowledged that there were still some takeaways for the average person from this research.
“A person who seems to want to use his body to intimidate you (even if he doesn’t quite succeed),” he wrote in Psychology Today, “seems like a good person to stay away from.”