Emotions and Posture - Essay Example

However, one clearly recognizable difference to my posture from these other activities existed when I worked on a computer in a seated position. Because my eyesight is declining, it is increasingly difficult to work with a distance away from the computer screen, which caused a slight slouch in my posture while completing computer tasks. However, I experienced no slouching posture during the process of reading books or finishing other near-sighted tasks. After completing these initial observations over the course of three days, I manipulated the posture variable for the next three days.

Part of this manipulation was a slightly slouched stance by approximately 15 degrees. I concluded that this degree of change would not be readily recognizable by others who knew me well; however, I believed the change would register at some levels in both my own mind states and those of others. In order to maintain consistency, I kept this slouched position during all activities and at all times for those three days during which the experiment was being conducted. Once my body became acquainted with the new stance through some practice and conscious thought, the new posture seemed natural, which allowed me to ignore that variable as I interacted with others and carried on with my daily life.

During these interactions, the differences I noticed were not significant. Others seemed to be set in their perceptions of my body such that they could not notice the difference in my posture. However, my interactions with others changed in that I felt less confident (partly because of my idea that bad posture is an unattractive trait) and less open to interpersonal interaction. A decrease in confidence may have created a feedback loop in which my behavior affected other’s interactions with me during the time of the experiment.

However, as I said, there were no noticeable differences in the way others perceived or interacted with me while the manipulation of my posture was occurring. After the experimental period had concluded, I returned to my usual patterns, including readjusting to my normal posture. From this, I discovered the interpersonal confidence I had before the posture change and I felt less self-conscious about my attractive (or unattractive) stance. Posture, as such, does not receive much conscious thought from most people unless of course their posture is noticeably bad either to the self or to others.

Overall, my normal patterns seem to have returned without any major difference. The question of whether the posture manipulation ultimately resulted in a change in my emotions depends on the situation. In some situations, the bad posture variable made me less likely to engage in interactions with others because I felt less attractive. Anxious emotions could be attached to the bad posture in that way. In other situations, the bad posture variable had no effect on how others treated me, which left emotions like happiness from acceptance unchanged.

My mood did not suffer because of a bad stance, at least according to my observations. A serious limitation to this experiment is, of course, the self-reporting on a variable I am always tempted to think about during the course of the experiment. Nevertheless, despite this limitation, I believe that emotions can be affected by posture, assuming that one has a notion of good posture as a physically attractive trait and that one either perceives himself as having a good or bad one. If the individual or the society has no