Joura! of Fcnooality and Socal Piychology19*4, VbL 47, No. 3. 479-493

Copyn»ht 1984 by theA m m a n Piyctalogical Assocubon, Inc.

They Stoop to Conquer: Guiding and Self-Regulatory Functionsof Physical Posture After Success and Failure

John H. RiskindTexas A & M University

Three experiments tested the hypothesis that slumped (depressed) or uprightphysical postures are not just passive indicators of mental states but canreciprocally affect the mental states and behavior of an individual. By using amethodology similar to that in many facial manipulation studies, the experimenterschanged subjects' postures in a standard learned helplessness setting. The resultssuggested that when a slumped posture is "inappropriate" to the current situation(a subject has just succeeded), the slumping seems to undermine subsequentmotivation as well as feelings of control. But when "appropriate" (a subject hasexperienced failure or helplessness), slumping minimizes both feelings of help-lessness and depression and motivation deficits. These results were interpretedwith a new theoretical analysis, the "appropriateness hypothesis." A slumpedversus upright posture orientation can guide and moderate information-processingand responses to positive and negative mood-relevant stimuli. The implicationsof these findings are discussed with regard to self-regulatory processes that mayoperate in emotion, depression, and learned helplessness.

Why do many people seem to slump orshrink, almost as if they are hiding, whenthey face personal failures? Why do manyseem to rise up and physically expand inheight and size when they face personal gainsor triumphs? Physical postures may be shapedby a variety of forces, some of which may beself-regulatory and functional for the individ-ual. For example, a slumped or shrinkingposture could have a guiding function andhelp the individual attempt to withdraw fromdisappointment and perhaps functions as akind of "psychological shock absorber" thatprotects the individual from failure or similarnegative stimuli. An upright posture couldhave different guiding effects and help theperson to profit more from pleasantly va-lenced or positive stimuli such as success.This article explores a hypothesis about thesepossible guiding effects of posture.

Thanks for helpful comments are extended to severalanonymous reviewers and to colleagues, including WilliamS. Rholes, Wendy Wood, Emily S. Davidson, and ThomasOstrom.

Requests for reprints should be sent to John H.Riskirid, who is now at the Center for Cognitive Therapy,University of Pennsylvania, Room 602, 133 South 36thStreet, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104.

Guiding and Self-Regulatory Functionsof Physical Posture: The

"Appropriateness" Hypothesis

The new analysis of postural functions inself-regulation here is referred to as theappropriateness hypothesis (Riskind, 1982,1983a). The term appropriateness refers tomatching posture (e.g., upright/success orslumped/failure) as opposed to mismatching(e.g., upright/failure or slumped/success) byposture to current outcomes. The idea issuggested in part because slumped physicalposture is naturally often associated withdisappointment and negative affects such asdepression, whereas an upright, expansiveposture is often associated with gain (e.g.,success) and positive affects such as elation(cf. Aachte, 1974; N. Bull, 1951; P. Bull,1978; James, 1932; Mendels, 1970; Riskind& Gotay, 1982; Weisfeld & Beresford, 1982).

The appropriateness hypothesis assumesthat physical posture orientations can havespecific guiding effects on an individual's self-regulatory and information-processing ten-dencies. For example, an individual may beguided by a slumped posture to exhibit ten-dencies that could be adaptive when outcomesare negative, such as (a) withdrawing invest-

479

480 JOHN H. RISKIND

ment from disappointments or failed goals,as with mental distancing or cognitive disas-sociation from a task (e.g., Engle, 1962;Rothbaum, Weisz, & Snyder, 1982; Scheier& Carver, 1982); (b) lowering outcome ex-pectations (e.g., for immediate reward, ac-complishment, and status) and acceptinglower minimum goals (Rothbaum et al.,1982); (c) relinquishing previously held ex-pectations for that outcome and acceptingthe outcome itself as a fact; and (d) distancingthe self from previous action strategies as apossible prelude to new action plans (Kuhl,1981). In short, a slumped posture couldguide the individual to protective self-regu-latory and information-processing tendenciesthat could help him or her to minimizeanguish or pain in harsh circumstances andto recover control more quickly.

In contrast, an individual may be guidedby an upright posture to exhibit tendenciesthat could be adaptive when outcomes arepositive, such as (a) seeking information fromthe surrounding situation that would increaseor magnify the investment and impact of theevent—seeking similarly valenced (positive)information about the self to confirm infer-ences that one has strengths rather thanweaknesses (e.g., Mischel, Ebbesen, & Zeiss,1973, 1976; Wright & Mischel, 1982); (b)recalling similarly valenced information frompast experiences that could in some instancesbe guided by posture (Riskind, 1983b); (c)administering higher rates of self-reward andself-gratification (cf. Mischel, Coates, & Ras-koff, 1968); and (d) striving to devise actionplans to extend or increase the positive impactof the desired event (cf. Kuhl, 1981). In short,an upright, buoyant posture could guide theindividual to self-regulatory and information-processing tendencies that could assist theindividual to consummate positive experi-ences and to increase, prolong, and elaboratetheir impact.

One general implication of the appropri-ateness hypothesis, then, is that physical pos-tures that match the valence of current events(e.g., upright/success) may help to guide theindividual to self-regulatory tendencies thatare advantageous to the individual's imme-diate well-being. The second general impli-cation is that physical postures that mismatchthe valence of current events could be poten-

tially self-defeating to well-being, because theposture would guide the individual to self-regulatory tendencies that are directly incom-patible with, and contrary to, those that arenormally to their advantage in such situationsand elicited by them. The hypothesis assumesthat mismatches produce a state of "responsecompetition" that is self-defeating and canlead to deficits like heightened depression orhelplessness.

The appropriateness hypothesis clearly doesnot predict a simple main effect for slumpedversus upright posture on different measuresof deficits in well-being (e.g., locus of control,depression, motivation); rather, it predicts aninteraction effect. The hypothesis predicts,then, that people would show more deficitsfollowing a success if assigned slumped pos-ture orientations rather than upright ones. Asecond, more important, prediction is thatpeople would show fewer deficits following afailure if assigned slumped posture orienta-tions rather than upright ones. The latterprediction is critical to the hypothesis. Iron-ically, it is contrary to the folk theory that itis better for people to "buck up" when facingpersonal disappointments when instead per-haps people should "stoop to conquer."

Previous Experiments on Moderating Effectsof Physical Postures and Facial Expressions

Although conducted before the develop-ment of the appropriateness hypothesis, Ris-kind and Gotay (1982) recently reported aseries of experiments suggesting that physicalpostures can have moderating effects. In atypical study, all subjects experienced suc-cessful performance on a skill task. Next, ina different biofeedback experiment, they werebriefly assigned to different physical positions.Half of the subjects were assigned an uprightposture, and the other subjects were assigneda slumped posture (see Figure 1). After this,subjects were taken to a different room, wherea standard learned helplessness task was ad-ministered. The subjects who had been as-signed to slumped postures showed signifi-cantly lower persistence on the helplessnesstask (Experiments 1 & 2) than the subjectswho had been placed in upright postures.However, there were no effects of posture onmood, possibly because only single item mea-sures were used with unknown reliability.

MODERATING FUNCTIONS OF POSTURE 481

mi

f t / \'tJ \

11 1 /

JrJ!Figure 1. An example of slumped and upright manipulated physical posture.

The Riskind and Gotay (1982) studies didnot really test the appropriateness hypothesis,as they did not contain all of the criticalexperimental cells (e.g., with failure out-comes). An alternative explanation of theirfindings stems from earlier studies that haveused facial expression manipulations to ex-amine possible emotional feedback processes(e.g., Comer & Rhodewalt, 1979; Kleinke &Walton, 1982; Laird, 1974; Lanzetta, Cart-wright-Smith, & Kleck, 1976; Kraut, 1974;McArthur, Solomon, & Jaffee, 1980; Mc-Caul, Holmes, & Solomon, 1982; Riskind,1983b; Rhodewalt & Comer, 1979; Touran-geau & Ellsworth, 1979; Vaughn & Lanzetta,1981; Zuckerman, Klorman, Larrance, &Spiegel, 1981). Many studies support a "pos-itive feedback loop" hypothesis (see Laird, inpress) that states that facial expressions canstrengthen emotional experiences that areconsistent in nature with the expressions(e.g., frowning makes one sadder, see Laird,1974, and McArthur et al., 1980). This hy-pothesis is derived from self-perception theory(Bern, 1972; Laird, 1974; Riskind & Gotay,1982), which holds that people infer emotionsby surveying their own behavior (e.g., "I'mfrowning, or slumping, I must be sad"). Itcan also be seen as an outgrowth of theoriesthat propose a neurally built in moderatingrole of feedback cues from the face (e.g.,proprioceptive sensations) in strengtheningemotions that are expressed (e.g., Izard, 1972,

1981; James, 1922; Tomkins, 1962). Thus, apositive feedback loop hypothesis in regardto a posture-related study would perhapspredict that assigning subjects to slumpedrather than upright postures would makethem more susceptible to helplessness, or toa depressed mood state that was not imme-diately detectable. The prediction would bethe same in the critical, missing cells (i.e.,involving failure outcomes) of the Riskindand Gotay (1982) studies as in the cells thatconcerned only success outcomes.

In addition to the rival hypothesis noted,a methodologically based alternative hypoth-esis would argue that slumping simply causedsubjects to have a sense of discomfort orfatigue, perhaps because the assigned slumpedposture was unnatural or cramped. This "dis-comfort" hypothesis could also explain thepersistence findings, in that the slumped pos-ture and the discomfort it caused might havelessened subject's motivation or distractedthem from persisting later on.

Predictions in the Present Study

The present series of experiments differedfrom the Riskind and Gotay (1982) studiesin two primary ways. These experiments ex-amined the moderating effects of posturesfollowing failure as well as following success,thereby permitting a test of matching predic-tions. Second, they explored such effects on

482 JOHN H. RISKIND

a more extensive variety of measures, includ-ing locus of control (Experiments 1, 2, and3), persistence (Experiment 2), and depression(Experiments 2 and 3).

At least three frameworks suggested pre-dictions in these experiments. The positivefeedback and the discomfort interpretationswould simply lead to main effect predictions:Slumped posture would have more disadvan-tageous effects than an upright posture, eitherafter a failure or a success. By contrast, theappropriateness hypothesis would predict sta-tistical interaction effects between physicalposture and type of outcome. The predictionsdepart most noticeably from those of therival explanations in the critical case of thefailure conditions; an upright posture wouldbe mismatched with failure outcomes andthereby would be more self-defeating therethan would a slumped posture.

Experiment 1: Effects of Posture Congruityor Incongruity on Locus of Control and

Task Expectations

This experiment examined general locusof control (Rotter, 1966) and specific taskexpectations as a function of congruous andincongruous physical postures following suc-cess and failure outcomes. It was predictedthat following a success where posture andoutcome would be mismatched, a slumpedposture can have detrimental effects relativeto an upright posture, such as increasingdiscouragement and a more helpless or exter-nal orientation. But following a failure whereit would be matched, a slumped posture canhave beneficial effects relative to an uprightposture, such as helping the individual torecover a sense of control after failure morequickly.

Method

Subjects

The subjects were 76 undergraduates (38 males, 38females) at Texas A & M University who received credittoward a course requirement in introductory psychologyfor their participation in the experiment (in individualsessions). Subjects were randomly assigned to receiveeither success or failure experiences; they were thenindependently assigned to one of three posture conditions:upright, slumped, or no manipulation.

ProcedureThe experimenter announced that there would be two

separate studies during the hour. The first study was saidto be concerned with validating new spatial thinkingproblems (problem validation). The second study wassaid to be concerned with measuring biofeedback pro-cesses; this provided the rationale for posture modification.(Note that the experimenters in the problem validationstudy manipulated success-failure and were blind to theposture modification of the subject; the biofeedbackexperimenters who modified posture were blind to thesuccess-failure outcome of the subject) All experimenterswere kept blind to the predictions of the study.

Success-Failure Manipulation

Success or failure was manipulated by assigning thesubject to work on stacks of geometric puzzles (e.g., arectangle crossed with intersecting lines) that were eithersolvable or insolvable. The stacks were kept turned over.On each of a series of 35-s trials, the subject was to solvethe puzzle by tracing its design without lifting a pencilfrom the puzzle or going over any line twice. The puzzlesincluded, among others, some of the same puzzles usedby Glass and Singer (1972) to manipulate uncontrollability.

Success In this case, the four stacks of puzzles allcontained solvable puzzles, and virtually all subjectssolved each of the four stacks within the allotted fourtrials for each stack. The subject was told that he or shewas performing much better than the average student toreinforce success further.

Failure In this case, all puzzles were insolvable, andall subjects had 16 failures (i.e., four trials on each offour stacks of puzzles). The subject was told that he orshe was performing much worse than the average studentto reinforce failure further. This case generally resembledstandard "helplessness training" (cf. Seligman, 1975).

Physical Posture Modification

On completing the task, the subject was escorted toanother room to participate in a biofeedback experiment.There, Experimenter 2 said that information was neededabout the relation between physiological responses andmuscle activity, while the subject was put in a standardizedand controlled body position so biofeedback could berecorded. (No explicit mention was made of the emotionalnature of the positions or even of the word posture). Aheadband was attached to the subject's head, which waslinked to an impressive looking alpha-wave apparatuscontaining lights and dials. The experimenter, who wasblind to the failure manipulation, said there was nodanger of electric shock and modified postures with thefollowing instructions:

Slumped posture. Scoot your chair back. (Pause) Sitback in your chair. (Pause) Put your feet together andslide them completely under your chair. (Pause) Dropyour rib cage and curl your shoulders forward andinward. (Pause) Drop your head.Upright posture. Scoot your chair back. (Pause) Sitback in your chair. (Pause) Plant your feet flat on the

MODERATING FUNCTIONS OF POSTURE 483

floor underneath your knees, shoulders' width apart.(Pause) Lift part of your body up. (Pause) In otherwords, lift the upper part of your body up. (Pause)Lift your shoulders and bring them back slightly.(Pause) Elevate your chin.No posture manipulation, (control condition) In thiscondition, the experimenter gave no instructions toposition subjects, apart from placing the electrodes ontheir heads.

Experimenter 2 paused after each statement and wascareful not to mimic the intended position. The subjectwas required to maintain the assigned physical positionfor about 8 min. At that point, the biofeedback experimentwas said to have ended, and the subject was escortedback to Experimenter 1, who was kept blind to theprevious posture modifications.

Dependent Measures

I Locus of control The subject was asked to answerthe Rotter (1966) Internal-External (IE) Locus of ControlScale administered by Experimenter 1. Past research hasindicated that concurrent laboratory experiences of un-controllability enhance externality on the Locus of ControlScale, thereby linking that to situational influences (Ei-senman, 1972).

2. Expectations of success. During the success-failuremanipulation, subjects rated their preposture expectationsof solving each one of the four stacks of puzzles in frontof them before they started that given stack; the ratingswere done on a 101-point scale (0-100% probabilities ofsolving the puzzle) after the subject had been exposed toeach stack of problems at hand. Postposture expectationswere assessed later, during the posture modification (forpuzzles that the subject never did actually see). Subjectswere told they would take another set of four puzzleslater after the biofeedback study (which they never actuallytook), and they were asked to use the same scales to ratetheir probabilities.

Finally, subjects were given a standard debriefing ques-tionnaire. This included open-ended questions, such as"Did you have any questions, feelings, or suspicionsabout the purpose of the biofeedback or the spatialthinking study?" A brief postexperimental interview wasalso given to determine whether they had any suspicions.Following a complete debriefing, they were allowed toleave.

Results

Checks on the Success-Failure Manipulation

As may be seen from Table 1, subjectswith success outcomes had substantiallyhigher expectations (Af = 61%, for prepostureand postposture) than did subjects with failure(M = 38%), F(l, 64) = 33.54, p < .0001.Successful subjects also rated their outcomesmore favorably on a 10-point scale and ratedthe outcomes they expected on future puzzles

(which they had not seen and would notactually get) more favorably than did unsuc-cessful subjects, both Fs(l, 64) S; 8.08, p& <.007. Posture assignments had no effects onthe latter rating measures, Fs < 2, ps > .20.

The Appropriateness Hypothesis: Posture XOutcome Interactions

Theoretically, the matched conditionswould help subjects to process events moreadvantageously, leading to a trend for post-posture expectations (i.e., for future, unseenpuzzles) to be at least equal to if not higherthan preposture expectations (i.e., during theactual success or failure outcome). On theother hand, mismatched conditions wouldhave self-defeating effects on processing, pre-dicting a trend for postposture expectationsto be lower than preposture expectations.This prediction was tested by a plannedOutcome X Linear Posture X Preposture/Postposture interaction effect (the weights forthe comparison are presented with the meansin Table 1). The error term associated withthis analysis is a linear component of theerror with adjusted degrees of freedom (Winer,1971), because it involves a within-subjectsvariable (i.e., preposture/postposture expec-tations, weights = - 1 and +1, respectively).This analysis yielded the significant, predictedinteraction between posture and outcome,F{lf 35) = 4.72, p < .05. As shown by Table1, postposture expectations tended to behigher than preposture expectations in thematched conditions and to be lower thanpreposture scores in the mismatched condi-tions.

From Table 1, it appears that in thematched conditions, lower preposture expec-tations (during success or failure) were re-ported (M = 45%) than in the mismatchedconditions (M = 53%). Obviously, such a dif-ference could not be due to the postures thathad not yet been experienced. Such a possi-bility is threatening to the appropriatenesshypothesis, for it might imply that through aregression effect, the matched groups (whichinitially showed low expectations scores dueto measurement error) might move upward;similarly, the mismatched groups might movedownward through regression. Although these

484 JOHN H. RJSKJND

Table 1Effects of Modified Physical Posture and Success or Failure on Expectations of Future Successand the Experience of Self-Efficacy

Measures

Preposture modificationphase

PostpostureExpectations forfuture puzzles

Matching/mismatchingweighted difference

External orientation forthe Rotter Locus ofControl Scaleb

How well did you do onthec spatial puzzles?

How well do you feelyou would do on asimilar task in thefuture?

Upright

Success(n = 12)

56%

62%6

(+)

8.58(-D

4.65

4.88

posture

Failure(n = 12)

Unmodified

Success(n = 14)

Expectancies of success*

39%

42%3

(-D

11.25(+1)

58%

61%3

(0)

9.79(0)

Added manipulation checks

3.48

4.43

4.86

5.22

Failure(71 = 12)

25%

32%7

(0)

12.00(0)

3.68

3.90

Slumped

Success(n = 12)

67%

63%-4

(-D

10.58(+D

5.50

5.40

posture

Failure(n = 13)

33%

48%15

(+1)

8.54(-1)

4.06

4 82

* Expectancies represent averages for puzzles in the four different stacks and could range from 0 to 100%.b Scores for external locus of control could range from a low of 0 to a high of 22.c Scores for these two self-rating measures could range from a low of 0 to a high of 7, with higher numbers indicatinghigher ratings.

preexposure results do pose difficulties, thepossibility that they fully account for theexpectancy findings is unlikely. One reasonis that there is a similarity between the Ex-periment 1 expectancy results, on the onehand, and the Rotter Locus of Control Scaleresults of Experiment 1 and the results ofour subsequent experiments here, on theother. There is also a second reason: A statis-tical test on the preexposure differences (seeWiner, 1971, p. 563 for the error term)revealed that this difference between thematched and mismatched conditions was notsignificant, F < 2, p < .3.

For the Rotter Locus of Control Scale data,the predicted interaction between outcomeand linear posture (the weights are in Table1) also proved to be statistically significant,F(l, 69) = 5.20, p<.0V I found in theanalysis that neither main effect for the ma-nipulations of posture or of outcome wassignificant, Fs < 2, ps > 20. As may be seenfrom Table 1, success subjects had higherexternality in terms of locus of control when

they had been assigned a slumped posture(M = 10.58) rather than an upright one (M =8.58). Failure subjects, on the other hand,had higher externality when they had beenassigned an upright posture (M = 11.25) in-stead of a slumped one (M = 8.54).

Sex Differences

There were some indications of sex differencesin the task expectation data, with males (as a maineffect) reporting higher expectations (M = 53%odds of success) than females (M = 43%), F\\,64) = 9.02, p < .004. With regard to the maininteraction prediction above, a similar pattern ofresults was obtained for expectations with bothmales and females, although the results were mar-ginally stronger for the males (p < .10). No suchtrends were found for the Rotter IE results.

1 The of tor the Rotter data were (1, 69) because thedata collapsed across the sex factor, which had no effectson this measure (Fs < 2).

MODERATING FUNCTIONS OF POSTURE 48S

No Posture Manipulation Condition

As would be expected from Eisenman's(1972) findings, subjects in the no posturemanipulation condition tended to report moreexternal locus of control scores after a failure(M= 12) (an uncontrollability experience)than after success (M = 9.79) (a controllableexperience).

If the hypothesis is correct, we might as-sume that no manipulation subjects wouldhave spontaneously assumed matching pos-tures (e.g., slump after failure), which wouldbe more adaptive. We have no data, however,on their actual postures. The data show,roughly, that scores for the no posture ma-nipulation subjects were located someplacein between those for subjects in the assignedposture conditions—though assigned slump-ing seems to have had a slightly strongereffect than assigned upright posture. (Morewill be said about this later.) Perhaps assign-ment of matching postures speeded up anatural process and made the placement ofself in advantageous matching postures moreuniformly consistent for subjects in thematching combinations than for the subjectsin the no posture manipulation.

Debriefing Procedures

The results of the postexperimental ques-tionnaire and debriefing showed that subjectshad no ideas about the actual purpose of thephysical manipulation of posture. Over 90%seemed to completely accept the cover stories;the others had only vague ideas that theremight be more to the studies than they weretold.

Discussion

Quite clearly, locus of control scores andtask expectations in this experiment wereinfluenced by physical postures as well as bysuccess and failure, and the effects were ob-tained as an interactive relation. Just as theappropriateness hypothesis predicted, locusof control scores were more external, andpostposture expectations were lower relativeto preposture expectations when subjects werein mismatched combinations (e.g., upright/failure) rather than in matched combinations.

These interaction effect findings provisionallysuggest that the positive feedback loop anddiscomfort hypotheses are less adequateframeworks to account for the effects ofphysical manipulations of posture than is theappropriateness hypothesis.

A question that now is raised in the nexttwo experiments is whether other conceptuallyrelated deficits (e.g., behavior or depression)could be predicted accurately by using theappropriateness hypothesis.

Experiment 2: Combined Effects of PhysicalPosture and Outcome on Persistence,

Depression, and Locus of Control

This experiment included a behavioralmeasure of persistence on a standard help-lessness task—the same measure of persis-tence on insolvable puzzles (see Glass &Singer, 1972) used by Riskind and Gotay(1982) in their preliminary posture studies.Unlike those studies, however, the effects ofphysical posture were examined in the criticalcells involving failure outcomes as well as incells involving success.

After they had completed the task persis-tence measure, which was the major concernof this experiment, subjects also completedthe Rotter (1966) Locus of Control Scale andthe Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) (Beck,Ward, Mendelson, Mock, & Erbaugh, 1961).Such a standardized depression inventory hasnot been examined in relation to the mod-erating effects of posture. Owing to the place-ment of these self-report measures after com-pletion of the persistence task, the RotterScale was assessed after a longer interval fromthe posture assignments than was true inExperiment 1 and following an interveningtask.

This experiment also contained an ancillarycontrol condition in which subjects were in-structed to sit in a unnatural and uncom-fortable posture. This was done to furthertest the likelihood that factors such as beingphysically uncomfortable or physically dis-tracted could account for Riskind and Gotay's(1982) findings of the detrimental effects ofa slumped posture that was mismatched withsuccess. (To answer this question, subjects inthe control condition received only successoutcomes.)

486 JOHN H. RJSK1ND

Method

SubjectsFifty-one undergraduates from introductory psychology

classes participated in exchange for class credit. Onlymales were used in this experiment and Experiment 3,as the previous results had suggested that the effects ofphysical manipulation of posture might be slightly strongerfor the males (see also, Rislcind & Gotay, 1982, Experi-ment 2).

ProcedureThe study was said to be concerned with validating

spatial thinking problems, and the experimenter admin-istered a shortened version of Bennett, Seashore, andWestman's (1947) Spatial Relations Form of the Differ-ential Aptitude Test. The most difficult of the multiple-choice items on this test are also difficult to visualize,which was expected to facilitate the success-failure ma-nipulation.

During the time the spatial test was supposedly beingscored, each subject was asked to participate in a separate,short biofeedback experiment being conducted by Ex-perimenter 2 in a room down the hall. The samerationale was used as in our first posture-manipulationexperiment and similar double-blind procedures wereused.

Success-Failure ManipulationBefore the subject was assigned to a posture, the

biofeedback experimenter delivered a note from Experi-menter 1. Experimenter 2 was blind to the note, whichon a random basis said either that the subject had beenvery successful (the top 20th percentile) or had been veryunsuccessful (the bottom 20th percentile) of studentstested on campus.

Physical Posture ManipulationThe experimenter randomly assigned subjects (for about

8 min) to a slumped or an upright posture, by using thesame instructions as in Experiment 1 (except in thecontrol condition). There, a small group of successfulsubjects (n = 6) were assigned to be in an uncomfortableand distracting posture with these instructions:

Discomfort uncomfortable posture. Scoot your chairback. (Pause) Raise your shoulders until they arehigher than your normal position. (Pause) Place yourlegs together and place your feet flat upon the floor.

In a previous study (Riskind & Gotay, 1982, Experiment4), this posture was found to lead to higher ratings ofphysical tension and stress than a more relaxed posture.

Dependent Measures

1. Checks on the success-failure manipulation. Whilein the assigned posture, the subject was asked to ratebow well he thought he had performed on the earlier teston a 10-point scale (1 = very poor, 10 = very well). Thequestionnaire was attached to a clipboard to produce as

little disturbance of the body position as possible. Afterthe biofeedback experiment was terminated, the subjectwas taken to another room to be in a second spatialreasoning task. Experimenter 2 was kept blind to theposture assignments.

2 Insolvable puzzles The second spatial task was astandard helplessness task requiring persistence at insolv-able problems. A subject was shown stacks of fourdifferent geometric puzzles (the same puzzles as in thefirst experiment) that were turned over. On each of aseries of trials (the subject was not told how many) thesubject was to try to solve a puzzle by tracing its designwithout lifting his pencil up or going over any one linetwice. The use of these puzzles as a dependent measureassumes that the fewer the trials the subject spent on thetwo stacks of insoluble puzzles, the lower his tolerancefor an intrinsically frustrating task. The procedures wereidentical to Glass and Singer's (1972) except that thesubject was signaled by Experimenter 1 calling "time"every 20 s, at which time he had to decide to take a cardfrom the pile he had been working on or to go on to anew pile This procedure was intended to reduce vari-ability between subjects in the time spent on any onecard and variability between subjects in the number ofcards used. Given a total of 20 timed trials, scores fortask persistence could range from possible scores of 0to 20.

3 Depression and Locus of Control The BDI (longform) (Beck et al., 1961) and Rotter (1966) Locus ofControl Scale were administered after the persistencetask. The BDI asks that subjects indicate the degree towhich each of 21 depressive symptoms applies to them,and it has been shown to have validity with collegestudent populations (Beck & Beamesdeafer, 1974; Bum-berry, Oliver, & McClure, 1978). Subjects were allowedto leave following a thorough debriefing.

The results of 4 subjects were excluded from theanalysis of this study because the debriefing had revealedsuspicion of the success-failure note. As in Experiment1, the experimenters themselves were kept blind to thepredictions of the study.

Results

Check on the Success-Failure Manipulation

The check on the manipulation of success-failure revealed that the success subjects feltthey had done better (M = 7.22) than thefailure subjects (M = 4.00), F{\, 37) = 25.90,p < .001. Posture assignments had no effectson this measure, F < 2, p < .20.

The Appropriateness Hypothesis: Posture XOutcome Interactions

For the persistence on the insolvable puzzlesdata (see Table 2), the analysis of variance(ANOVA) yielded no main effects for the ma-nipulations of success-failure or of posture,Fs < 2, ps < .30. But importantly, and in

MODERATING FUNCTIONS OF POSTURE 487

Table 2Effects of Modified Physical Posture and Success or Failure on Persistence at Insolvable Puzzles,and on Locus of Control and Depression Scores

Measures

Persistence atinsolvable puzzles*

Rotter external locus ofcontrol scores'"

Beck DepressionInventor/ affectitems

Beck DepressionInventory Totalsymptom

Success(n = 9)

15.33

6.78

2.67

8.44

Upright

Failure(« = 11)

10.55

6.55

5.45

10.64

Success(n = 9)

9.33

10.33

2.78

5.22

Slump

Failure(n = 12)

14.75

7.08

1.83

5.00

Discomfort.posture

Success(n = 6)

14.00

7.00

2.17

5.83

* Scores for persistence could range from a possible low of 0 to a high of 20.b Scores for external locus of control could range from 0 to 22.c Scores for depression symptoms could range from a low of 0 to a high of 66.

accord with the appropriateness hypothesis,the analysis revealed the predicted statisticallysignificant posture by outcome interactioneffect, 7=1(1, 37) = 8.10, p < .01. Consistentwith two earlier studies by Riskind and Gotay(1982), success subjects showed higher, laterpersistence when they had been assigned up-right postures (M = 15.33) after the outcomethan when they had been assigned slumpedpostures (M = 9.33), simple effects F{1,37) = 5.13, p < .03. In the critical cells thatRiskind and Gotay (1982) did not include,however, failure subjects showed higher laterpersistence when they had been assignedslumped postures (M = 14.75) after the out-come than when they had been assignedupright postures (M = 10.55), simple effectF{1, 37) = 3.20, p < .08. Thus, the betterperformance of the matched combinationssupports the appropriateness hypothesis.

With regard to the BDI, a preliminaryanalysis examined the effects of posture andoutcome on just the affective items of theBDI relevant to depression (i.e., sadness, pes-simism, sense of failure, dissatisfaction, guilt,expectation of punishment, self-dislike, andself-accusations), without other items (e.g.,on recent weight loss or lack of sleep) thatmight not be immediately sensitive to changesin feelings due to the present manipulations.The predicted interaction between posture

and outcome was obtained, F(l, 37) = 4.20,p < .05, as well as a posture main effect, F{1,37) = 4.00, p < .05.2 As was predicted (seeTable 2), success subjects tended to showhigher depression later when they had beenassigned slumped postures (M = 2.78) afterthe outcome than when they had been as-signed upright postures (M = 2.67). Failuresubjects, on the other hand, showed higherdepression when they had been assigned up-right postures (M = 5.54) than when theyhad been assigned slumped postures (M -1.83), simple effects f\l, 37) = 8.01, p < .02.In short, failure was mildly depressing forupright subjects but not for slumped subjects.

Analysis of the BDI total scores, whichwould contain all BDI items (e.g., on sleepor weight loss), and thus contain more error,yielded only a main effect for posture, F{1,37) = 4.30, p < .05. The pattern for the failuresubjects was just as predicted: Slumped sub-jects reported lower depression (M - 5.00for all 21 items) than did upright subjects(M = 10.64), simple effects F\l, 37) = 4.00,p < .05. However, the pattern for success

2 The results of the BDI and Rotter Scales wereanalyzed with preliminary covanance analyses (ANCOVAS).As persistence differences had no significant effects as acovariate, the measures were analyzed simply with ANOVAS.

488 JOHN H. RISKIND

subjects did not differ strongly as a functionof assigned postures, and means were in thesame direction (Ms = 5.22 vs. 8.44), F < 2,p < .20.3

For the locus of control data, the ANOVArevealed no significant effects, Fs < 3, ps <.18. A planned comparison allowed a preciseevaluation of the specific prediction that aslumped posture would be mismatched withsuccess, thereby creating higher external locusof control scores than an upright posture.This yielded the predicted difference betweenslumped (M = 10.33) and upright (M = 6.78)success subjects, F{1, 37) = 5.76, p < .05,consistent with the results of Experiment 1.However, scores of failure subjects did notdiffer strongly as a function of assigned pos-tures, F < 1. These findings by themselvesdo not support the appropriateness hypothesisover the positive feedback loop hypothesis.(Recall, however, that in combination withthe results of Experiment 1, the weight of thefindings for locus of control to this pointfavor the appropriateness hypothesis.)

The Discomfort Control Condition

This condition was included to determinewhether simply placing subjects in an uncom-fortable, physically distracting position wouldduplicate or mimic the types of findingsfound for slumped posture (e.g., the lowpersistence found by Riskind and Gotay,1982, for success subjects). However, Table 2shows that this was not the case; the resultsgave no support to the discomfort hypothesis.This can be added to the previous collectionof interaction effect findings that lower thelikelihood of the discomfort explanation.4

Discussion

The present findings confirmed that sub-jects in the matched conditions were moretask persistent than subjects whose physicalpostures were mismatched with their out-comes (e.g., slumped/success). Some evidenceof the predicted interaction effects were alsoobtained for the depression data in the BDIaffect item scores and in a replication studyreported in a footnote in that section.

Despite the strong support that the previousfindings have been conferring to the appro-

priateness hypothesis, the locus of controlfindings for failure subjects did not repeatthe pattern found in Experiment 1. It maybe possible that these latter results were lessclear-cut because of the longer interval fromposture manipulation to locus of controlassessment in this study; or perhaps, theexperience of the intervening persistence taskitself partially obscured the effects of theposture manipulations. These or other pro-cedure changes, then, might have made thepresent study a weaker overall test of thesepredictions.

Experiment 3: Physical Posture Effects onLocus of Control and Depression for Failure

Subjects—A Replication

The purpose of this last study was toattempt to replicate fairly exactly the locusof control findings for failure subjects inExperiment 1, by using the same methodol-ogy. A second purpose was to try conceptually

3 After these investigations were completed, it seemeddesirable to see whether the predicted posture by outcomeinteraction effect for the BDI depression scores could befound in a replication study. The replication study usedthe same manipulations of posture and outcome as inthis experiment. But, instead of male subjects, femalesubjects (N = 69) were used so as to increase evidenceon the generalizability of the findings. The ANOVA on thetotal BDI scores yielded a significant posture by outcomeinteraction, F{1, 65) = 4.104, p < .05, with no maineffects. In accord with the hypothesis, success subjectshad higher depression when assigned a slumped posture(M = 7.4) than when assigned an upright posture (M =5.2), whereas failure subjects had higher depression whenassigned an upright posture (M = 9.4) than when assigneda slumped posture (M = 6.00). Results for only theaffective items on the BDI yielded a similar pattern(p<.05).

4 One minor prediction of the appropriateness hypoth-esis was that a mismatched slumped posture (with successsubjects) would create more deficits and response com-petition than a matched upright posture or a mildlyunmatched, discomfort posture. In fact, the analysisfound significant contrasts (e.g., contrast weights forpersistence were - 2 for slumped, +1 for other postures)for task persistence and for locus of control (both ps <.05); the data were directionally consistent for the affectiveitems on the BDI (p < .25).

The converse prediction that upright posture wouldcreate fewer deficits than the discomfort posture or thanthe slumped posture was not confirmed. All findings inwhich the the control condition was used should beinterpreted cautiously because of the small sample size(N = 6).

MODERATING FUNCTIONS OF POSTURE 489

to replicate the depression findings in Exper-iment 2. Thus, this experiment differed fromthe previous one by using the failure-inductionprocedure of Experiment 1 as well as adifferent measure of depression-related symp-toms of failure subjects.

Method

SubjectsTwenty undergraduate male students were assigned to

attempt sets of insolvable puzzles (the same used inExperiment 1) in order to produce a standard failureexperience. They were next randomly assigned with theprevious instructions to either a slumped (A' = 10) or anupright (A' = 10) posture.

Dependent MeasuresWhile in the postures after the failure, subjects were

asked to answer the Hammen-Krantz Story CompletionQuestion (Krantz & Hammen, 1979). The subject wasasked to put himself into the place of a central characterin each of six described common problem situations(e.g., concerning social isolation) and to imagine whatthe central character thought and felt (selecting from anumber of multiple-choice options).

An example of one of the stories involves a shy andlonely college sophomore who is uncertain how to goabout making friends and overhears one of the men inthe dorm mention plans for going out later to a placewhere there will be women (without asking him along).One response option measures depressive affect that isnot associated with major distortion of the availableinformation in the story (e.g., "Unhappiness and increasedloneliness. Sounds like 111 be practically alone on thefloor"). Another response option measures depressiveaffect that is associated with marked distortion of theinformation (see Beck, 1976), such as personalization orovergeneralization (e.g., "Unhappiness. They probablywould have asked me to come if they liked me more").

Although there are also two nondepressive responseoptions, previous research has shown that depressedindividuals score higher than nondepressed individualson both of the depression response scales (Krantz &Hammen, 1978); the depression scores were presentlycombined into a unified score because they showed nodifferences.

On completion of the biofeedback study, the subjectreturned to Experimenter 1, who had been kept blind toposture assignments and gave the subject the RotterLocus of Control Scale. Debriefing revealed that none ofthe subjects were suspicious of the study or its purpose.

ResultsTable 3 shows, just as predicted, that sub-

jects had higher depression scores on theHammen-Krantz test when assigned an up-right position (M = 7.10) after failure thanwhen assigned to a slumped posture (M =

4.00), one-way ANOVA P(l, 18) = 4.94, p <.05. This finding replicates the depressionresults of Experiment 2 for failure subjectswith two methodological differences: (a) adifferent failure manipulation and (b) a dif-.ferent measure of depressive symptomatologythan the BDI.

Besides this, the failure subjects reportedmore externality on the Rotter Locus ofControl Scale when they had been assignedupright postures (M - 10.18) following theevent instead of slumped postures (M = 8.50),F{1, 18) = 4.59, p < .05. The locus of controlresults are fully consistent with the results ofExperiment 1 for failure subjects; thus, theyconfer further support to this particularmatching prediction of the appropriatenesshypothesis.

Meta-Analysis of AH the Studies

Since many of the same dependent vari-ables have been used in several of the presentexperiments and those of Riskind and Gotay(1982), the overall boxscore of two sets ofpredictions (i.e., for success and failure sub-jects) can be examined by combining theresults of the various independent studieswith metanalytic methods (e.g., Rosenthal,1978, 1983). The "adding ft" procedure wasused, which requires dividing the sum of thet values by the square root of the sum of thedjk for each t after each df is divided by df-2. For task persistence, the predicted effectsof slumped versus upright postures for successsubjects was significant, z = 3.82, p < .001(combining the three relevant experimentsusing success subjects: Experiment 2 hereand two studies of Riskind and Gotay). Notest can be made for failure subjects sincethere is only one study. (Riskind and Gotaydid not test failure subjects.) For locus ofcontrol, the predicted effects of posture forsuccess subjects was significant, z = 2.50,p < .02 (combining the only experiments:Experiments 1, 2, and 3 here). Last, thepredicted effects of posture for failure subjectswas significant for depression, combining theresults of Experiment 2 and 3 (which eachused different measures, the BDI and theHammen-Krantz, respectively), z = 1.80, p <.05. Thus, the metaanalysis upholds the ap-propriateness hypothesis.

490 JOHN H. RISKIND

Table 3Effects of Modified Physical Posture After Failure Treatment on Hammen-Krantz Scoresand on Locus of Control

Measures

Hammen-Krantz scores for" symptoms of depressionRotter external locus of* control scores

Upright

(n = 10)

7.1010.18

Slumped

(n = 10)

4.08.50

* Scores for symptoms of depression on this instrument of cognitive responses could range from 0 to a high of 23.b Scores for external locus of control could range from 0 to a high of 22.

General Discussion

As a whole, the findings of the presentexperiments confirmed the predictions thatsubjects whose postures were incongruous tothe type of outcome they received (e.g.,slumped/success, upright/failure) would ex-perience a more external locus of controlorientation, have lower motivation on a per-sistence task, and have higher depression thansubjects in congruous conditions. The pre-dicted posture by outcome interaction effectswas found for the variables of locus of controland for task expectations in Experiment 1,and they were found for task persistence andfor the affective items of the BDI in Experi-ment 2. These findings represent convergingresults that give interlocking support to theproposed conceptualization about the mod-erating role of posture.

In this study, assigned slumped posturemay have had a slightly stronger impact (e.g.,relative to the unmodified posture in Exper-iment 1) than assigned upright posture. Per-haps this was because people are sponta-neously more likely to expand posturallyafter success while they are more inhibitedto slump after failure. The effect of this mightbe that the assigned upright posture wouldhave less impact because it is less differentfrom their usual postural response than theassigned slumped posture would be.

The results of the studies are inconsistentwith several alternative explanations of theeffects of posture manipulation studies. Theexplanation for the interaction effects betweenposture and success-failure clearly could notreside solely with accounts that would predictsimple main effects, such as the positivefeedback loop hypothesis. Besides this, the

between-subjects and double-blind design ofthe present studies make it difficult to easilyexplain results in terms of experimenter biasor demand effects. In this connection, Tour-angeau and Ellsworth (1979) and Buck (1980)have criticized some facial feedback experi-ments for using within-subject designs, whichwould make them susceptible to these possiblealternative explanations (but see Laird, inpress).

One other possibility is that catharsis (seeFreud, 1946) promoted by the assigned pos-tures accounted for the posture manipulationeffects. Proponents of catharsis could arguethat expression of sad feelings by means of aslumped posture could relieve those feelings,thereby reducing depression, helplessness, andso forth. However, if such physical manipu-lations can discharge feelings, then assign-ments of facial expressions would also beexpected to discharge negative feelings. Thiseffect generally has not been found (e.g.,Lanzetta et al., 1976). (See Buck, 1980, fordiscussion of other studies.)

The appropriateness hypothesis tested bythese experiments assumes that a slumpedphysical posture helps people to cope withand to adaptively process negative stimuli,but that it is incompatible with and thwartsadvantageous processing of positive stimuli.Thus, slumped posture may cue or set offtendencies such as cognitive withdrawal or aturning inward and a withdrawal of invest-ment in expectations, (that minimize theimpact of mood stimuli), which are adaptiveafter aversive events but the opposite afterpositive ones. Such self-regulatory tendencieswould be suitable for negative stimuli becausethey would reduce some of their noxiousimpact, but would diminish the potential

MODERATING FUNCTIONS OF POSTURE 491

benefits of positive stimuli. By the sametoken, self-regulatory tendencies guided byupright posture are compatible for processingof positive stimuli, but incompatible for pro-cessing negative stimuli. Upright posture mayset off tendencies (such as increased invest-ment and the search for information of asimilar type) that would increase the experi-enced impact of mood stimuli. This wouldbe beneficial for processing positive stimulibut self-defeating for processing the psycho-logical impact of negative ones (such asfailure).

One way that the present conceptualizationof posture could be expanded further is tosuggest that posture could also have a role insocial regulation. It may be the case thatslumping has intrinsic value as a message toothers that one accepts their power or thatone has been unable to overcome an obstacleto the assertion of one's own power. Suchmessages might help the social group torecognize and identify the difficulty of goalsin their potential environment as well as cueattempts to avoid giving additional responsi-bilities to that individual or elicit aid for theindividual. Of course, if slumping does havethis social-regulatory impact, it would stillcome full circle and have self-regulatory func-tions.

Despite the strong support that the exper-iments give to predictions of the appropriate-ness hypothesis, they were not intended toexamine directly the assumed process of re-sponse competition. Several questions arisethat might be examined in future investiga-tions: Does a posture that is congruous withoutcomes facilitate self-serving information-processing so that persons can integrate (orshut out) information in more preferred andless self-defeating ways, whereas an incon-gruous posture competes with such inclina-tions? Does slumped posture increase thelikelihood of mental turns inward from theoutside situation and of cognitive withdrawaland detachment? Do people tend to thinkabout different types of material when incongruous or incongruous postures? Last,what boundary conditions would delimit themoderating effects of physical posture and ofresponse competition? For instance, wouldpostures moderate the effects of other positiveor negative mood-relevant stimuli, such as

the effect of adventitious rewards or medianews?

Relation of Present Experiments to PreviousLiterature on Physical Manipulations

The results of these experiments extendand qualify a body of previous studies thathave examined the moderating effects ofphysical postures and facial expressions onemotional responses and behavior. The pres-ent experiments strongly confirm that posturemanipulations have extensive moderating ef-fects that can be generalized from task per-sistence (Riskind & Gotay, 1982) to cognitiveassessments of locus of control and taskexpectations, and to measures of the mildlevels of depression that can be produced inhelplessness tasks. Second, the experimentssupport the present model with evidence thatwhether slumped or upright postures can beself-defeating or beneficial depends on whetherthey are matched or mismatched with thetype of outcome (e.g., success/failure) thatsubjects receive.

The present findings might seem paradox-ical in relation to many of the earlier facialmanipulation studies (see Laird, in press, fora review). Many facial studies found thatmanipulating subjects' facial expressions (e.g.,into frowns) seemed to strengthen compatiblefeelings (e.g., sadness), suggesting that manip-ulating posture (slumped) might create asimilar type of affect (depression or helpless-ness). However, as already said here, this typeof positive feedback loop hypothesis was notgenerally confirmed here. Indeed, failure sub-jects placed in slumped postures were actuallyless depressed (e.g., as assessed on the BDI)than were those placed in upright postures.

The reason for this difference in the resultsof facial studies and the present experimentsis not yet apparent. One interpretation mayrely on possible qualitative physical differencesbetween facial and postural (i.e., slumped/upright) manipulations. In line with this,Tomkins (1962) and Izard (1972) proposedthat feedback from facial expressions has amore powerful, direct effect on the quality ofemotional experience than feedback fromposture. This suggests that positive feedbackprocesses might not extend to slumped/up-

492 JOHN H. RISKIND

right posture variations in the same way asthey do to facial expressions (see also Gelhorn,1964).

Another possible explanation is that facialstudies have not intentionally created degreesof incongruity between facial expression andsurrounding events to the same extent asthese experiments. Nor have they used de-pendent measures relating to motivation (taskpersistence) or controllability (locus of con-trol) as these experiments have. Perhaps ifsubjects in facial studies had their expressionsmanipulated while being exposed to highlyincongruous stimuli and if they responded todependent measures that were similar to thoseused here, different kinds of facial findingswould be obtained. These questions are someof the several that merit examination infuture research.

One last possible implication of these ex-periments is that they may conceivably rep-resent laboratory metaphors for other typesof incongruity and response competition—such as those in quite different social settingsthat create inconsistency between sets of cog-nitive elements (see Abelson, 1983); perhapssuch incongruities sometimes produce depres-sion or helplessness by a similar process. Orperhaps, when standards for conduct (internalor external) lead individuals to act in waysthat are competitive or incompatible withtheir natural inclinations (e.g., that competewith or suppress withdrawing and grievingimmediately after a loss), this mismatch mightlead to psychological deficits that could beunderstood as effects of response competition.

In closing, other researchers have suggestedthat there are self-protective functions ofmany behaviors that are associated withdepression, such as submission, withdrawal,or lowering of expectations (Beck, in press;Engle, 1962; Klinger, 1975; Rothbaum et al.,1982; Scheier & Carver, 1982). Many behav-iors may at the same time be self-defeatingand self-protective, and the relative balanceof the two may depend on the specific cir-cumstances. It is conceivable that in a harshor intractable situation, slumping mayhelp individuals to adaptively accommodatethemselves to their fate—and people may ineffect stoop to conquer.

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Received December 30, 1982Revision received February 21, 1984