Science Daily (Jan. 7, 2011) — Show enthusiasm, ask questions and bring copies of a resume. These are just a handful of the most common interview tips for job seekers, but a person's posture may also be a deciding factor for whether they land a coveted position — even when the person on the other side of the desk is in a more powerful role.

According to new research from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, posture plays an important role in determining whether people act as though they are really in charge. The research finds that "posture expansiveness," or positioning oneself in a way that opens up the body and takes up space, activates a sense of power that produces behavioral changes in a person independent of their actual rank or hierarchical role in an organization.

More importantly, these new findings demonstrate that posture may be more significant to a person's psychological manifestations of power than their title or rank alone. Led by Kellogg School of Management professor Adam Galinsky and Kellogg PhD candidate Li Huang, along with Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Deborah Gruenfeld and Stanford PhD candidate Lucia Guillory, this research is the first to directly compare the effect on behavior of having a high-power role versus being in a high-power posture. The paper is titled "Powerful Postures Versus Powerful Roles: Which Is the Proximate Correlate of Thought and Behavior?" and appears in the January 2011 issue of Psychological Science.

Although not anticipated by the researchers, they consistently found across three studies that posture mattered more than hierarchical role — it had a strong effect in making a person think and act in a more powerful way. In an interview situation, for example, an interviewee's posture will not only convey confidence and leadership but the person will actually think and act more powerfully. "Going into the research we figured role would make a big difference, but shockingly the effect of posture dominated the effect of role in each and every study," Huang noted.

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