The general idea embedded in
popular knowledge is that a human has a body, a mind and a soul. Those who have
learned a bit more about human life have acknowledged that the soul (aka
emotions) has its place in the brain (mind). I guess that you know this already
so I will not insist on it.
The general view in both popular
culture and in some areas of science is that the body and the brain are somehow
“separated” (not physically) in the sense that they have clear distinct roles.
In this view, the brain receives information from the senses through the body
and in turn the brain commands the body.
This assumption is not entirely correct,
however. This is because it ignores the fact that the body’s activity (or the
lack of it) influences the brain activity. I have presented the topic of
visceral influences in an earlier post, but there is a bit more to how the body
influences the brain. Visceral influences represent depravations of basic needs
such as food, drink, sex, rest or substances that one is addicted to. At the
same time, the human body experiences much more than these visceral influences.
For example the body posture or facial expression can influence the brain’s
activity. Let me give some examples.
We know that emotions (in the
brain) lead to physical expressions such as facial expression or body movement.
These are completely unconscious and involuntary actions. At the same time if
you try to manage (regulate) your reactions the actual level of emotion
experienced is modified. For example if you experience anger and try to not
show it (manage your reactions), you will end up feeling less angry than you
have if you didn’t control yourself.
Similarly if you feel happy and don’t
physically express yourself through facial expressions and or gestures such as
jumping with joy, you will feel less happy than if you would have exteriorized.
Controlling the physical reaction does not change what you are feeling; it
changes the magnitude of your feeling. In other words, if you are happy and control
yourself, you will still be happy but less happy than if you wouldn’t have controlled
yourself.
Another very nice example related
with facial expressions is the following. In an experiment by Niedenthal,
Brauer, Halberstadt, and Innes-Ker, people had to detect a facial expression.
Half of the participants were “blocked” from mimicking the expression and half
were free to mimic. The ones who mimicked were better than the ones who did not
at recognizing the facial expressions. Moreover, the higher the degree of mimicking
the better their performance in recognition was.
Remaining in the area of facial
expressions, in another study by Laird, Wagener, Halal, and Szegda people who
were smiling were better at remembering happy things than people who were
frowning. Similarly the ones that were frowning were better than the smiling
ones at remembering unpleasant things. A similar study by Riskind has shown
that standing up and smiling made people better at remembering autobiographic happy
memories than negative ones. Another study done by Research by Stepper and
Strack has shown that standing up while being informed of a good performance
made people feel more proud than they felt if they were sitting down.
The key idea of the examples
presented above is that there is a two-way connection between what we feel and
what are the physical posture and expression.
Now a critic might say that these
results are all about feelings and have little to do with decisions and “really
important” behaviors. As you remember there is one example aforementioned where
the physical posture facial expression influenced the ease of retrieval from
memory. This, in my view, is very important since ease of retrieval from memory
influences decisions and behaviors.
The bodily state does not
influence only emotions, it also influences attitudes. For example in a study
by Wells and Petty people were asked to move their head while evaluating a
piece of music. Half were asked to nod (move their head up and down), while the
other half were asked to shake their head (move it left-right). In most
cultures (not including the Bulgarian one for sure), nodding is a sign of agreement,
while shaking one’s head is a sign of disagreement. Guess what? The people who
nodded liked more the music than the ones who shook their heads. Moreover, when
compared to a control group (doing nothing with their heads) there were
differences in the attitudes. In other words the ones who nodded liked more
than the control group, while the ones who shook their heads liked the music
less than the control group.
Similar findings exist with
attitudes towards an object when people were pushing away an object compared
with when people were pulling in (towards them) the object. In other words,
when puling towards you an object, you will have a more favorable attitude
towards that object as compared to when pushing it away from you.
Another very interesting study by
Chen and Bargh’s showed that when exposed to a word with a negative meaning it
is easier for people to push something away than to pull the same thing towards
themselves. Similarly for words with positive meanings, it is easier to pull an
object towards yourself than to push it away.
Facial expressions too have an
influence on attitudes. For example in a study by Strack, Martin, and Stepper
people who were forced to smile rated some pictures as funnier than people who
were forced to frown.
These last examples show that the
activity of the body and or the facial expression exhibited influence not only
the way we feel (emotions) but also what we like and how much we like or
dislike something.
There is more about how the body
influences the activity of the brain. According to Daniel Kahneman (in his last
book Thinking fast and slow), smiling induces cognitive ease, while frowning
induces cognitive strain. Put in more simple words, smiling makes us think
somehow superficial, whereas frowning makes us think more critically and be
more skeptical.
To sum up, the view that the body
and the brain are clearly separated in who influences who has many
shortcomings. Visceral states are one influence of the body on the way the
brain works, but they are not the only ones. Physical posture, movement and
facial expressions influence the activity of the brain four-folded: (1) it
influences emotions; (2) it influences attitudes, (3) it influences memory
retrieval and (4) it influences how we think – more or less critical.
Stop thinking that you think with
only your mind; you think with your body as well!
Like it? Spice Up Your Business
Note: This post is documented from P. M. Niedenthal, L. W. Barsalou,
P. Winkielman, S. Krauth-Gruber, F. Ric (2005) Embodiment in Attitudes, Social
Perception, and Emotion Personality and Social Psychology Review 2005, Vol. 9,
No. 3, 184–211
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