Sensation_The New Science of Physical Intelligence

by Thalma Lobel

  Let’s Take It from the Top: Vertical Positioning and Power

  An amusing scene in Charlie Chaplin’s film The Great Dictator nicely demonstrates the perceived advantage of being physically higher than others. In the scene, the titular dictator, Adenoid Hynkel, is preparing to meet with his ally, fellow dictator Benzino Napaloni. Just before the meeting, Hynkel’s adviser briefs him on all the psychological tactics he will employ to make Napaloni feel inferior: first, he will enter the room at the far opposite door, forcing Napaloni to make a humiliating walk across the floor to Hynkel, and on arrival Napaloni will be seated in a lower position, ensuring that he will always be looking up at the great dictator. (Incidentally, though The Great Dictator is obviously an exaggerated satire, the architect Albert Speer reported that long, exhausting corridors were a prominent, intentional feature of Hitler’s plans for the postwar chancellery.) The plan backfires when Napaloni enters the room directly behind Hynkel’s chair, surprising him, and refuses to sit in the “baby stool” provided for him. Napaloni then stands over the seated Hynkel and, at one point, sits on the comically large desk with his back turned to him. After the meeting, the two men go for a shave and find themselves competing once again for a higher position, each trying to outdo the other in elevating the hydraulic chairs. Hynkel never gains the high ground.

  In 2010, following criticism of Israel by Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdoğan and a negative portrayal of Israelis on a popular Turkish television drama, Israeli deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon summoned the Turkish ambassador to a meeting. He seated Ambassador Çelikkol on a sofa that was lower, by several feet, than his own chair. Asking the ambassador to sit in a lower position, looking up at the unsmiling faces of his Israeli counterparts, was considered an egregious public humiliation, which anyone who saw the photos intuitively understood. Following this incident, which was met with harsh criticism in Israel and Turkey, the slighted Turkish ambassador was recalled to Ankara; his recall very nearly triggered a breakdown in diplomatic relations between Israel and Turkey.

  Politics (both real and satirical) aside, height and vertical positioning constitute critical social symbols, for we associate vertical positioning with power, equating being high above others with being powerful and being low with powerlessness.

  The association between power and vertical positioning is embedded deeply within us and expressed in many colorful metaphors: He looks up to his brother; she thinks very highly of herself; he’s higher in the pecking order at work; she climbed the corporate ladder; he’s working under her on a very important project; take him down a few pegs.

  According to embodied cognition theory, we don’t just speak metaphorically; we also think metaphorically. And we actually represent the concept of power visually in our minds. This representation was examined by a group of researchers. They have shown that whenever we are asked to draw the relationship between powerful and powerless groups, we choose to draw them on a vertical line, with the powerful group always at the top and the powerless group invariably at the bottom.1

  In a second experiment, the researchers examined whether we automatically and unconsciously associate power with vertical positioning. They presented participants with pairs of words on a computer screen that represented two parties in a power-imbalanced relationship, such as employer and employee, army officer and private, master and servant, and judge and defendant. One party always represented the powerful group and the other a less powerful group. The pairings were presented vertically, with one word appearing at the top of the screen and the other at the bottom. Then participants were asked to indicate as fast as possible, by pressing a key, which in each pair was powerful and which powerless. The results were in line with the Stroop effect that we’ve read about in previous chapters: it took longer for participants to identify the powerful items when they were at the bottom of the screen. And it took longer to identify the powerless parties when they were positioned at the top of the screen. For example, it was easier to identify the word employee as a powerless word when it was presented at the bottom of the screen. Participants reacted faster when the powerful or powerless words were in their intuitively correct vertical positions.

  Another experiment found that when test subjects viewed words that represented powerful groups, the upward dimension was automatically and unconsciously activated and their attention shifted to the top of the screen.2 When they saw words representing powerless groups, their attention shifted to the bottom of the screen.

  In a further study, participants were presented with images of animals on a computer screen.3 Each picture appeared for a very short time (eight hundred milliseconds, less than a second). Participants were asked to indicate on a scale of 1 to 9 the degree of respect they would have for each animal if they encountered it in the wild. Some of the pictures were of traditionally powerful animals, such as lions, tigers, wolves, and polar bears, while some were of harmless animals, such as sheep, squirrels, and rabbits. Participants indicated more respect for the so-called powerful animals when they appeared on the top of the screen than when they appeared on the bottom. There was no such effect for powerless animals.

  These results demonstrate that we perceive power as embodied in a vertical position. Without our awareness, vertical positioning influences what we characterize as powerful. We are apt to perceive a taller person or a person who sits on a higher chair as more powerful.

  Bottom Lines and Corporate Ladders: Position in Business

  Another group of researchers looked into the connection between position and status in business.4 Subjects were shown a chart that represented the organizational structure of a fictitious company. There were two levels in the organization chart. At the lower level were five boxes connected by a horizontal line; the upper level consisted of a single box connected by a vertical line to the box in the middle of the lower level. The upper box represented the manager and included a small photo, depicting a middle-aged man in a suit.

  Participants were divided into two groups, the only difference between the groups being the length of the vertical line connecting the manager to the lower level on the charts they were shown. One group received a chart in which the vertical line was 0.8 inch long. The other group received the same chart but with a vertical line 2.6 inches in length. Participants were then asked to evaluate the manager on five characteristics, including dominance, status, and the control he exercised in the company, all signifiers of power. They were also asked to evaluate the manager’s charisma, i.e., how enthusiastic and inspiring he was, a characteristic not necessarily related to authority.

  The researchers found that participants who were given the chart with the longer vertical line evaluated the manager as being more powerful than those who were given the chart with the shorter line. In contrast, the length of the vertical line did not influence the perceived charisma of the manager.

  The researchers also examined the phenomenon in reverse. Subjects were given profiles of managers or leaders who were described as being either powerful or powerless. They were then given an organizational chart and asked to place the square of the manager on the chart. The results demonstrated that the positioning of the square was directly influenced by the information about the managers’ or leaders’ power. Those who read a description of a powerful manager placed the manager’s square higher than those who read a description of an unpowerful manager. Similar results were found when participants were given photographs rather than squares and asked to place them on the chart. The more powerful the leader was, the greater the distance they left between leaders and the lower level on the chart.

  These results have important implications for presentations of companies and organizations. A flowchart often employs symbols to make it easier to understand the potentially complicated structure of an organization. We all know that when we view or present an organizational chart, those who are more powerful are represented above those who are less powerful. However, these findings demonstrate that the lengt
h of the line between the levels is also of great significance. If you want to stress the importance of a certain unit or a certain role in the organization when making a presentation to potential investors, buyers, or donors, make the line between that unit and the level below it longer.

  The association between vertical positioning and power is so strong that even the mere length of a line influences our perception of how much power someone holds. We lift and float powerful ideas and images to the “top” of our mind’s eye. To use this association in advertising, for example, display the name of a company or the powerful attribute of the company in a high position on a billboard, screen, or page.

  We now turn to an obvious measurement in the dimension of vertical positioning, height.

  The Size of Success: Subjectivity of Height

  In a clever study, Canadian researchers compared the estimated heights of politicians before and after elections.5 They found that Brian Mulroney, the businessman from Montreal whose party won the Canadian federal elections in 1988, was judged as taller after the elections. The reverse was true for those who lost that election; they were estimated to be shorter after losing than before running for office. These results suggest that the association between power and height goes both ways. Not only do we perceive taller people as being more powerful, but we also perceive powerful people as taller than they actually are. In other words, once people get placed in a position of power or authority, they “grow” in stature.

  My paternal grandparents’ family was, for me, the epitome of a patriarchal clan. My grandfather was undoubtedly the dominant figure in the home, and everybody—his wife, his children, and we, his grandchildren—had great respect for him and even feared him a little. Exceedingly intelligent, wealthy, and knowledgeable, he was our prime source of reliable information in my pre-Internet youth. When we’d gather at my grandparents’ house for Friday dinners and holidays, my grandfather presided like a king, always sitting at the head of the table while my grandmother and other members of the family served him. When he spoke, no one interrupted him. Nobody ever argued with him. If we children made any noise, the word quiet from his lips would instantly silence us.

  I had always thought of my grandfather as tall. In my mind, he was taller than most people around him. It was only after he died, while looking at pictures taken throughout his life, that I realized my memories of his stature were wrong. In reality, he was shorter than both of his sons and, generally speaking, on the shorter side of average. The pictures in my hands showed him to be average in height at best, but even then I checked with my mother to verify what my eyes were seeing. Even after learning that the grandfather I had always thought of as being tall was actually short, I still see him in my memory as towering over the rest of the family.

  There is ample evidence that a strong relationship exists between height and professional success and leadership.6 Tall people receive higher salaries on average and tend to be disproportionately represented in high-status jobs, even when the data account for the level of education and the physical strength required for the job. There are more tall CEOs and managers than not, and most American presidents were taller than average (though James Madison stood at a slight five feet four). Several studies have even found a positive correlation between height and subjective well-being.7

  There may be many reasons why taller individuals tend to be more successful. Several researchers have suggested that adolescents who are taller than average are more popular and consequently have more opportunities to acquire social skills, and that they have higher self-esteem—all of which help them later in life.8 One of the main reasons for this phenomenon is that we associate height with power. Therefore, other things being more or less equal, the taller person is often perceived as more powerful and consequently attributed more authority and dominance. Taller individuals are more frequently awarded good jobs and higher salaries, which reinforce the association between power and stature.

  Pick On Someone Your Own Size

  Even though we perceive powerful people as taller than average, our impression of their height depends also on how powerful we feel in comparison. Our subjective impression of height (for both ourselves and those we observe) depends on a power struggle within our minds.

  To test this phenomenon, researchers divided participants into two groups and then manipulated how powerful or powerless they felt.9 Those in one group were asked to write about a past experience where they had power over someone else; those in the other group were asked to write about an experience in which they felt at the mercy of others. The researchers then presented the groups with a picture of a person and asked them to estimate that person’s height. Those who had recalled a powerful experience tended to underestimate the height of the person in the picture, and those who had recalled a powerless experience tended to overestimate the person’s height. In other words, for those who felt powerful, the person in the picture seemed shorter, and vice versa.

  In the second experiment, the researchers directly manipulated the experience of power. They invited the participants to the laboratory in pairs and asked them to play the Dictator Game, in which there are two roles: the officer (or dictator) and the receiver. The officer is given ten dollars and exerts sole discretion over how the money is to be divided between himself or herself and the receiver. The officer therefore has full control over the situation. The receiver is completely powerless. Participants were randomly assigned to these roles.

  Following the game, participants were asked to estimate their partners’ weight and height. Just as in the first study, those who were assigned the role of the dictator and therefore felt powerful underestimated the weight and the height of their partners. In contrast, those who had the misfortune to be the lowly receivers, and therefore felt powerless, saw their respective dictators as larger and taller than they really were.

  Similar studies have shown that perceived power affects how we think of our own height as well. In two experiments, researchers manipulated how powerful participants felt, either by asking them to recall a powerful or powerless event or by placing them in a business simulation in which they were assigned either a powerful role (the manager) or a powerless role (an employee).10 Participants were then given a pole that was specifically adjusted to be twenty inches longer than each participant’s height. The participant was then asked to indicate his or her own height on that pole. Those in the high-power group estimated themselves as taller than those in the low-power group.

  The more powerful we feel, the taller we perceive ourselves and the shorter we perceive others to be. Once again, it’s clear that physical perception, even of an objective attribute such as height, is often influenced by our emotional and mental states.

  No doubt you’ve seen a man in an enormous sport-utility vehicle sitting high above traffic and wondered what he might be compensating for. Granted, this pop psychological insight is more often than not invoked in jest, and many would argue for the security benefits of large vehicles. Still, there is simply no denying the association between power and stature.

  The Framing of Power: Photography and the Media

  Because we automatically associate vertical position with power, camera angles in pictures can affect our judgments of the people photographed. A group of researchers investigated whether media exploit this association, examining whether photos of powerful individuals and photos of less powerful persons are taken from different angles.11 We don’t need to be photographers to know that there are many angles from which one can take a picture: from a low angle, from a high angle, or straight on. When the picture is taken from below, the viewer looks up at the person in the photo.

  The researchers took pictures from The Time 100: The People Who Shaped Our World (2006) and The Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century (2006), assuming that the people on these lists are powerful people. They presented the pictures of these individuals to professional photographers who were unaware of the purpose of the study and asked
them to estimate the angle from which each picture was taken. The professional photographers indicated that on average the pictures were taken from below. These results suggest that the photographers and the magazine editors choose to depict powerful individuals from below to make them look more powerful.

  The researchers further investigated this question by comparing photos of people from Time magazine with photos of the same people in Wikipedia or on their personal Facebook pages (in which what matters is social relations and not necessarily power). They found that pictures of the same people were presented from different angles depending on the context. Since the Time list of the most influential people has a more powerful connotation than Wikipedia and Facebook, more pictures portraying the individuals from below were presented in the former than in the latter. The more you want to present the subject as powerful (be it consciously or subconsciously), the more you change the angle of the photo.

  To compare these photographs with photos of powerless individuals, the researchers chose pictures from the 2007 World Press Photo contest gallery, which includes a range of notable press photographs. They asked three analysts (who were not photographers) to evaluate whether the photos depicted powerful or powerless situations, and then asked professional photographers to evaluate the angle from which each picture was taken. The pictures that represented powerful people or situations were more often taken from below, and those of powerless people or of situations such as war or poverty were more often shot from above.