by Thalma Lobel
The researchers also conducted a laboratory study in which they asked students to find a suitable picture for a students’ association booklet. There were two conditions in the experiment. Students were asked to choose a picture for a new CEO of the students’ association, and to find a photo for an assistant to help the association’s secretary. In other words, one was a powerful position and the other a powerless position. Students then were asked to choose from three different pictures of the same person, which had been taken from above, from below, and from the front. The students more frequently chose a picture that was shot from below for the powerful position than for the powerless one.
Capturing Moments of Power
These results clearly demonstrate that the angle of a photograph matters. Now you know that the media may use this subconscious connection to evoke certain emotional reactions. When journalists want to present a powerful situation or a powerful person, they are likely to use low-angle pictures to manipulate perception. Next time you see a photograph of a leader, politician, or CEO in a newspaper or on the Internet, remember that the author or publisher might be using the picture to influence your judgment of that person. Think about the angle of the picture as well as the agenda of the news source before making any judgments about the story being illustrated.
The real power of understanding this phenomenon relates to managing photos of yourself! Keep this information in mind whenever you post or send your own photos for interviews, job applications, dating websites, or Facebook. Think of how you’d like to be perceived and use the right photograph with the appropriate angle.
Getting to the Bottom of Vertical Positioning and Power
In the anthropological sense, numerous acts of dominance or supplication are related to vertical positioning. Many animals—dogs, for example—establish dominance by positioning themselves higher than their rivals and pinning them to the ground.
In humans, the act of kneeling before someone is a universal sign of supplication. In a memorable scene from the classic movie The King and I, the king of Siam informs Anna, a governess, that in his kingdom, no person is permitted to hold his head higher than that of the king. Then, upon sitting down, he commands Anna, who is standing, to get on the floor in order to bring her head down to his level. Whether we are commoners or kings, we intuitively understand that power and height are connected. We have evolved to know that a higher position is a superior position; we can attack from or defend high ground or a high position with gravity as our ally.
As children, we are diminutive, small, and low to the ground; childhood is our most powerless time of life. From the day we are born, we look up at the adults who bend over us. Whenever a tiny, adorable, defenseless infant experiences hunger, pain, or even the smallest discomfort, he or she cries and a taller, bigger person comes. Helpless babies learn that they are totally dependent on taller, bigger people who feed, change, or comfort them, and come to their rescue when they feel uncomfortable. Toddlers, too, who are able to talk and walk, remain mostly dependent on their parents and caretakers for sustenance, guidance, and amusement. Grown-ups tell them what and when to eat, where to go, and when to go to sleep. They play with them and read them stories. Not only do they extend care but they constitute total authority and occasionally punish the children. Grown-ups are the power figures.
At school, more authority figures appear in the form of teachers. Taller children and older siblings dominate younger or shorter children and in some cases even use force to get what they want. Tall teenage boys often achieve more success in sports and with girls. It is not surprising, then, that we associate height and size with power from an early age.
Even adults may feel more threatened by taller, bigger persons than by smaller ones. Taller adults, too, are more successful in many professional sports. Leaders, teachers, the clergy, professors, and managers usually speak while standing on a podium in order to appear taller than they are. Gold medalists in the Olympic Games always stand on a podium that is higher than those on which the silver and bronze medalists stand. Management offices are often located on the top floor of a building. I’m sure the view is a draw, but the association exists between being high and being powerful, and managers can get a better view because they are powerful.
In established tradition from ancient civilizations to this very day, leaders build enormous monuments in extravagant displays of power and resources. The Egyptian pharaohs commissioned the pyramids ostensibly as their tombs, but the structures’ towering, glimmering presence sent a message to outsiders that the pharaohs had wealth, power, and a vast army of laborers at their disposal. Across the centuries and continents, the Maya, Aztec, Inca, Chinese, Indians, and Khmer all constructed huge, elaborate palaces and temples as tributes to their kings and deities and as unmistakable evidence of their authority.
Beginning in the late 1940s, Joseph Stalin ordered the construction of a number of skyscrapers in the Russian capital, Moscow, to be built in a style that drew on Gothic and Russian Baroque architecture, a style later named Stalinist. Known as Stalin’s Seven Sisters, this network of residential, commercial, and administrative buildings stood as oppressive symbols of Stalin’s harsh dictatorship, and was clearly intended to demonstrate to his Western rivals that the dictator was fully equipped to compete with the United States. What better way to demonstrate his vast resources and technological savvy than with not one but seven skyscrapers?
The race to build the highest structure continues today. No level of modern sophistication—not smart technology, genetic engineering, or global connectivity—can tame or mask that primordial urge to ascend the highest hill, beat your chest, and proclaim that you are the highest of the high. Today, various cities and countries jostle to claim the world’s tallest building, a commanding symbol of economic and national vitality. As of this writing (2013), three of the world’s tallest structures have been built in the past three years alone: One World Trade Center in New York (1,776 feet); the Makkah Royal Clock Tower Hotel in Mecca, Saudi Arabia (1,972 feet); and the dizzyingly high Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (2,717 feet). China has announced plans to build a mammoth building called Sky City, which will exceed the height of Burj Khalifa by 32 feet. Even luxury condo projects advertise their impressive heights, thus adding to their luster. A condo project in New York, 432 Park, once completed, will attain a height of 1,398 feet and thus become an iconic part of the city’s skyline.
Power, Height, and Physical Attraction: Tall, Dark, and Handsome
What defines people like managers and presidents of big companies and high-ranking politicians and military people as powerful is the role or position they hold. Profession and status can change, but race and sex, which are more stable, are also connected with power. Evolutionary psychologists claim that since men were hunter-gatherers and women were childbearers, women needed powerful men to protect them and higher-status men to provide them with more resources, and men needed submissive young women who would deliver children and stay home to look after them.
Although times have changed and in many households both men and women work and share household responsibilities, the vestiges of our roots remain. A greater number of women still find powerful men attractive, while men are intimidated by women who are more powerful than themselves or hold higher status. It is still more common for the man to be the main provider and for the woman to care for the children. I’m aware this all sounds clichéd, and I assert these thoughts and findings grudgingly, because I happen to be a woman of science and a feminist. However, these facts are reflections of the world we live in. Let us, then, delve into the domain of physical attraction.
Two researchers wanted to examine if the association between vertical positioning and power also applies to physical attraction.12 Since women prefer powerful men and find them more attractive, a man who is presented at the top of the computer screen should be perceived as more powerful, and thus more attractive. In contrast, if men actually prefer less powerful wo
men, then a woman presented at the bottom of the screen will be perceived as less powerful but more attractive.
The particularly interesting aspect of the study was that the researchers did not give information about the power of the men and women; they simply manipulated their vertical positioning. They presented photos of men and women on a computer screen, to male and female students and asked them to rate the attractiveness of each photo. The photos were presented either at the top or at the bottom of the screen. The results clearly demonstrated that women found men more attractive when their photos were at the top of the screen while men rated women as more attractive when their photos were at the bottom.
In another study, researchers analyzed photos of men and women on a website and compared the angles from which photos were taken.13 They found that photos of men were more often taken from below and photos of women were more often taken from above. As we saw earlier, photos taken from below are perceived as depicting more powerful people than photos that are taken from above.
These results suggest that women and men are still portrayed in line with the stereotypes that men are powerful and dominant, while women are relatively powerless and submissive. Taken together, these studies suggest that although gender roles are undeniably evolving, men—whether or not they are aware of it—often prefer less powerful women and find them more attractive, whereas the inverse is true of female preferences for men.
Things Are Looking Up on Cloud Nine: Positivity, Negativity, and the Abode of God
Vertical positioning is also related to positivity and negativity. Up is good, and down is bad. Feeling down is negative, while feeling up or high, or in seventh heaven, is positive. If a product is good, we describe it as being of high quality. When things are going well they are looking up, but when things are at their worst we might say they have hit rock bottom.
Using the Stroop method (described in detail in chapter 6), researchers investigated whether the association between positivity and vertical positioning is automatic.14 Participants identified words as positive more easily when they appeared at the top of the screen. Similarly, it was easier for them to identify words as negative when they appeared at the bottom of the screen. These results suggest that the abstract concepts of positivity and negativity are represented in our minds in perceptual dimensions along a vertical axis. We automatically and unconsciously associate vertical positioning not only with power but also with positivity and negativity: up is good and down is bad.
God and the Devil, two abstract concepts that symbolize good and evil, are also related to up and down. Hell and the Devil reside beneath us, while God is invariably thought of as being “up” in heaven and considered “the man upstairs.” Indeed, studies have found that people automatically associate God with up and the Devil with down.
Researchers found that screen position strongly influenced subjects’ ability to identify God-related and Devil-related words.15 God-related words were identified faster when they were presented at the top of the screen, while Devil-related words were identified faster when they were presented at the bottom of the screen.
Moreover, the researchers found that this association between divinity and vertical positioning influences the way we judge others. Participants were presented with photos of various strangers that appeared at either the top or the bottom of the screen. They tended to judge people whose photos were presented at the top of the computer screen as believing in God more than strangers whose photos were presented at the bottom of the screen.
These findings suggest that the representation of divine concepts is related to perceptual and bodily experiences. Not only do many people look up when they invoke divine help or pray to God but they automatically associate positive and negative divine concepts with having an elevated and low position, respectively.
Power and Size—What’s the Big Idea?
With size typically comes power. Large animals, large machines, large bodies of water—all are naturally associated with power, force, and momentum. But why do we associate size with social power? Holding a high-status position that controls and evaluates others is not the same as winning a fistfight. From an evolutionary perspective, size relates to power, and large size is often a physical conduit for power. We look up to other creatures who are larger than we are. Evolutionarily, associating size with power conferred the ability to survive.
In the animal kingdom (of which we are a part), size is without a doubt an important cue in the nonverbal expression of dominance. Animals demonstrate power and dominance by taking up a lot of space and expanding and spreading their limbs. The puffer fish pumps water into its stomach and triples its size to defend itself against predators.16 When frogs see a predator, or even when they have already been seized by one, they will fill their lungs with air and puff up to enlarge their body size.17 The hognose snake spreads its neck to make itself appear more imposing.18 When the jaybird defends its nest, it positions itself in a manner that greatly enlarges its body: its feathers stand erect, its wings are slightly spread (or fully spread in more threatening situations), the tail may be slightly spread too, and the bill is open.19 Cats arch their backs and their fur stands on end (piloerection) when they see a potential attacker.
Chimpanzees who wish to convey their dominance raise their arms, push out their chests, stand up so as to look bigger, sway their limbs, and often jump up and down. In so doing, the chimpanzee uses the space around him to appear bigger than he really is and, consequently, more dominant and powerful. Submissive chimpanzees lower their bodies when they encounter a dominant one, constrict themselves, take up less space, and make themselves appear smaller and nonthreatening so they do not provoke an attack.20
A group of researchers examined whether the association between power and size is automatic by using the Stroop effect.21 Participants were presented with powerful or powerless words, written in either large (twenty-six-point) or small (twelve-point) type. They were asked to indicate as rapidly as possible whether the word was powerful or powerless. Participants responded faster and were more accurate in identifying powerful words written in big type as well as identifying powerless words written in small type. In other words, it was easier for them to identify the words when powerful words were big and powerless words were small. These findings suggest that we automatically associate size with power and that a larger item automatically activates cues of power.
Wake Up and Smell the (Large) Coffee
Small, medium, large; short, tall, and jumbo—we are constantly confronted with the task of choosing the “correct” size for our food, clothing, and other daily items. Could the sizes we select reflect how powerful we feel? Could it be that when we feel less powerful, we are more likely to choose a large coffee or smoothie to make ourselves feel better? Does seeing someone else order a large or small beverage influence how powerful we perceive that person to be?
To examine these interesting questions, a group of consumer researchers conducted several experiments.22 In one experiment, the researchers asked participants to read several scenarios and to answer some questions about characters in them. The scenarios were always about a person who enters a smoothie shop, a pizza place, or a coffee shop and has to make a choice between three sizes: small, medium, or large. Participants were asked to judge the person in the story on various criteria: two related to status (has “high status” and respect) and others, such as honesty and attractiveness, not directly related to status. The results showed that the people who chose the largest sizes of each of the products were judged as having higher status than those who chose the medium or small sizes. Those who chose the smallest sizes were seen as having the lowest status. The product sizes had no apparent effect on other assessments; sizes affected only the status judgments.
These findings indicate that when we see a person with a big cup of coffee, we tend to attribute more power to that person. Furthermore, when other people see us holding a big cup of coffee, they might attribute more power to us. It s
eems that when we want to project power, it is worth choosing the large cup of coffee, even if we drink only half of it. On the flip side, if we want to appear unassuming or are worried that we seem intimidating, stepping down the size of our purchases can send the right message.
In a second experiment, the researchers wanted to examine if our size choices are influenced by how powerful we feel. They divided 142 students into three groups and manipulated how powerful they felt by asking participants in the high-power group to recall an incident in which they wielded power over another person or persons or were in a situation in which they evaluated other people. In the low-power group, participants were asked to recall an instance in which someone else had power over them, such as evaluating them or controlling their ability to get what they wanted. Participants in the control group were asked to recall their last visit to the grocery store, a totally neutral event.
The students were then asked to participate in an ostensibly unrelated marketing study and were presented with three images of smoothies and asked which one they would choose if the smoothies were sold at the university student center. The three photos differed in size and were labeled as small, medium, and large. Participants who were in the low-power group more often chose the larger smoothies as compared with the high-power participants or with those who recalled going to the grocery store. In other words, those who felt powerless and wanted a higher status were more likely to choose a bigger size. Keep that in mind the next time you go to your local coffee shop and are deciding which size coffee you want to order: ask yourself if the size you buy has anything to do with the way you feel or want to be perceived.