A slumped over physical posture subsequently leads to greater helplessness

College undergrads were first asked to complete a test of spatial thinking. While waiting for the results of the test, participants went to a separate room, were hooked up to impressive looking machines and positioned into one of two postures under the guise of a separate short study examining the relationship between muscle response and galvanic skin response. Half of the participants were manipulated by the experimenter into a slumped posture, bent over with back stooped and hunched over, while the other half were positioned in an upright posture with back erect, chest out, and chin raised. While in this posture, participants were given a note indicating that they scored in the top 1/4 of all subjects. Finally, they returned to the first room and completed a set of 4 geometric puzzles, the first 2 being insoluble and the last 2 soluble. Persistence on this frustrating task was taken as the indicator of helplessness and depression. The researchers found that participants who had been positioned in the stooped posture before the task showed much lower persistence than those who had been positioned in the expansive posture. It is important to realize that these results represent lingering effects of the postures since individuals were no longer sitting in these postures at the time of attempting the task. Also, there were no difference between groups on self-reports of self-confidence, feelings of strength or weakness, depressed affect, or anything else.

Riskind, J. H., & Gotay, C. C. (1982). Physical posture: Could it have regulatory or feedback effects on motivation and emotion?. Motivation and Emotion, 6(3), 273-298.