The interpretation of posture through an alternative methodology to role play

The purpose of this experiment was to develop a methodology to investigate the postural expression of different emotions and attitudes using a technique which avoided the artificiality implicit in the use of a role play design. Subjects were asked to categorize tape-recorded extracts as either funny, sad, interesting or boring and to rate them in order of intensity. The posture displayed when listening to the recordings were then analysed according to these ratings, the whole interview being recorded on videotape without the subject's knowledge. Results showed distinctive postures for all four categories, such as dropping the head for sadness and leaning the head on one hand for boredom, thus providing empirical support for the utility of this methodology as a way of obtaining observations of non-verbal cues under controlled conditions without inducing any artificial self-consciousness in the subjects.