By Anita Hofschneider
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Feeling shy in a group meeting? Your smartphone may be to blame.
An unpublished paper out of Harvard Business School suggests that using small gadgets makes people less assertive. Those who use larger gadgets come across as more assertive.
When people use smaller devices, their posture contracts, increasing stress and decreasing testosterone levels, say researchers Maarten Bos and Amy Cuddy of Harvard Business School. The inverse is true when people use large desktop computers, which force users to assume a more open posture. And the effect continues even after the device is put away or the user logs off.
Hunching over a smartphone, Bos and Cuddy found, affects behavior even after users put the device away, causing them to be less likely to take risks immediately afterward.
The researchers randomly assigned 75 participants an iPod Touch, an iPad, a MacBook Pro laptop or an iMac desktop computer. Then they asked participants to take a survey and play a gambling game on their assigned device.
Afterward, participants were told they could either wait for the researcher to return or fetch the researcher from the front desk.
Nearly all of those (94%) who had been using an iMac took the initiative to seek out the researcher, compared to just half (50%) of those using an iPod Touch.
Overall, individuals’ assertiveness grew steadily with the size of the device. Just over 70% of those using an iPad sought out the researcher compared to 88% of those who’d been assigned the larger laptop.
Those with larger devices also sat and waited for less time before seeking out the researcher.
“I have never in my life seen such a stabilized effect,” said Bos, noting that in general, the results from behavioral research tend to be messy.
It’s not the first time academics have examined the link between posture and workplace behavior. A recent study conducted by scholars from Columbia University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, Harvard University and the University of California at Berkeley suggested that having a bigger desk might embolden workers to take more risks – but also may correlate with greater dishonesty.
Bos and Cuddy did not control for gender and were not always able to observe participants’ postures during the study, but Bos says he hopes the initial results will help people be more aware of the effect of devices on body language and posture. He says further studies are needed.
And that may be reason alone to put down a gadget before heading into an important meeting or interview.
