Posture and Perception: The Influence of Body Posture on Social Judgements of Valence and Dominance

People’s first impressions, including social evaluations, are strongly influenced by the appearances of others. Body posture contributes to one’s appearance and hence may be associated with these social judgements. This study investigated whether body posture influences observers’ perceptions of trustworthiness and dominance, two principal components of body perception. The stimuli (N = 121) consist of greyscale photos depicting individuals in standardised clothing, standing naturally in left profile. Posture was objectively quantified by measuring three angles: head tilt, neck angle, and shoulder angle. Judgements from raters (N = 237) were analysed in relation to these posture metrics. A more upright posture was associated with higher perceived trustworthiness and dominance. Importantly, these effects remained significant even after accounting for sex-based anatomical differences using z-score normalisation. While sex independently contributed to the perception of trustworthiness and dominance, posture contributed uniquely and consistently to social judgements. These findings highlight posture as a key element of body perception and underscore its importance in shaping first impressions.