You can quickly determine someone's personality type by the way they stand

Body posture sends steady social signals. Long before anyone speaks, the way a person naturally stands can hint at how they see status, power, and the people around them. Not just in heated moments – your baseline stance matters.

Most research on posture looks at quick shifts tied to mood. This current study asked a different question: Are there trait-level differences in posture that stick over time and actually tell us something about personality?

Linking posture to social personality

The research tested whether individual differences in everyday, natural posture relate to individual differences in personality.

In a large sample, the team tracked posture in neutral settings and linked those measures with attitudes toward competition, power, and social hierarchy.

The work was led by Soren Wanio-Theberge and Jorge Armony at McGill University, who have argued that body language connects directly to emotions; these studies put that idea in a more precise frame.

Social mood and posture

The relationship the authors describe reflects individual differences in postural dominance and submission.

People vary in how “open” or “closed” they tend to hold themselves at rest, and those patterns align with how they think about social rank.

The work suggests that postural signaling of social rank occurs not only in brief displays but as a stable individual trait with consequences for socioaffective processing.

To ensure the posture measure was sound, the researchers validated it against physiological data from relevant musculature and showed that it remained stable over a one-month interval.

How they measured it

Across the five studies, four relied on photos participants submitted of themselves standing in a natural pose. One brought participants to the lab for physiological measurements.

In total, there were 608 young adult participants. Postural ratings across time tended to be stable, which supports the idea that baseline stance is more than a passing mood.

In one experiment, participants were instructed to pose in a dominant or submissive way.

In the submissive stance, they adopted a stooped, bent-forward posture. When instructed to appear dominant, they stood upright, with hips forward and torso leaning backward.

This might remind you of the “power pose” idea, but there was no indication in this study that an altered posture produced an altered state of mind.

Posture and social cues

Some body-emotion links are well known: raising the fists (anger), moving the torso backward (fear), curving the lower back or “lordotic” posture (sexual receptiveness in female mammals), and arching the back (rats and other four-legged animals).

In social situations, an open, erect, and expanded stance often reads as dominant. A slumped, closed posture tends to read as submissive.

These visible patterns form a practical “menu” of cues people use, especially with strangers. Any one of them, or a mix, can help you figure out what someone may be signaling without saying a word.

Personality links that showed up

Early in the series, people with more erect postures scored higher on personality traits associated with psychopathic tendencies. Later work broadened the view.

The final study assessed psychopathy, manipulativeness, competitiveness, and belief in the existence of social hierarchies.

In the authors’ words, this range of attributes reflects “the use of intimidation in order to improve one’s access to resources in the environment at the expense of others.”

The authors reasoned that for some dominant individuals, “the experience of being at the bottom of the heap can be intolerable.”

A feedback loop can follow: standing tall and straight takes effort and often draws deferential treatment. That social response can reinforce a dominant posture over time.

Not everyone stands the same

People who scored lower on these dominance-related traits showed a wider range of stances rather than sticking to one “strong” look.

Flexibility in posture – opening up in some moments, settling into neutral in others – fits with lower endorsement of competitive, top-down views of social life.

The big picture here is that natural posture, captured in everyday conditions, carries information about personality and social attitudes. It wasn’t just a flash in the pan.

Underlying issues

There are limits. The sample leaned heavily toward female undergraduates, and the methods were correlational. Culture also shapes how people use space and stance.

As people age, normal changes in muscle and body mass can affect posture, no matter their personality. Those realities matter when you apply these findings to new groups or settings.

Bringing this into the real world

When you meet someone new, you take in many cues at once – face, voice, handshake, movement. Posture is one cue among many, and it’s a useful one.

A person standing up straight can come across as confident and trustworthy. However, in special circumstances, a consistently erect, expanded stance was associated with stronger endorsement of social dominance and related traits.

On the flip side, a person who slumps isn’t automatically timid; context matters.

The study closes with a practical note: a person who appears to use their body to intimidate you – even if they do not fully succeed – is someone to avoid.

What you should take from this study

Trait-level posture exists – that isn’t up for debate. It links directly to how people think about rank and competition. The measure was checked against muscle activity and held steady over one month.

Briefly adopting a pose – dominant or submissive – didn’t seem to change people’s mindset in this set of studies.

And while posture can inform first impressions, it should sit alongside other signals before you decide how to engage.

That’s the takeaway: pay attention, stay thoughtful, and use posture as one clear piece of the larger social puzzle.

The full studies were published in the journal PubMed.

—–

Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.

Check us out on EarthSnap, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

—–