Feeling the kneeling : power of body
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| Year of publication | 2013 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Body posture and its changes in particular influence subjective experience of emotion. Individuals induced to assume postures characteristic to certain emotions reported feelings that correspond to those postures; those who slumped tended to feel sad, and those who sat more forward with clenched fists tended to feel anger. Clues about the relation between body position and emotions can be observed also in metaphorical language describing emotional states, e.g. "feeling down" or "feeling great". My experimental research is based on those notions and the usage of certain specific postures during religious rituals, in case of my experimental design – kneeling. This usage, known in different religious contexts may imply specific functions of such postures in ritual behavior and perception of ritual, possibly connected to inducement of specific feelings or emotional states. On symbolic (and usually also doctrinal) level, kneeling position is often linked with subordination, humility and submission. Considering those assumptions, my hypothesis asserts that kneeling position induces higher feeling of subordination. |
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