Research suggests that leaning to the left encourages people to underestimate things from the height of buildings to Michael Jackson tracks (in cultures that count from left to right):
See also:
Spatial versus narrative navigators
To find out whether body positions influence value estimation, Anita Eerland and her colleagues at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands asked 33 people to guess the numerical answer to questions while stood on a Wii-console balance board. A third of the questions were asked while the volunteers were perfectly upright. The rest of the questions were asked when – unbeknownst to the volunteers – the board was altered so that it would give a “perfectly balanced” readout only if volunteers tilted slightly to either the left or right.
If it’s true that the left is underestimated and north is farther, curious what this suggests for a delight for and propensity toward the lower-right quadrant.
