What the Body Reveals about Lay Knowledge of Psychological Flexibility

Abstract

The embodied knowledge of psychological flexibility processes was tested by examining the ability of raters to score whole body pictures based on the degree to which they were open, aware, and engaged. Participants' best and worst physical posture was photographed when asked to think of a difficult psychological matter. Naive and untrained raters (n = 16) showed excellent reliability while rating the postures of 82 persons from the general population in Reno and Chicago in the USA and recent Iranian immigrants in the Maryland/DC area. Participants showed embodied knowledge of psychological flexibility concepts across all three locations (though significantly less among those recently from Iran). Thus, experience alone appears to teach people that psychological flexibility is helpful, even if they are unable to express this knowledge in words. Implications for psychotherapeutic work is considered.