sap Psychological RESEARCH, THEORY Science BELATED SCIENCES PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Short Report Supine Body Position Reduces Neural Response to Anger Evocation Eddie Harmon-Jones and Carly K. Peterson Texas A&M University Body movements affect emotional processes. For example, adopting the facial expressions of specific emotions (even via unobtrusive manipulations) affects emotional judgments and memories (Laird, 2007). Manipulated body postures can affect behavior: slumped postures lead to more "helpless behaviors" (Riskind & Gotay, 1982). Simple body postures may also affect other emotive responses and the neural activations associated with them. Lying flat on one's back may be antithetical to approach motivation (i.e., the urge to move toward something). We sought to address this issue, which has implications not only for the study of embodiment, but also for the study of neural processes, because some neuroscience techniques rely on individuals being in supine positions. More than 15 studies using electroencephalographic (EEG) and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) methods have suggested that the left prefrontal cortex is more activated than the right prefrontal cortex during the experience of anger, particularly anger associated with approach motivational incli- nations (Carver & Harmon-Jones, 2009; van Honk & Schutter, 2006). Tomarken and Zald (2009), however, questioned these effects when they reviewed some functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies that failed to find greater relative left prefrontal cortical activations during anger. One possible expla- nation of the divergence of the EEG-rTMS and fMRI studies on anger is that the fMRI studies did not evoke anger associated with approach motivation. Research has shown that mild anger cues only evoke greater relative left frontal cortical activation when approach motivation is also activated (Harmon-Jones, Lueck, Fearn, & Harmon-Jones, 2006). Another possibility for the diverging findings is that the EEG- rTMS studies test participants in an upright body position, whereas fMRI studies test participants in a supine body position. We measured relative left frontal EEG activity to an anger Address correspondence to Eddie Harmon-Jones, Department of Psychology, 4235 TAMU, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77845, e-mail: eddiehj@gmail.com. inducing insult while participants were upright or reclined. We expected the reclined position to produce less relative left frontal cortical activation than the upright position because a supine position may be antithetical to approach motivation. METHOD Forty-six (23 females, 23 males) introductory psychology stu- dents participated to fulfill a course requirement. Under the guise of a test of how personality variables affect essay content and impressions of others, participants were told that they had been randomly assigned to write an essay and that another participant, ostensibly in an adjacent room, would evaluate it. Participants wrote a 10-min essay supporting their side of an issue (e.g., smoking in public). Then, the essay was collected and brought to the "other participant" for evaluation. EEG sensors were attached to the participant. Then, the ex- perimenter explained that, at some point, the chair would need to be reclined and demonstrated how to recline the chair. Stereo headphones were placed on the participant, who was left sitting upright. In the control room, the experimenter randomly deter- mined whether the participant would remain upright or recline. The participant then heard the experimenter prompt the "other participant" to rate the participant on six characteristics (e.g., intelligence; 1 = unintelligent, 9 intelligent); voice recordings were used to eliminate experimenter bias. All participants in the reclined condition and half the participants in the upright con- dition heard negative ratings and statements about the essay and their personality. In the neutral-upright condition, participants heard slightly positive ratings (Harmon-Jones & Sigelman, 2001; Harmon-Jones, Vaughn-Scott, Mohr, Sigelman, & Harmon-Jones, 2004). Male participants heard feedback from a male, and female participants heard feedback from a female. Immediately follow- ing the feedback, 2 min of EEG were recorded. Then, participants completed a self-report emotions scale and were debriefed (5 participants, randomly distributed across conditions, were sus- picious; data for these participants were excluded from analysis). Volume 20-Number 10 Copyright 2009 Association for Psychological Science 1209 What is/are independent variable(s)? (Specify the levels). Note: there may be more than one IV, or there may be just one. Try to spot them all! What design did this study use? (Experimental or Correlational). Explain how you know (this should be fairly apparent from the title of the article, so please also explain why this is an experimental study). What is/are dependent variable(s)? (List all dependent variables authors measured) How many participants were in the study? What methods (e.g., survey, computer, equipment, etc.) did authors utilize to measure variables? How did they manipulate the IV? How did they measure the DVs? What are the findings of the study?