The Effect of Perceived Elevation on Consumer Risk-Taking

We frequently use directional words such as “up” or “down” to talk about the concepts related to power. Sentences such as “he is at the height of his power” or “he fell from power” show the association between up and being powerful or down and being powerless. Likewise, throughout history and in our everyday life, we often observe that powerful people are in higher vertical positions. Kings’ or leaders’ thrones are located in higher positions, CEOs’ offices are in top floors of buildings, winners stand on the top of a podium, and more affluent people live in top floors of residential buildings or in houses on hills. Research has also shown that individuals high in dominance favor vertical locations in visual space (Moeller, Robinson, and Zabelina 2008). Moreover, standing on a higher elevation is a major signifier of social dominance and control (Schwartz, Tesser, and Powell 1982) and leads others to infer that an individual has power (Schubert 2005). All these examples show the strong association between physical elevation, psychological concept of power, and perceptions of control and suggest that the concept of power might be grounded in an experience of being in a high vertical position. However, no study has yet directly tested this notion. In this research, we investigate how being in a high vertical position would affect consumer judgments and decision making.