When bodies wobble, futures waver

Abstract Prolonged youth unemployment has markedly affected emerging adults’ optimism regarding their career prospects. Beyond economic conditions, social support, and skill obsolescence, this research investigates a novel possibility: whether subtle and incidental physical experiences can shape individuals’ confidence in their estimates of future employment. Building on metaphors that link physical instability with psychological uncertainty (e.g., “a turbulent future” and “an unstable prospect”), we propose that experiencing physical instability can diminish senior undergraduates’ hopefulness in their job-seeking. We conducted two methodologically complementary studies (a laboratory experiment and a field study) that employed different priming procedures to test this theoretical perspective. In Study 1, participants seated at a wobbling workstation tended to evaluate their expected future employment prospects as more precarious than those seated at a stable workstation. In Study 2, we leveraged a field study to further test our hypothesized effects. Specifically, actual job-seekers at a career fair who stood on one foot (versus those standing stably on two feet) exhibited lower optimism about securing a job. Taken together, these findings suggest that even somatic, seemingly unrelated experiences can exert a meaningful influence on people’s perceptions of their career development, which supports the theoretical accounts of embodied cognition.