How tall you stand changes how you make decisions

Sitting in a higher chair could improve your long-term financial planning. You might be more likely to buy serious tomes on the second floor of a bookstore, and to pick up lighter reading from the ground floor. The top level of a shopping mall is where customers might consider acquiring a buyer-assembled piece of furniture while the lower levels are better for simple products.

These are some of the implications of a new research by Rotman School of Management, which reveals how height - even perceived height - can affect decision-making. The study reveals that when test subjects believe they are physically higher up - on a tall stool or a top floor - they are more likely to consider a "big-picture" approach to a decision. The same theory can be applied to retail stores. It can be more effective for stores located on a higher level of a shopping mall to promote rich features.

The study finds that a person in a higher-level state of mental construal, which refers to 'where one's head is at', makes decisions based on questions of 'Why' while lower-level mental construal focuses on the immediate logistics of 'How'.