Movement Pattern Analysis (MPA) maps an individual’s characteristic approach to decision making through the disciplined analysis of movement behavior.
MPA was developed by the English management consultant Warren Lamb (1923 - 2014). The approach draws upon ground-breaking studies of movement patterns in relation to job performance conducted in British industry during the 1940s and 1950s by movement theorist Rudolf Laban (1879-1958) and management consultant F.C. Lawrence (1895-1982).
Since being refined in the early 1960s by Warren Lamb, MPA profiles have been used by over 30,000 people, primarily those involved in senior management, to enhance individual career development, to form effective working teams, and to facilitate dynamic processes of collaborative decision making leading to long term success.
Movement Pattern Analysis has been utilized by a variety of enterprises, ranging from small partnerships to multi-national corporations. Benefits of the approach are reflected in the continuous use of MPA in well-known business-industrial organizations for over two decades. Currently, applications in academic, diplomatic, military and other institutional settings are being explored.
Years of academic and experimental research have attested to both validity and reliability in MPA. Recent research involving two Ivy League universities has demonstrated MPA’s ability to predict behavior in relation to decision-making. These are unparalleled findings in the field of personal assessment. Some examples are: Connors et al., “Chapter 11: Movement Pattern Analysis (MPA): Decoding Individual Differences in Embodied Decision Making”, The SAGE Handbook of Personality and Individual Differences, Part 02: Research Strategies For Studying Personality And Individual Differences, SAGE Publications Ltd., 2018.
Connors et al., “Embodied Decision-Making Style: Below and Beyond Cognition”, Frontiers in Psychology, 4 July 2018, Vol. 9, Pg. 1123.
Connors et al. "Staging of Decision-Making Style in Leaders: Decoding Individual Differences in Cognitive Motivations Using Movement Pattern Analysis", Journal of Functional Neurology, Rehabilitation, and Ergonomics, 01 September 2017, Vol. 7, No. 3.
Connors et al., “Beyond Self-Report: Emerging Methods for Capturing Individual Difference in Decision-Making Process”, Frontiers in Psychology, 3 March 2016.
Connors et al., “Decision-Making Style in Leaders: Uncovering Cognitive Motivation Using Signature Movement Patterns”, International Journal of Psychological Studies, May 29, 2015, Vol. 7, No. 2.
Connors et al., “Predicting individual differences in decision-making process from signature movement styles” an illustrative study of leaders”, Frontiers in Psychology, September 2013, Vol.4, Article 658.
Connors et al., “Inter-rater reliability for Movement Pattern Analysis (MPA): measuring patterning of behaviors versus discrete behavior counts and indicators of decision-making style”, Frontiers in Psychology, June 2014, Vol. 5, Article 605.
Lovell, Susan M., “Posture and Gesture and Personality Trait Measures: A Study of Nonverbal Behavior,” PhD dissertation, Claremont Graduate School, 1992.
Welsche, Mone, (2009). “Die Analyse des Bewegungsverhaltens jugendlicher Mädchen mit depressiver Symptomatik: Eine explorative Bewegungsanalyse mit Vergleichsgruppe anhand der Laban Bewegungsanalyse,” PhD dissertation, Hamburg University, 2009.
Welsche, Mone, “Bewegungscharakteristika jugendlicher Mädchen in Depression. Tagesband, “Gender & Health in Motion,” Symposium Universität zu Köln, 2010.
Winter, Deborah D.N., “Body Movement and Cognitive Style: Validation of Action Profiling [Movement Pattern Analysis]” in Susan Loman, ed., The Body-Mind Connection in Human Movement Analysis (Keene, NH: Antioch, 1992), pp. 153-201.
Winter, Deborah D.N., “Empirical Studies of Posture-Gesture Mergers,” Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, Winter 1989.
Winter, Deborah D.N., “Field Studies of Action Profiling [Movement Pattern Analysis] Reliability,” Movement Studies 2, 1987.