Breakthrough
research from Social Psychologist and Professor Amy Cuddy at Harvard Business
School, along with coauthors Dana Carney at Berkeley and Andy Yap at
Columbia proves that body language and body positioning directly
impact self-confidence and feelings of power. It is claimed that
body
language are non verbal behaviors that influence the inferences people make about
others. For example, people’s gestures, movements, and poses may determine who
gets promoted, who gets hired, or who gets asked out in a date. Why we think a
person is strong, powerful, smart, trustful, or confident, among others relates
directly with posture.
The study, conducted this year, revealed that if a person tweak
his/her non verbal behaviors in very easy ways for a short period of time, it
is going to make him/her feel
more powerful through physiological changes in
his/her body.
In the study, about 50 subjects
were chosen randomly. First, they were taken a hormone sample. Then, 25 of them
spent 2 minutes in power poses while the 25 left spent two minutes in low power
poses (in these positions the person gets really
small. Arms are crossed or by the sides, head is down, shoulders are rounded
and eye contact is averted. Often, the person looks sad or depressed). After this, they
were given the opportunity to gamble in order to test risk tolerance. Past 60
minutes, they were taken another hormone sample.
The study acknowledged that assuming power poses for a period of 2 minutes
increases the levels of testosterone—the dominant hormone related to confidence—
and decreases the levels of cortisol— the hormone related to stress and low
status.
The same was done with people before
a job interview and the ones who were chosen were those who had practiced power
poses during 2 minutes before entering the room.
The advice is: “Do not fake it until you make it. Fake it until
you become it.” Do not make yourself small. Stretch out. Have your feet and
arms spread. Practice power poses in private before an interview, an oral test,
or a speech. This will make you feel more confident and enthusiastic.
Do you think you can become a
more confident person by faking different power postures? If so, are you
willing to try them? What if you start faking your attitude in other aspects of
your life? Could it affect your social relationships?
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ReplyDeleteIt may be true that body language is very important when on a date, job interview, or even on an important test, but what about faking your personality? I think that the piece of advice goes something like “(...) Fake it until you become it. Do not make yourself small. (...) This will make you feel more confident and enthusiastic."
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, power poses are just another shallow excuse to change us, as people, as humans. Why would someone want to fake his or her personality just to look strong or confident in front of people that he or she may not even know? You may get a good job position or a good grade, but at the end, it was not you the person who got it: it was a fake you.
I'm sure that neither Mother Teresa nor Gandhi needed to fake their personalities to make big things happen. On the contrary: they looked shy, fragile, even weak. Despite that, thousands of people respected them for their ideas and who they were, not for the way they stood up in front of a bunch of people.
I still think that as long as you have good ideas, it does not matter if you are shy, confident or outgoing: at the end, you will do great things.
I'm sorry Pia, but I can't agree with you. I don't think body language is very important, and definetely it doesn't make the difference if you get a job or not.
ReplyDeleteAs Maria José pointed out what really matters are your ideas, and the way you express them. I have seen some professors at the university standing in "low power poses" and they have managed to succed in life. I think that body language is another excuse to controll our lives. Society tells us what to eat, how to dress up, how to behave and now how to use our body to be "successful".
Personally I walk really funny, and not always stand up straight, but that doesn't mean I'm shy or have self-esteem issues. It's just part of who I am. And like me there are other people in the world who shouldn't change to be succesful in life.
As Maria José claimed: "as long as you have good ideas"...That's all you need!
Macka, I think you mean that you don't agree with what the study claims, since I just wrote about it in the most unbiased way I could.
DeleteYou and María José may be right when saying that we shouldn’t fake our personality and that what matters are our ideas more that the way we stand, sit, or move. But let me say that the aim of this study isn't make people change who they are. Did you watch the video? There, Amy Cuddy says that the idea is that you practice power poses in PRIVATE for two minutes, which will increase the levels of testosterone on your body, this action will make you feel more confident because of the effects this hormone produce in the human system. Little by little, if you practice this poses on a regular basis, you will become a more confident person. It is not a forced process.
At any rate, I feel surprised the way and the arguments you used to refute this study. Personally, I think it may be a good way of helping people who suffer from stage fright, for instance.
very clever Pía
ReplyDelete