Your body language shapes who you are Amy Cuddy
so I want to start by offering you a
free no tech life hack and all it
requires of you is this that you change
your posture for two minutes but before
I give it away I want to ask you to
right now do a little audit of your body
and what you’re doing with your body so
how many of you are sort of making
yourselves smaller maybe you’re hunting
crossing your legs maybe wrapping your
ankles sometimes we hold on to our arms
like this sometimes we spread out I see
you so I want you to pay attention to
what you’re doing right now we’re going
to come back to that in a few minutes
and I’m hoping that if you sort of learn
to tweak this a little bit it could
significantly change the way your life
unfolds so we’re really fascinated with
body language and we’re particularly
interested in other people’s body
language you know we’re interested in
like you know a an awkward interaction
or a smile or a contemptuous glance or
maybe a very awkward wink or maybe even
something like a handshake here they are
arriving at number 10 and look at this
lucky policeman gets to shake hands with
the President of the United States oh
here comes the prime minister of it
so a handshake or the lack of a
handshake can have us talking for weeks
and weeks and weeks even the BBC in the
New York Times so so obviously when we
think about nonverbal behavior or body
language but we call it a non verbals as
social scientists its language so we
think about communication when we think
about communication we think about
interactions so what is your body
language communicating to me what’s mine
communicating to you and there’s a lot
of reason to believe that this is this
is a valid way to look at this as social
scientists have spent a lot of time
looking at the effects of our body
language or other people’s body language
on judgments and we make sweeping
judgments in inferences from body
language and those judgments can predict
really meaningful life outcomes like who
we hire or promote who we ask out on a
date for example Melanie on body a
researcher at Tufts University shows
that when people watch 30 minute a
30-second soundless clips of real
physician-patient interactions their
judgments of the physicians niceness
predict whether or not that physician
will be sued so it doesn’t have to do so
much with whether or not that physician
was incompetent but do we like that
person than how they interacted even
more dramatic Alex Todorov at Princeton
has shown us that judgments of political
candidates faces in just one second
predicts 70% of US Senate and
gubernatorial race outcomes and even
let’s go digital emoticons used well in
online negotiations can lead you to
claim more value from that negotiation
if you use them poorly bad idea right so
so when we think of non verbals we think
of how we judge others how they judge us
and what the outcomes are we tend to
forget though the other audience that’s
influenced by our nonverbals and that’s
ourselves we are also influenced by our
nonverbals our thoughts and our feelings
and our physiology
so what nonverbals am I talking about
I’m a social psychologist I study
prejudice and I teach at a competitive
business school so it was inevitable
that I would become interested in power
dynamics
I became especially interested in
nonverbal expressions of power and
dominance and what are non-verbal
expressions of power and dominance well
this is what they are so in the animal
kingdom
they are about expanding so you make
yourself big you stretch out you take up
space you’re basically opening up it’s
about opening up and this is true across
the animal kingdom it’s not just limited
to primates and humans do the same thing
so they do this both when they when they
have power sort of chronically and also
when they’re feeling powerful in the
moment and this one is especially
interesting because it really shows us
how universal and old these expressions
of power are this expression which is
known as Pride
Jessica Tracy has studied she shows that
people who are born with sight and
people who are congenitally blind do
this when they win at a physical
competition so when they cross the
finish line and they’ve won it doesn’t
matter if they’ve never seen anyone do
it they do this so the arms up in the V
the chin is slightly lifted what do we
do when we feel powerless we do exactly
the opposite we close up we wrap
ourselves up we make ourselves small we
don’t want to bump into the person next
to us so again both animals and humans
do the same thing and this is what
happens when you put together high and
low power so what we tend to do when it
comes to power is that we compliment the
others nonverbals so if someone’s being
really powerful with us we tend to make
ourselves smaller we don’t mirror them
we do the opposite of them so I’m
watching this behavior in the classroom
and what do I notice I notice that MBA
students really exhibit the full range
of power nonverbal so you have people
who are like caricatures of alphas like
really coming to the room they get right
into the middle of the room before class
even starts like they really want to
occupy space when they sit down they’re
sort of spread out they raise their
hands like this you have other people
who are virtually collapsing when they
come in as soon as they come and you see
it you see it on their faces and their
bodies and they sit in their chair and
they make themselves tiny and they go
like this when they raise their hand
I noticed a couple things about this one
you’re not going to be surprised it
seems to be related to gender so women
are much more likely to do this kind of
thing than men women feel chronically
less powerful than men so this is not
surprising but the other thing I noticed
is that it also seemed to be related to
the extent to which the students were
participating and how well they were
participating and this is really
important in the MBA classroom because
participation counts for half a grade so
business schools have been struggling
with its gender grade gap you get these
equally qualified women and men coming
in and then you get these differences in
grades and it seems to be partly
attributable to participation so I
started to wonder you know okay so you
have these people coming in like this
and they’re participating is it possible
that we could get people to fake it and
would it lead them to participate more
so my main collaborator Dana Carney
who’s at Berkeley and I really wanted to
know can you fake it till you make it
like can you do this just for a little
while and actually experience a
behavioral outcome that makes you seem
more powerful so we know that our
nonverbals govern how other people think
and feel about us there’s a lot of
evidence but our question really was do
our nonverbals govern how we think and
feel about ourselves there’s some
evidence that they do so for example
when we we smile when we feel happy but
also when we’re forced to smile by
holding a pen in our teeth like this it
makes us feel happy so it goes both ways
when it comes to power it also goes both
ways
so when you when you feel powerful
you’re more likely to do this but it’s
also possible that when you when you
pretend to be powerful you are more
likely to actually feel powerful so the
second question really was you know so
we know that our minds change our bodies
but is also true that that our bodies
change our minds and when I say minds in
the case of the powerful what am I
talking about so I’m talking about
thoughts and feelings and the sort of
physiological things that make up our
our thoughts and feelings and in my case
that’s hormones I look at hormones so
what do the minds of the powerful versus
the powerless look like so powerful
people tend to be not surprisingly more
assertive and more confident more more
optimistic they actually feel that
they’re going to win even at games of
chance they also tend to be able to
think more abstractly so there are a lot
of differences they take more risks
there are a lot of differences between
powerful and powerless people
physiologically there also are
differences on two key hormones
testosterone which is the dominance
hormone and cortisol which is the stress
hormone so what we find is that high
power alpha males and primate
hierarchies have high testosterone and
low cortisol and powerful and effective
leaders also have high testosterone and
low cortisol so what does that mean when
do you think about power 10 people
tended to think only about testosterone
because that wasn’t about dominance but
really power is also about how you react
to stress so do you want the high power
leader that’s dominant high on
testosterone butts really stress
reactive probably not right you want the
person who’s powerful and assertive and
dominant but not very stress reactive
the person who’s laid-back so we know
that in in primate hierarchies if an
alpha needs to take over if an
individual needs to take over an alpha
role sort of suddenly within a few days
that individuals testosterone has gone
up significantly and as cortisol has
dropped significantly so we have this
evidence both that the body can shape
the mind at least at the facial level
and also that role changes can shape the
mind so what happens okay you take a
role change what happens if you do that
at a really minimal level like this tiny
manipulation this tiny intervention for
two minutes you say I want you to stand
like this and it’s going to make you
feel more powerful so this is what we
did we decided to bring people into the
lab and run a little experiment and
these people adopted for two men
it’s either high power poses or low
power poses and I’m just going to show
you five of the poses although they took
on only two so here’s one a couple more
this one has been dubbed the Wonder
Woman by the media here a couple more so
you can be standing or you can be
sitting and here the low-power poses so
you’re folding up you’re making yourself
small this one is very low-power
when you’re touching your neck you’re
really kind of protecting yourself so
this is what happens
they come in they spit into a vial we
for two minutes say you need to do this
or this they don’t look at pictures of
the poses we don’t want to prime them
with a concept of power we want them to
be feeling power right so two minutes
they do this we then ask them how
powerful do you feel on a series of
items and then we give them an
opportunity to gamble and then we take
another saliva sample that’s it that’s
the whole experiment so this is what we
find risk tolerance which is the
gambling what we find is that when
you’re not when you’re in the high-power
post condition 86% of you will gamble
when you’re in the low-power post
condition only 60% and that’s a pretty
whopping significant difference here’s
what we find on testosterone from their
baseline when they come in high-power
people experience about a 20% increase
and low-power people experience about a
10% decrease so again two minutes and
you get these changes here’s what you
get on cortisol high-power people
experience about a 25% decrease and the
low-power people experience about a 15%
increase so two minutes lead to these
hormonal changes that configure your
brain to basically be either assertive
confident and comfortable or really
stress reactive and you know feeling
sort of shut down and we’ve all had that
feeling right so it seems that our
nonverbals do govern how we think and
feel about ourselves so it’s not just
others but it’s also ourselves
see also our bodies change our minds but
the next question of course is can power
posing for a few minutes really change
your life in meaningful
so this is in the lab it’s this little
task it’s just a couple of minutes you
know where can you actually apply this
which we cared about of course and so we
think it’s really what what what matters
I mean where you want to use this is
evaluative situations like social threat
situations where are you being evaluated
either by your friends like for
teenagers is at the lunchroom table it
could be you know for some people
speaking at a school board meeting it
might be giving a pitch or giving a talk
like this or doing a job interview we
decided that the one that most people
could relate to because most people had
been through was the job interview so we
published these these findings and the
media are all over and they say okay so
this is what you do when you go in for
the job interview right you know so we
were of course horrified and I said oh
my god no no no that’s not what we meant
at all for numerous reasons no no no
don’t do that again this is not about
you talking to other people it’s you
talking to yourself what do you do
before you go into a job interview you
do this right you’re sitting down you’re
looking at your iPhone or your Android
not trying to leave anyone out you are
you know you’re looking at your notes
you’re hunting up making yourself small
when really what you should be doing
maybe is this like in the bathroom right
do that find two minutes so that’s what
we want to test okay so we bring people
into a lab and they do a couple they do
either high or low power poses again
they go through a very stressful job
interview it’s five minutes long they
are being recorded they’re being judged
also and the judges are trained to give
no nonverbal feedback so they look like
this I imagine this is the person
interviewing you so for five minutes
nothing and this is worse than being
heckled people hate this it’s it’s what
Mariana France calls standing and social
quicksand so this really spikes your
cortisol so this is the job interview we
put them through because we really
wanted to see what happened we then have
these coders look at these tapes four of
them they’re blind to the hypothesis
they’re blind to the conditions they
have no idea who’s been posing in what
pose and they they end up looking at
these sets of tapes and they say oh we
want to hire these people all the
high-power
proposers we don’t want to hire these
people we also evaluate these people
much more positively overall but what’s
driving it it’s not about the content of
the speech it’s about the presence that
they’re bringing to the speech we also
because we rate them on all these
variables related to sort of competence
like how well-structured is the speech
how good is it what other qualifications
no effect on those things this is what’s
affected these kinds of things people
are bringing their true selves basically
they’re bringing themselves they bring
their ideas but as themselves with no
you know residue over them so this is
what’s driving the effect or mediate
mediating the effect so um when I tell
people about this that our bodies change
our minds and our minds can change our
behavior and our behavior can change
your outcomes they say to me I don’t it
feels fake right so I said fake it till
you make it like I don’t it’s not me
like I don’t want to get there and then
still feel like a fraud I don’t want to
feel like an impostor I don’t want to
get there only to feel like I’m not
supposed to be here and that really
resonated with me because I want to tell
you a little story about being an
impostor and feeling like I’m not
supposed to be here when I was 19 I was
in a really bad car accident I was
thrown out of a car rolled several times
I was thrown from the car and I woke up
in a head injury rehab Ward and I had
been withdrawn from college and I
learned that my IQ had dropped by two
standard deviations which was very
traumatic
I knew my IQ because I had identified
with being smart and I had been called
gifted as a child
so I’m taken out of college I keep
trying to go back they say you’re not
going to finish college like just you
know there’s there other things for you
to do but that’s not going to work out
for you so I really struggled with this
and I have to say having your identity
taken from you your core identity and if
for me it was being smart having that
taken from you there’s nothing that
leaves you feeling more powerless than
that so I felt entirely powerless I
worked and worked and worked and I got
lucky and worked and got lucky and
worked eventually I graduated from
college took me four years longer than
my peers and I convinced someone by my
angel
vizor Susan Fiske to take me on and so I
ended up at Princeton and I was like I
am not supposed to be here I am an
impostor and the night before my first
year talking the first year talk at
Princeton is a 20 minute talk to 20
people that’s it I was so afraid of
being found out the next day that I
called her and said I’m quitting she was
like you are not quitting because I took
a gamble on you and you’re staying
you’re going to stay and this is what
you’re going to do you were going to
fake it you’re going to take you’re
going to do every talk that you ever get
asked to do you’re just going to do it
and do it and do it even if you’re
terrified and just paralyzed and having
an out-of-body experience until you have
this moment where you say oh my gosh I’m
doing it like I have become this I am
actually doing this so that’s what I did
five years in grad school a few years
you know I’m at Northwestern I moved to
Harvard I’m in Harvard I’m not really
thinking about it anymore but for a long
time I had been thinking not supposed to
be here not supposed to be here so the
end of my first year at Harvard a
student who had not talked in class the
entire semester who I had said look you
got to participate or else you’re going
to fail came into my office I really
didn’t know her at all and she said she
came in totally defeated and she said
I’m not supposed to be here and that was
the moment for me because two things
happened one was that I realized oh my
gosh I don’t feel like that anymore you
know
I don’t feel that anymore but she does
and I get that feeling and the second
one she is supposed to be here like she
can fake it she can become it so he’s
like yes you are you are supposed to be
here and tomorrow you’re gonna fake it
you’re gonna make yourself powerful and
you know
and you’re gonna go you’re gonna go into
the classroom and you are gonna give the
best comment ever you know and she gave
the best comment ever and people turned
on they’re like oh my god I didn’t even
notice her sitting there you know she
comes back to me months later and I
realize that she had not just faked it
till she made it she had actually faked
it till she became it so she had changed
and so I I want to say to you don’t fake
it till you make it
fake it till you become it you know it’s
not do it enough until you actually
become it and internalize the last thing
I’m going to leave you with is this tiny
tweaks can lead to big changes so this
is two minutes two minutes two minutes
two minutes before you go into the next
stressful evaluative situation for two
minutes try doing this in the elevator
in a bathroom stall at your desk behind
closed doors that’s what you want to do
get configure your brain to cope the
best in that situation get your
testosterone up get your cortisol down
don’t leave that situation feeling like
oh I didn’t show them Who I am
leave that situation feel like I really
feel like I got to say Who I am and show
Who I am so I want to ask you first
you know both to tripower posing and
also I want to ask you to share the
science because this is simple I don’t
have ego involved in this give it away
like share it with people because the
people who can use it the most are the
ones with no resources and no technology
and no status and no power give it to
them because they can do it in private
they need their bodies privacy and two
minutes and it can significantly change
the outcomes of their life thank you
you