Can you fake it ‘til you make it? According to Amy Cuddy, not only can you fake it ‘til you make it, you can fake it until you BELIEVE it and BECOME it. Our ability to communicate non-verbally with ourselves is so powerful that it can it can change our thoughts, our physiology, and even our life outcomes. By adopting postures associated with confidence and power we can actually become more confident and powerful, changing the way we relate to the world and the way the world relates to us.
Amy Cuddy is a social psychologist, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, and an expert in the non-verbals—body language communicated through posture, gesture, and facial expression—of power and dominance. Social psychologists have long known that our non-verbals cause us to make judgments about each other but Cuddy wondered if our own non-verbals would affect our judgment of ourselves. Her research found that our bodies affect not only our thoughts and feelings, but our physiology (hormones) too.
Power posturing & hormones: the body changes the brain
Cuddy set up experiments to find out what happens to our brains when we pose in particular ways. Could someone feel more powerful or powerless simply by adopting a particular stance? In the experiment, researchers began by assessing the subjects’ levels of two key hormones: testosterone (regulates dominance, aggression, assertiveness) and cortisol (stress hormone) before subjects adopted postures known to researchers to convey either power or powerlessness. The subjects did not know the meaning of the postures, they were simply instructed to sit or stand in a particular way for two minutes. Subjects then were asked a series of questions related to feeling powerful; were given the opportunity to gamble; and then had their hormones measured again.
Cuddy found significant differences between those who adopted high-power and low-power poses. The high-power posers had increased testosterone (20%), decreased cortisol (25%), and were more likely to gamble (86%)—a risk-taking behavior. Conversely, the low-power posers experienced a decrease in testosterone (10%), an increase in cortisol (15%), and only 60% gambled. Cuddy concluded that the body does have an effect on how powerful we feel and this body-mind interaction quickly affects our physiology (hormone changes) with minimal stimulus (two minutes of posing).
In a second experiment, subjects adopted a high or low power poses in a real-world situation of applying for a job (simulated in the lab). Subjects posed in either high or low power postures before enduring a five-minute interview with judges trained to give absolutely no nonverbal feedback—an extraordinarily stressful experience. Just imagine—not a single smile, head nod, or acknowledgement of any kind for five minutes while trying to be your best self to get that job.
The body changes the mind, the mind changes behavior, behavior changes outcomes
Trained coders completely blind to the nature or conditions of the study analyzed the video recordings of the interviews to choose viable and non-viable hires. The result: subjects who had adopted high power poses before the interview not only were chosen as viable candidates to hire and were also evaluated much more positively overall. Low power posers were judged not suitable. Cuddy’s experiments confirmed that “our bodies change our minds, our minds change our behavior, and our behavior changes our outcomes.” Cuddy now advises those she teaches and mentors to try power posing to boost their self-confidence and performance before important meetings or interviews.
“Fake it until you make it,” Cuddy tells them because “tiny tweaks can lead to big changes.”
Check out her TED video to hear her inspiring story that led her to this research