00:00Translator: Joseph Geni
Reviewer: Morton Bast
00:15So I want to start by offering you
a free no-tech life hack,
00:21and all it requires of you is this:
00:24that you change your posture
for two minutes.
00:28But before I give it away,
I want to ask you to right now
00:31do a little audit of your body
and what you're doing with your body.
00:35So how many of you are
sort of making yourselves smaller?
00:37Maybe you're hunching, crossing your legs,
maybe wrapping your ankles.
00:41Sometimes we hold onto our arms like this.
00:45Sometimes we spread out. (Laughter)
00:50So I want you to pay attention
to what you're doing right now.
00:53We're going to come back
to that in a few minutes,
00:56and I'm hoping that if you learn
to tweak this a little bit,
00:59it could significantly change
the way your life unfolds.
01:02So, we're really fascinated
with body language,
01:07and we're particularly interested
in other people's body language.
01:11You know, we're interested in,
like, you know — (Laughter) —
01:15an awkward interaction, or a smile,
01:19or a contemptuous glance,
or maybe a very awkward wink,
01:24or maybe even something like a handshake.
01:27Narrator: Here they are
arriving at Number 10.
01:30This lucky policeman gets to shake hands
with the President of the United States.
01:35Here comes the Prime Minister --
No. (Laughter) (Applause)
01:40(Laughter) (Applause)
01:42Amy Cuddy: So a handshake,
or the lack of a handshake,
01:46can have us talking for weeks
and weeks and weeks.
01:48Even the BBC and The New York Times.
01:51So obviously when we think
about nonverbal behavior,
01:55or body language -- but we call it
nonverbals as social scientists --
01:58it's language, so we think
about communication.
02:01When we think about communication,
we think about interactions.
02:04So what is your body language
communicating to me?
02:06What's mine communicating to you?
02:08And there's a lot of reason to believe
that this is a valid way to look at this.
02:14So social scientists
have spent a lot of time
02:17looking at the effects
of our body language,
02:19or other people's body language,
on judgments.
02:21And we make sweeping judgments
and inferences from body language.
02:24And those judgments can predict
really meaningful life outcomes
02:28like who we hire or promote,
who we ask out on a date.
02:32For example, Nalini Ambady,
a researcher at Tufts University,
02:37shows that when people watch
30-second soundless clips
02:41of real physician-patient interactions,
02:44their judgments
of the physician's niceness
02:47predict whether or not
that physician will be sued.
02:50So it doesn't have to do so much
02:52with whether or not that physician
was incompetent,
02:54but do we like that person
and how they interacted?
02:57Even more dramatic,
Alex Todorov at Princeton
03:00has shown us that judgments
of political candidates' faces
03:03in just one second predict 70 percent
03:07of U.S. Senate and gubernatorial
race outcomes,
03:11and even, let's go digital,
03:14emoticons used well in online negotiations
03:18can lead you to claim more value
from that negotiation.
03:21If you use them poorly, bad idea. Right?
03:24So when we think of nonverbals,
we think of how we judge others,
03:27how they judge us
and what the outcomes are.
03:30We tend to forget, though,
the other audience
03:32that's influenced by our nonverbals,
and that's ourselves.
03:35We are also influenced by our nonverbals,
03:38our thoughts and our feelings
and our physiology.
03:41So what nonverbals am I talking about?
03:44I'm a social psychologist.
I study prejudice,
03:47and I teach at a competitive
business school,
03:50so it was inevitable that I would become
interested in power dynamics.
03:54I became especially interested
in nonverbal expressions
03:58of power and dominance.
04:00And what are nonverbal expressions
of power and dominance?
04:03Well, this is what they are.
04:05So in the animal kingdom,
they are about expanding.
04:08So you make yourself big, you stretch out,
04:11you take up space,
you're basically opening up.
04:14It's about opening up.
04:15And this is true
across the animal kingdom.
04:18It's not just limited to primates.
04:21And humans do the same thing. (Laughter)
04:24So they do this both when they have
power sort of chronically,
04:27and also when they're feeling
powerful in the moment.
04:30And this one is especially interesting
because it really shows us
04:33how universal and old these
expressions of power are.
04:38This expression, which is known as pride,
04:40Jessica Tracy has studied.
04:42She shows that people
who are born with sight
04:45and people who are congenitally
blind do this
04:48when they win at a physical competition.
04:51So when they cross
the finish line and they've won,
04:53it doesn't matter if they've never
seen anyone do it.
04:57So the arms up in the V,
the chin is slightly lifted.
04:59What do we do when we feel powerless?
05:01We do exactly the opposite.
05:03We close up.
We wrap ourselves up.
05:06We make ourselves small.
05:07We don't want to bump
into the person next to us.
05:09So again, both animals and humans
do the same thing.
05:12And this is what happens
when you put together high and low power.
05:16So what we tend to
do when it comes to power
05:19is that we complement
the other's nonverbals.
05:22So if someone is being
really powerful with us,
05:24we tend to make ourselves smaller.
We don't mirror them.
05:27We do the opposite of them.
05:29So I'm watching this behavior
in the classroom,
05:32and what do I notice?
05:34I notice that MBA students really exhibit
the full range of power nonverbals.
05:42So you have people
who are like caricatures of alphas,
05:44really coming into the room, they get
right into the middle of the room
05:48before class even starts,
like they really want to occupy space.
05:51When they sit down,
they're sort of spread out.
05:53They raise their hands like this.
05:55You have other people
who are virtually collapsing
05:58when they come in.
As soon they come in, you see it.
06:00You see it on their faces
and their bodies,
06:03and they sit in their chair
and they make themselves tiny,
06:05and they go like this
when they raise their hand.
06:08I notice a couple of things about this.
06:10One, you're not going to be surprised.
06:11It seems to be related to gender.
06:13So women are much more likely
to do this kind of thing than men.
06:19Women feel chronically
less powerful than men,
06:22so this is not surprising.
06:23But the other thing I noticed
06:25is that it also seemed
to be related to the extent
06:28to which the students were participating,
and how well they were participating.
06:32And this is really important
in the MBA classroom,
06:35because participation
counts for half the grade.
06:37So business schools have been struggling
with this gender grade gap.
06:42You get these equally qualified
women and men coming in
06:45and then you get
these differences in grades,
06:47and it seems to be partly
attributable to participation.
06:50So I started to wonder, you know, okay,
06:53so you have these people coming in
like this, and they're participating.
06:57Is it possible that we could
get people to fake it
07:00and would it lead them
to participate more?
07:02So my main collaborator
Dana Carney, who's at Berkeley,
07:06and I really wanted to know,
can you fake it till you make it?
07:10Like, can you do this
just for a little while
07:12and actually experience
a behavioral outcome
07:15that makes you seem more powerful?
07:17So we know that our nonverbals
govern how other people
07:20think and feel about us.
There's a lot of evidence.
07:23But our question really was,
07:24do our nonverbals govern
how we think and feel about ourselves?
07:28There's some evidence that they do.
07:31So, for example, we smile
when we feel happy,
07:35but also, when we're forced to smile
07:38by holding a pen in our teeth
like this, it makes us feel happy.
07:42So it goes both ways.
07:44When it comes to power,
it also goes both ways.
07:48So when you feel powerful,
07:50you're more likely to do this,
07:52but it's also possible
that when you pretend to be powerful,
07:58you are more likely
to actually feel powerful.
08:02So the second question
really was, you know,
08:05so we know that our minds
change our bodies,
08:07but is it also true
that our bodies change our minds?
08:12And when I say minds,
in the case of the powerful,
08:14what am I talking about?
08:16So I'm talking about thoughts and feelings
08:18and the sort of physiological things
that make up our thoughts and feelings,
08:22and in my case, that's hormones.
I look at hormones.
08:25So what do the minds of the powerful
versus the powerless look like?
08:29So powerful people tend to be,
not surprisingly,
08:33more assertive and more confident,
more optimistic.
08:37They actually feel they're going to win
even at games of chance.
08:41They also tend to be able
to think more abstractly.
08:45So there are a lot of differences.
They take more risks.
08:47There are a lot of differences
between powerful and powerless people.
08:51Physiologically,
there also are differences
08:53on two key hormones: testosterone,
which is the dominance hormone,
08:57and cortisol, which is the stress hormone.
09:01So what we find is that high-power
alpha males in primate hierarchies
09:08have high testosterone and low cortisol,
09:12and powerful and effective leaders
09:15also have high testosterone
and low cortisol.
09:17So what does that mean?
When you think about power,
09:20people tended to think
only about testosterone,
09:22because that was about dominance.
09:24But really, power is also about
how you react to stress.
09:27So do you want the high-power
leader that's dominant,
09:30high on testosterone,
but really stress reactive?
09:33Probably not, right?
09:35You want the person who's powerful
and assertive and dominant,
09:38but not very stress reactive,
the person who's laid back.
09:41So we know that in primate hierarchies,
09:47if an alpha needs to take over,
09:50if an individual needs to take over
an alpha role sort of suddenly,
09:54within a few days,
that individual's testosterone has gone up
09:57significantly and his cortisol
has dropped significantly.
10:01So we have this evidence,
both that the body can shape
10:04the mind, at least at the facial level,
10:06and also that role changes
can shape the mind.
10:10So what happens, okay,
you take a role change,
10:13what happens if you do that
at a really minimal level,
10:15like this tiny manipulation,
this tiny intervention?
10:18"For two minutes," you say,
"I want you to stand like this,
10:21and it's going to make you feel
more powerful."
10:23So this is what we did.
10:26We decided to bring people into the lab
and run a little experiment,
10:31and these people adopted, for two minutes,
10:34either high-power poses
or low-power poses,
10:38and I'm just going to show
you five of the poses,
10:40although they took on only two.
10:47This one has been dubbed
the "Wonder Woman" by the media.
10:51Here are a couple more.
10:53So you can be standing
or you can be sitting.
10:55And here are the low-power poses.
10:57So you're folding up,
you're making yourself small.
11:01This one is very low-power.
11:03When you're touching your neck,
you're really protecting yourself.
11:07So this is what happens.
11:09They come in, they spit into a vial,
11:11for two minutes, we say,
"You need to do this or this."
11:14They don't look at pictures of the poses.
11:16We don't want to prime them
with a concept of power.
11:19We want them to be feeling power.
11:21So two minutes they do this.
11:22We then ask them, "How powerful
do you feel?" on a series of items,
11:25and then we give them
an opportunity to gamble,
11:28and then we take another saliva sample.
11:30That's it. That's the whole experiment.
11:32So this is what we find.
11:34Risk tolerance, which is the gambling,
11:36we find that when you are
in the high-power pose condition,
11:4086 percent of you will gamble.
11:42When you're in the low-power
pose condition,
11:44only 60 percent, and that's
a whopping significant difference.
11:48Here's what we find on testosterone.
11:51From their baseline when they come in,
11:53high-power people experience
about a 20-percent increase,
11:56and low-power people experience
about a 10-percent decrease.
12:01So again, two minutes,
and you get these changes.
12:04Here's what you get on cortisol.
12:06High-power people experience
about a 25-percent decrease,
12:10and the low-power people experience
about a 15-percent increase.
12:14So two minutes lead
to these hormonal changes
12:17that configure your brain
12:18to basically be either assertive,
confident and comfortable,
12:23or really stress-reactive,
and feeling sort of shut down.
12:28And we've all had the feeling, right?
12:30So it seems that our nonverbals do govern
how we think and feel about ourselves,
12:36so it's not just others,
but it's also ourselves.
12:38Also, our bodies change our minds.
12:40But the next question, of course,
12:43is, can power posing for a few minutes
12:45really change your life
in meaningful ways?
12:47This is in the lab, it's this little task,
it's just a couple of minutes.
12:51Where can you actually apply this?
12:53Which we cared about, of course.
12:55And so we think where you want to use this
is evaluative situations,
13:01like social threat situations.
13:04Where are you being evaluated,
either by your friends?
13:07For teenagers,
it's at the lunchroom table.
13:09For some people it's speaking
at a school board meeting.
13:13It might be giving a pitch
or giving a talk like this
13:17or doing a job interview.
13:19We decided that the one
that most people could relate to
13:22because most people had been through,
was the job interview.
13:25So we published these findings,
13:28and the media are all over it,
13:29and they say, Okay, so this is what you do
13:32when you go in
for the job interview, right?
13:35You know, so we were of course
horrified, and said,
13:37Oh my God, no,
that's not what we meant at all.
13:39For numerous reasons, no, don't do that.
13:42Again, this is not about you
talking to other people.
13:44It's you talking to yourself.
13:46What do you do before you go
into a job interview? You do this.
13:49You're sitting down.
You're looking at your iPhone --
13:52or your Android, not trying
to leave anyone out.
13:54You're looking at your notes,
13:56you're hunching up, making yourself small,
13:58when really what you should
be doing maybe is this,
14:00like, in the bathroom, right?
Do that. Find two minutes.
14:03So that's what we want to test. Okay?
14:05So we bring people into a lab,
14:07and they do either high-
or low-power poses again,
14:10they go through
a very stressful job interview.
14:13It's five minutes long.
They are being recorded.
14:16They're being judged also,
14:18and the judges are trained
to give no nonverbal feedback,
14:23so they look like this.
14:25Imagine this is the person
interviewing you.
14:27So for five minutes, nothing,
and this is worse than being heckled.
14:33It's what Marianne LaFrance calls
"standing in social quicksand."
14:37So this really spikes your cortisol.
14:39So this is the job interview
we put them through,
14:41because we really wanted
to see what happened.
14:43We then have these coders look
at these tapes, four of them.
14:46They're blind to the hypothesis.
They're blind to the conditions.
14:49They have no idea
who's been posing in what pose,
14:52and they end up looking
at these sets of tapes,
14:57and they say,
"We want to hire these people,"
15:00all the high-power posers.
15:01"We don't want to hire these people.
15:03We also evaluate these people
much more positively overall."
15:07But what's driving it?
15:08It's not about the content of the speech.
15:10It's about the presence
that they're bringing to the speech.
15:13Because we rate them
on all these variables
15:16related to competence,
like, how well-structured is the speech?
15:19How good is it?
What are their qualifications?
15:22No effect on those things.
This is what's affected.
15:24These kinds of things.
15:26People are bringing
their true selves, basically.
15:28They're bringing themselves.
15:30They bring their ideas, but as themselves,
15:32with no, you know, residue over them.
15:34So this is what's driving the effect,
or mediating the effect.
15:39So when I tell people about this,
15:42that our bodies change our minds
and our minds can change our behavior,
15:46and our behavior can change
our outcomes, they say to me,
15:49"It feels fake." Right?
15:50So I said, fake it till you make it.
15:54I don't want to get there
and then still feel like a fraud.
15:57I don't want to feel like an impostor.
15:59I don't want to get there only to feel
like I'm not supposed to be here.
16:03And that really resonated with me,
16:05because I want to tell you
a little story about being an impostor
16:08and feeling like
I'm not supposed to be here.
16:11When I was 19, I was
in a really bad car accident.
16:14I was thrown out of a car,
rolled several times.
16:17I was thrown from the car.
16:19And I woke up in a head injury rehab ward,
16:22and I had been withdrawn from college,
16:24and I learned that my IQ had dropped
by two standard deviations,
16:30which was very traumatic.
16:32I knew my IQ because
I had identified with being smart,
16:35and I had been called gifted as a child.
16:37So I'm taken out of college,
I keep trying to go back.
16:41They say, "You're not going
to finish college.
16:43Just, you know, there are other
things for you to do,
16:45but that's not going to work out for you."
16:47So I really struggled
with this, and I have to say,
16:51having your identity taken
from you, your core identity,
16:54and for me it was being smart,
16:56having that taken from you,
16:57there's nothing that leaves you feeling
more powerless than that.
17:00So I felt entirely powerless.
17:02I worked and worked, and I got lucky,
17:04and worked, and got lucky, and worked.
17:06Eventually I graduated from college.
17:08It took me four years
longer than my peers,
17:10and I convinced someone,
my angel advisor, Susan Fiske,
17:15to take me on,
and so I ended up at Princeton,
17:17and I was like,
I am not supposed to be here.
17:22And the night before my first-year talk,
17:24and the first-year talk at Princeton
is a 20-minute talk to 20 people.
17:28I was so afraid of being
found out the next day
17:31that I called her
and said, "I'm quitting."
17:34She was like, "You are not quitting,
17:35because I took a gamble
on you, and you're staying.
17:38You're going to stay, and this is
what you're going to do.
17:41You are going to fake it.
17:42You're going to do every talk
that you ever get asked to do.
17:45You're just going to do it
and do it and do it,
17:48even if you're terrified
and just paralyzed
17:50and having an out-of-body experience,
17:52until you have this moment where you say,
'Oh my gosh, I'm doing it.
17:56Like, I have become this.
I am actually doing this.'"
17:59So that's what I did.
18:00Five years in grad school,
18:01a few years, you know,
I'm at Northwestern,
18:03I moved to Harvard, I'm at Harvard,
18:05I'm not really thinking about it anymore,
but for a long time I had been thinking,
18:09"Not supposed to be here."
18:11So at the end of my first year at Harvard,
18:14a student who had not talked
in class the entire semester,
18:18who I had said, "Look, you've gotta
participate or else you're going to fail,"
18:22came into my office.
I really didn't know her at all.
18:25She came in totally defeated,
and she said,
18:28"I'm not supposed to be here."
18:35And that was the moment for me.
18:37Because two things happened.
18:38One was that I realized,
18:40oh my gosh,
I don't feel like that anymore.
18:43I don't feel that anymore,
but she does, and I get that feeling.
18:46And the second was,
she is supposed to be here!
18:48Like, she can fake it, she can become it.
18:50So I was like, "Yes, you are!
You are supposed to be here!
18:54And tomorrow you're going to fake it,
18:56you're going to make yourself
powerful, and, you know --
19:04And you're going to go
into the classroom,
19:08and you are going to give
the best comment ever."
19:10You know? And she gave
the best comment ever,
19:13and people turned around and were like,
19:15oh my God, I didn't even notice her
sitting there. (Laughter)
19:18She comes back to me months later,
19:20and I realized that she had not just
faked it till she made it,
19:23she had actually faked it
till she became it.
19:27And so I want to say to you,
don't fake it till you make it.
19:31Fake it till you become it.
19:34Do it enough until you actually
become it and internalize.
19:38The last thing I'm going
to leave you with is this.
19:40Tiny tweaks can lead to big changes.
19:45So, this is two minutes.
19:47Two minutes, two minutes, two minutes.
19:49Before you go into the next stressful
evaluative situation,
19:52for two minutes, try doing this,
in the elevator,
19:55in a bathroom stall, at your desk
behind closed doors.
19:58That's what you want to do.
20:00Configure your brain
to cope the best in that situation.
20:03Get your testosterone up.
Get your cortisol down.
20:05Don't leave that situation feeling
like, oh, I didn't show them who I am.
20:09Leave that situation feeling like,
20:11I really feel like I got to say
who I am and show who I am.
20:14So I want to ask you first, you know,
both to try power posing,
20:20and also I want to ask you to share
the science, because this is simple.
20:25I don't have ego involved in this.
(Laughter)
20:27Give it away. Share it with people,
20:29because the people who can use it the most
20:31are the ones with no resources
and no technology
20:35and no status and no power.
20:37Give it to them
because they can do it in private.
20:40They need their bodies,
privacy and two minutes,
20:42and it can significantly change
the outcomes of their life.
