Amy Cuddy TED Talk - Fake it Till You Make it
Summary
TLDRThis engaging talk explores the profound impact of body language on our self-perception and how it can influence our lives. The speaker introduces the concept of 'power poses' and their effects on hormones like testosterone and cortisol, which can alter our feelings of power and stress. Through personal anecdotes and scientific research, the talk encourages individuals to adopt confident postures to not only project strength to others but also to internalize that power, ultimately transforming their mindset and behavior.
Takeaways
- 🧍♂️ Posture Matters: Changing your posture for just two minutes can significantly impact your life by affecting your feelings and behavior.
- 🔍 Self-Audit: The speaker encourages the audience to audit their current body language to understand their natural state of openness or closed-off posture.
- 🤔 Nonverbal Communication: Body language is a powerful form of nonverbal communication that can influence others' perceptions and judgments about us.
- 🤝 The Power of a Handshake: A handshake or lack thereof can communicate a lot about our intentions and feelings towards others, even influencing political outcomes.
- 🦁 Dominance and Power: Nonverbal expressions of power involve expanding one's presence, such as taking up space and opening up the body.
- 🐥 Universal Expressions: The expressions of pride and power are universal and can be found across different cultures and even in those who are congenitally blind.
- 🤗 Power Dynamics: High and low power dynamics are evident in classroom settings, with some students exhibiting dominant body language and others appearing more submissive.
- 👩🏫 Gender and Participation: Women tend to exhibit more submissive body language, which may be related to their lower participation rates in evaluative situations.
- 💪 Fake It Till You Make It: The idea that adopting powerful body language can lead to actual feelings of power and confidence, affecting one's behavior and outcomes.
- 🧠 Minds and Hormones: The speaker discusses how our body language can influence our thoughts, feelings, and even hormone levels, such as testosterone and cortisol.
- 🚀 Small Changes, Big Impact: Small adjustments in body language before stressful situations can lead to significant changes in how we perform and are perceived.
Q & A
What is the main focus of the speaker's presentation?
-The speaker focuses on the impact of body language, particularly power dynamics and non-verbal expressions, on both how we perceive ourselves and how others perceive us.
What is the initial 'no tech life hack' suggested by the speaker?
-The speaker suggests changing one's posture for two minutes as a 'no tech life hack' to potentially change the way one's life unfolds.
Why does the speaker ask the audience to perform a 'body audit' at the beginning of the presentation?
-The speaker asks for a 'body audit' to make the audience aware of their current body language and posture, which will be revisited later to demonstrate the impact of body language on self-perception.
What is the significance of the handshake in non-verbal communication according to the speaker?
-The handshake is highlighted as an important non-verbal cue that can lead to discussions and judgments about the individuals involved, even influencing media coverage.
What does the speaker mean by 'non-verbals' in the context of social science?
-In the context of social science, 'non-verbals' refer to non-verbal cues or body language that people use to communicate, which can convey messages as effectively as spoken language.
How do social scientists study the effects of body language on judgments and inferences?
-Social scientists study the effects of body language by observing how people make judgments and inferences based on non-verbal cues, and how these judgments can predict significant life outcomes such as hiring or dating decisions.
What is the 'Pride' expression as described by the speaker and how is it universal?
-The 'Pride' expression involves raising the arms in a V-shape with the chin slightly lifted, which is a non-verbal cue of power and victory. It is universal as it is exhibited by both sighted and congenitally blind individuals when they win.
What is the relationship between power dynamics and body language in the animal kingdom?
-In the animal kingdom, power dynamics are expressed through body language that involves expanding or making oneself bigger, taking up space, and opening up, which is a common behavior across different species.
How does the speaker's research relate to the power dynamics observed in an MBA classroom?
-The speaker observes that MBA students exhibit a range of power non-verbals, from expansive and dominant behaviors to more closed and submissive postures, which also correlate with their level of participation and performance in the classroom.
What is the 'fake it till you make it' concept that the speaker explores with her collaborator Dana Carney?
-The 'fake it till you make it' concept explores whether adopting powerful body language temporarily can lead to actual feelings of power and changes in behavior, potentially affecting outcomes such as participation and performance.
What are the physiological changes associated with power and submission as discussed by the speaker?
-The speaker discusses that powerful individuals tend to have higher levels of testosterone (the dominance hormone) and lower levels of cortisol (the stress hormone), while the opposite is true for those who feel submissive or powerless.
How does the speaker's personal experience with feeling like an 'impostor' relate to the concept of 'faking it till you become it'?
-The speaker's personal experience of feeling like an 'impostor' at Princeton and her subsequent journey of overcoming this feeling by 'faking it' illustrates the concept that adopting confident behaviors can eventually lead to genuine confidence and competence.
What advice does the speaker give regarding the application of 'faking it till you become it' in stressful situations?
-The speaker advises taking two minutes before entering a stressful evaluative situation to adopt powerful body language, such as in an elevator, bathroom stall, or behind a closed door, to potentially influence one's mindset and performance.
Outlines
🧍♂️ The Power of Posture in Body Language
The speaker introduces a 'no tech life hack' that involves changing one's posture for two minutes to significantly influence life outcomes. They prompt the audience to assess their current body language, noting common self-limiting postures. The speaker delves into the impact of body language on judgments and life outcomes, such as hiring decisions and dating. They emphasize the importance of nonverbal cues in communication, highlighting the influence of power dynamics and dominance through body language, as seen in both humans and animals. The concept of 'Pride' as a universal expression of power is discussed, suggesting that even those who are congenitally blind exhibit this posture when victorious. The speaker concludes by contrasting the expansive postures of the powerful with the constricting postures of the powerless.
🤝 Nonverbal Expressions in Power Dynamics
This paragraph explores the relationship between nonverbal expressions of power and dominance in various social settings, including the classroom. The speaker observes MBA students and notes the range of power nonverbals they exhibit, from expansive, dominant postures to those of submission and contraction. A gender disparity is identified, with women more likely to display less powerful body language. The speaker connects these nonverbals to participation levels in the classroom, which is crucial for grades, and hypothesizes that adopting more powerful poses could potentially enhance participation. The paragraph also touches on the idea of 'faking it till you make it,' suggesting that adopting powerful poses could lead to actual feelings of power and improved self-perception.
💪 Hormonal Impact of Power Postures
The speaker discusses the physiological effects of power poses, focusing on the hormones testosterone and cortisol. They explain that powerful individuals typically have higher levels of testosterone, associated with dominance, and lower levels of cortisol, associated with stress. The speaker's research, in collaboration with Dana Carney, investigates whether adopting powerful poses can influence these hormonal levels and, by extension, one's thoughts and feelings. The speaker's personal narrative of overcoming a sense of being an 'impostor' through the act of 'faking it' is shared, illustrating the transformative potential of power poses. The message is to 'fake it till you become it,' emphasizing the importance of internalizing the change in posture to achieve lasting effects.
🚀 Implementing Power Poses for Success
In the final paragraph, the speaker provides actionable advice on how to apply power poses before stressful or evaluative situations, such as job interviews. They clarify that the poses are not meant to be used during interactions but rather as a preparatory step to influence one's mindset. The speaker recounts their own experiences with impostor syndrome and how adopting power poses helped them overcome feelings of inadequacy. They encourage the audience to use these 'tiny tweaks' to lead to 'big changes,' suggesting that even a two-minute investment in power poses can significantly impact one's confidence and performance in high-stakes scenarios.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Posture
💡Body Language
💡Non-Verbals
💡Power Dynamics
💡Dominance
💡Pride
💡Participation
💡Gender Grade Gap
💡Testosterone
💡Cortisol
💡Impostor Syndrome
Highlights
Free no tech life hack involving changing posture for two minutes to potentially change life outcomes.
Encourages self-audit of body language and posture to understand how it may be communicating to others.
Body language is a form of non-verbal communication that can influence judgments and outcomes.
Handshakes and other nonverbal gestures can have significant social and professional implications.
Judgments based on body language can predict life outcomes such as hiring and promotions.
Political candidate's facial expressions can predict election outcomes.
Emoticons in online negotiations can affect the value claimed from the negotiation.
Nonverbals not only influence others but also our own thoughts, feelings, and physiology.
Power dynamics are expressed nonverbally through expansive body language.
The expression of power, known as 'Pride', is a universal and ancient behavior.
Powerful individuals exhibit more assertive, confident, and optimistic behaviors.
Hormonal differences between powerful and powerless individuals include testosterone and cortisol levels.
High power individuals have high testosterone and low cortisol, indicating dominance and stress response.
The concept of 'fake it till you make it' is explored in the context of power dynamics.
A study on the effects of power posing on hormone levels and behavior in a stressful job interview scenario.
Personal narrative of overcoming the feeling of being an impostor through 'faking it till you become it'.
The transformative power of small behavioral changes and the impact on self-perception and success.
Transcripts
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
yourself smaller maybe your hunching
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 or near comes the prime
minister of it
so a handshake or the lack of the
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 so social
scientists have spent a long time
looking at the effects of our body
language or other people's body language
on judgments and we make sweeping
judgments and 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 and 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 and we feel powerless we do it
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 complement 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 Rea
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
the 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 til 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
is it 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 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
are 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 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 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 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 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
higher blow 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 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 our
outcomes they say to me I don't if
you'll fake right so I said fake it till
you make it
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 advisor 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 a 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 she was 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 you're gonna
and
you're gonna go we'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 door
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