Lecture on Body Language and Power Posing

Introduction

• The speaker introduces a simple life hack: change your posture for 2 minutes.
• Encourages audience to be aware of their current body posture.
• Suggests that tweaking body language can significantly affect life outcomes.

Fascination with Body Language

• People are interested in small gestures like a smile or handshake.
• Nonverbal behavior affects judgments and outcomes.
• Examples include:
  • Physician's nonverbal communication affects lawsuit likelihood.
  • Political candidate's facial judgments predict election outcomes.
  • Emoticons in online negotiations affect outcomes.

Nonverbals and Self-Perception

• We often focus on how others perceive us, but our own nonverbals affect us too.
• Speaker's interest in power dynamics and nonverbal expressions of power.
• Power poses: expansive postures signify dominance and power.

Nonverbal Expressions of Power

• High power: expanding, taking up space, opening up.
• Power expressions are universal across species.
• Low power: closing up, making oneself small, wrapping oneself.

Power Posing Experiment

• Observations in MBA classrooms: power nonverbals affect participation.
• Gender differences: women tend to exhibit low-power nonverbals.
• Hypothesis: Can faking power poses lead to feeling and acting more powerful?

Experiment Details

• Participants adopt high-power or low-power poses for 2 minutes.
• Measurements: Risk tolerance (gambling), testosterone and cortisol levels.
• Results:
  • High-power posers: increased risk tolerance, increased testosterone, decreased cortisol.
  • Low-power posers: decreased risk tolerance, decreased testosterone, increased cortisol.

Implications and Real-World Applications

• Power posing affects how we think about ourselves.
• Applications in evaluative situations, e.g., job interviews.
• Not advisable to pose during interviews but in private beforehand.

Personal Story and Lessons

• Speaker shares a story of overcoming feelings of being an impostor after a car accident.
• Importance of "faking it till you become it."
• Encouragement to use power posing to bring out one's true self.

Conclusion

• Tiny tweaks in posture can lead to significant changes.
• Encourage sharing the science of power posing, especially with those lacking resources.
• Power posing is accessible and can change life outcomes significantly with privacy and 2 minutes.