1 00:00:00,707 --> 00:00:06,105 So I want to start by offering you a free no-tech life hack, 2 00:00:06,129 --> 00:00:08,726 and all it requires of you is this: 3 00:00:08,750 --> 00:00:12,913 that you change your posture for two minutes. 4 00:00:12,937 --> 00:00:16,337 But before I give it away, I want to ask you to right now 5 00:00:16,361 --> 00:00:19,930 do a little audit of your body and what you're doing with your body. 6 00:00:19,954 --> 00:00:22,645 So how many of you are sort of making yourselves smaller? 7 00:00:22,669 --> 00:00:25,990 Maybe you're hunching, crossing your legs, maybe wrapping your ankles. 8 00:00:26,014 --> 00:00:29,729 Sometimes we hold onto our arms like this. 9 00:00:29,753 --> 00:00:33,400 Sometimes we spread out. (Laughter) 10 00:00:33,424 --> 00:00:35,672 I see you. 11 00:00:35,696 --> 00:00:38,687 So I want you to pay attention to what you're doing right now. 12 00:00:38,711 --> 00:00:41,045 We're going to come back to that in a few minutes, 13 00:00:41,069 --> 00:00:43,993 and I'm hoping that if you learn to tweak this a little bit, 14 00:00:44,017 --> 00:00:47,429 it could significantly change the way your life unfolds. 15 00:00:47,453 --> 00:00:51,953 So, we're really fascinated with body language, 16 00:00:51,977 --> 00:00:55,876 and we're particularly interested in other people's body language. 17 00:00:55,900 --> 00:01:00,097 You know, we're interested in, like, you know — (Laughter) — 18 00:01:00,121 --> 00:01:04,495 an awkward interaction, or a smile, 19 00:01:04,519 --> 00:01:08,727 or a contemptuous glance, or maybe a very awkward wink, 20 00:01:08,751 --> 00:01:11,965 or maybe even something like a handshake. 21 00:01:11,989 --> 00:01:15,314 Narrator: Here they are arriving at Number 10. 22 00:01:15,338 --> 00:01:19,807 This lucky policeman gets to shake hands with the President of the United States. 23 00:01:19,831 --> 00:01:24,734 Here comes the Prime Minister -- No. (Laughter) (Applause) 24 00:01:24,758 --> 00:01:27,409 (Laughter) (Applause) 25 00:01:27,433 --> 00:01:31,116 Amy Cuddy: So a handshake, or the lack of a handshake, 26 00:01:31,140 --> 00:01:33,640 can have us talking for weeks and weeks and weeks. 27 00:01:33,664 --> 00:01:35,780 Even the BBC and The New York Times. 28 00:01:35,804 --> 00:01:39,731 So obviously when we think about nonverbal behavior, 29 00:01:39,755 --> 00:01:43,119 or body language -- but we call it nonverbals as social scientists -- 30 00:01:43,143 --> 00:01:45,999 it's language, so we think about communication. 31 00:01:46,023 --> 00:01:49,026 When we think about communication, we think about interactions. 32 00:01:49,050 --> 00:01:51,465 So what is your body language communicating to me? 33 00:01:51,489 --> 00:01:53,531 What's mine communicating to you? 34 00:01:53,555 --> 00:01:59,503 And there's a lot of reason to believe that this is a valid way to look at this. 35 00:01:59,527 --> 00:02:01,771 So social scientists have spent a lot of time 36 00:02:01,795 --> 00:02:03,876 looking at the effects of our body language, 37 00:02:03,900 --> 00:02:06,185 or other people's body language, on judgments. 38 00:02:06,209 --> 00:02:09,624 And we make sweeping judgments and inferences from body language. 39 00:02:09,648 --> 00:02:13,614 And those judgments can predict really meaningful life outcomes 40 00:02:13,638 --> 00:02:17,407 like who we hire or promote, who we ask out on a date. 41 00:02:17,431 --> 00:02:22,092 For example, Nalini Ambady, a researcher at Tufts University, 42 00:02:22,116 --> 00:02:26,564 shows that when people watch 30-second soundless clips 43 00:02:26,588 --> 00:02:29,588 of real physician-patient interactions, 44 00:02:29,612 --> 00:02:32,421 their judgments of the physician's niceness 45 00:02:32,445 --> 00:02:35,058 predict whether or not that physician will be sued. 46 00:02:35,082 --> 00:02:36,740 So it doesn't have to do so much 47 00:02:36,764 --> 00:02:39,263 with whether or not that physician was incompetent, 48 00:02:39,287 --> 00:02:42,093 but do we like that person and how they interacted? 49 00:02:42,117 --> 00:02:45,028 Even more dramatic, Alex Todorov at Princeton 50 00:02:45,052 --> 00:02:48,705 has shown us that judgments of political candidates' faces 51 00:02:48,729 --> 00:02:52,673 in just one second predict 70 percent 52 00:02:52,697 --> 00:02:56,523 of U.S. Senate and gubernatorial race outcomes, 53 00:02:56,547 --> 00:02:58,745 and even, let's go digital, 54 00:02:58,769 --> 00:03:02,890 emoticons used well in online negotiations 55 00:03:02,914 --> 00:03:05,722 can lead you to claim more value from that negotiation. 56 00:03:05,746 --> 00:03:08,945 If you use them poorly, bad idea. Right? 57 00:03:08,969 --> 00:03:12,042 So when we think of nonverbals, we think of how we judge others, 58 00:03:12,066 --> 00:03:14,944 how they judge us and what the outcomes are. 59 00:03:14,968 --> 00:03:17,064 We tend to forget, though, the other audience 60 00:03:17,088 --> 00:03:20,499 that's influenced by our nonverbals, and that's ourselves. 61 00:03:20,523 --> 00:03:23,712 We are also influenced by our nonverbals, 62 00:03:23,736 --> 00:03:26,075 our thoughts and our feelings and our physiology. 63 00:03:26,099 --> 00:03:29,138 So what nonverbals am I talking about? 64 00:03:29,162 --> 00:03:32,081 I'm a social psychologist. I study prejudice, 65 00:03:32,105 --> 00:03:34,808 and I teach at a competitive business school, 66 00:03:34,832 --> 00:03:39,292 so it was inevitable that I would become interested in power dynamics. 67 00:03:39,316 --> 00:03:43,104 I became especially interested in nonverbal expressions 68 00:03:43,128 --> 00:03:45,107 of power and dominance. 69 00:03:45,131 --> 00:03:47,846 And what are nonverbal expressions of power and dominance? 70 00:03:47,870 --> 00:03:49,929 Well, this is what they are. 71 00:03:49,953 --> 00:03:52,807 So in the animal kingdom, they are about expanding. 72 00:03:52,831 --> 00:03:55,817 So you make yourself big, you stretch out, 73 00:03:55,841 --> 00:03:58,758 you take up space, you're basically opening up. 74 00:03:58,782 --> 00:04:00,704 It's about opening up. 75 00:04:00,728 --> 00:04:03,459 And this is true across the animal kingdom. 76 00:04:03,483 --> 00:04:05,508 It's not just limited to primates. 77 00:04:06,244 --> 00:04:08,928 And humans do the same thing. (Laughter) 78 00:04:08,952 --> 00:04:12,639 So they do this both when they have power sort of chronically, 79 00:04:12,663 --> 00:04:15,640 and also when they're feeling powerful in the moment. 80 00:04:15,664 --> 00:04:18,712 And this one is especially interesting because it really shows us 81 00:04:18,736 --> 00:04:22,734 how universal and old these expressions of power are. 82 00:04:22,758 --> 00:04:25,333 This expression, which is known as pride, 83 00:04:25,357 --> 00:04:27,586 Jessica Tracy has studied. 84 00:04:27,610 --> 00:04:30,493 She shows that people who are born with sight 85 00:04:30,517 --> 00:04:33,434 and people who are congenitally blind do this 86 00:04:33,458 --> 00:04:35,748 when they win at a physical competition. 87 00:04:35,772 --> 00:04:38,226 So when they cross the finish line and they've won, 88 00:04:38,250 --> 00:04:40,727 it doesn't matter if they've never seen anyone do it. 89 00:04:40,751 --> 00:04:42,044 They do this. 90 00:04:42,068 --> 00:04:44,566 So the arms up in the V, the chin is slightly lifted. 91 00:04:44,590 --> 00:04:46,653 What do we do when we feel powerless? 92 00:04:46,677 --> 00:04:48,432 We do exactly the opposite. 93 00:04:48,456 --> 00:04:50,960 We close up. We wrap ourselves up. 94 00:04:50,984 --> 00:04:52,328 We make ourselves small. 95 00:04:52,352 --> 00:04:54,708 We don't want to bump into the person next to us. 96 00:04:54,732 --> 00:04:57,465 So again, both animals and humans do the same thing. 97 00:04:57,489 --> 00:05:01,445 And this is what happens when you put together high and low power. 98 00:05:01,469 --> 00:05:04,571 So what we tend to do when it comes to power 99 00:05:04,595 --> 00:05:07,224 is that we complement the other's nonverbals. 100 00:05:07,248 --> 00:05:09,655 So if someone is being really powerful with us, 101 00:05:09,679 --> 00:05:12,299 we tend to make ourselves smaller. We don't mirror them. 102 00:05:12,323 --> 00:05:13,913 We do the opposite of them. 103 00:05:13,937 --> 00:05:17,112 So I'm watching this behavior in the classroom, 104 00:05:17,136 --> 00:05:19,649 and what do I notice? 105 00:05:19,673 --> 00:05:26,902 I notice that MBA students really exhibit the full range of power nonverbals. 106 00:05:26,926 --> 00:05:29,450 So you have people who are like caricatures of alphas, 107 00:05:29,474 --> 00:05:32,855 really coming into the room, they get right into the middle of the room 108 00:05:32,879 --> 00:05:36,292 before class even starts, like they really want to occupy space. 109 00:05:36,316 --> 00:05:38,555 When they sit down, they're sort of spread out. 110 00:05:38,579 --> 00:05:40,313 They raise their hands like this. 111 00:05:40,337 --> 00:05:42,948 You have other people who are virtually collapsing 112 00:05:42,972 --> 00:05:45,472 when they come in. As soon they come in, you see it. 113 00:05:45,496 --> 00:05:47,765 You see it on their faces and their bodies, 114 00:05:47,789 --> 00:05:50,583 and they sit in their chair and they make themselves tiny, 115 00:05:50,607 --> 00:05:52,945 and they go like this when they raise their hand. 116 00:05:52,969 --> 00:05:54,827 I notice a couple of things about this. 117 00:05:54,851 --> 00:05:56,661 One, you're not going to be surprised. 118 00:05:56,685 --> 00:05:58,703 It seems to be related to gender. 119 00:05:58,727 --> 00:06:04,168 So women are much more likely to do this kind of thing than men. 120 00:06:04,192 --> 00:06:06,754 Women feel chronically less powerful than men, 121 00:06:06,778 --> 00:06:08,636 so this is not surprising. 122 00:06:08,660 --> 00:06:10,709 But the other thing I noticed 123 00:06:10,733 --> 00:06:13,375 is that it also seemed to be related to the extent 124 00:06:13,399 --> 00:06:17,235 to which the students were participating, and how well they were participating. 125 00:06:17,259 --> 00:06:19,817 And this is really important in the MBA classroom, 126 00:06:19,841 --> 00:06:22,498 because participation counts for half the grade. 127 00:06:22,522 --> 00:06:26,971 So business schools have been struggling with this gender grade gap. 128 00:06:26,995 --> 00:06:30,243 You get these equally qualified women and men coming in 129 00:06:30,267 --> 00:06:32,410 and then you get these differences in grades, 130 00:06:32,434 --> 00:06:35,499 and it seems to be partly attributable to participation. 131 00:06:35,523 --> 00:06:38,522 So I started to wonder, you know, okay, 132 00:06:38,546 --> 00:06:42,164 so you have these people coming in like this, and they're participating. 133 00:06:42,188 --> 00:06:44,717 Is it possible that we could get people to fake it 134 00:06:44,741 --> 00:06:46,741 and would it lead them to participate more? 135 00:06:46,765 --> 00:06:51,354 So my main collaborator Dana Carney, who's at Berkeley, 136 00:06:51,378 --> 00:06:54,909 and I really wanted to know, can you fake it till you make it? 137 00:06:54,933 --> 00:06:57,460 Like, can you do this just for a little while 138 00:06:57,484 --> 00:07:00,136 and actually experience a behavioral outcome 139 00:07:00,160 --> 00:07:01,862 that makes you seem more powerful? 140 00:07:01,886 --> 00:07:05,314 So we know that our nonverbals govern how other people 141 00:07:05,338 --> 00:07:07,719 think and feel about us. There's a lot of evidence. 142 00:07:07,743 --> 00:07:09,165 But our question really was, 143 00:07:09,189 --> 00:07:13,229 do our nonverbals govern how we think and feel about ourselves? 144 00:07:13,253 --> 00:07:15,919 There's some evidence that they do. 145 00:07:15,943 --> 00:07:20,555 So, for example, we smile when we feel happy, 146 00:07:20,579 --> 00:07:22,733 but also, when we're forced to smile 147 00:07:22,757 --> 00:07:27,148 by holding a pen in our teeth like this, it makes us feel happy. 148 00:07:27,172 --> 00:07:29,090 So it goes both ways. 149 00:07:29,114 --> 00:07:32,896 When it comes to power, it also goes both ways. 150 00:07:32,920 --> 00:07:35,444 So when you feel powerful, 151 00:07:35,468 --> 00:07:37,239 you're more likely to do this, 152 00:07:37,263 --> 00:07:43,441 but it's also possible that when you pretend to be powerful, 153 00:07:43,465 --> 00:07:46,864 you are more likely to actually feel powerful. 154 00:07:46,888 --> 00:07:49,924 So the second question really was, you know, 155 00:07:49,948 --> 00:07:52,507 so we know that our minds change our bodies, 156 00:07:52,531 --> 00:07:56,924 but is it also true that our bodies change our minds? 157 00:07:56,948 --> 00:07:59,651 And when I say minds, in the case of the powerful, 158 00:07:59,675 --> 00:08:01,023 what am I talking about? 159 00:08:01,047 --> 00:08:03,189 So I'm talking about thoughts and feelings 160 00:08:03,213 --> 00:08:06,785 and the sort of physiological things that make up our thoughts and feelings, 161 00:08:06,809 --> 00:08:09,852 and in my case, that's hormones. I look at hormones. 162 00:08:09,876 --> 00:08:14,186 So what do the minds of the powerful versus the powerless look like? 163 00:08:14,210 --> 00:08:18,482 So powerful people tend to be, not surprisingly, 164 00:08:18,506 --> 00:08:22,706 more assertive and more confident, more optimistic. 165 00:08:22,730 --> 00:08:26,016 They actually feel they're going to win even at games of chance. 166 00:08:26,040 --> 00:08:29,884 They also tend to be able to think more abstractly. 167 00:08:29,908 --> 00:08:32,528 So there are a lot of differences. They take more risks. 168 00:08:32,552 --> 00:08:35,791 There are a lot of differences between powerful and powerless people. 169 00:08:35,815 --> 00:08:38,635 Physiologically, there also are differences 170 00:08:38,659 --> 00:08:42,700 on two key hormones: testosterone, which is the dominance hormone, 171 00:08:42,724 --> 00:08:46,394 and cortisol, which is the stress hormone. 172 00:08:46,418 --> 00:08:53,539 So what we find is that high-power alpha males in primate hierarchies 173 00:08:53,563 --> 00:08:56,737 have high testosterone and low cortisol, 174 00:08:56,761 --> 00:08:59,669 and powerful and effective leaders 175 00:09:00,287 --> 00:09:02,518 also have high testosterone and low cortisol. 176 00:09:02,542 --> 00:09:04,923 So what does that mean? When you think about power, 177 00:09:04,947 --> 00:09:07,246 people tended to think only about testosterone, 178 00:09:07,270 --> 00:09:09,034 because that was about dominance. 179 00:09:09,058 --> 00:09:12,504 But really, power is also about how you react to stress. 180 00:09:12,528 --> 00:09:15,633 So do you want the high-power leader that's dominant, 181 00:09:15,657 --> 00:09:18,375 high on testosterone, but really stress reactive? 182 00:09:18,399 --> 00:09:19,940 Probably not, right? 183 00:09:19,964 --> 00:09:22,994 You want the person who's powerful and assertive and dominant, 184 00:09:23,018 --> 00:09:26,682 but not very stress reactive, the person who's laid back. 185 00:09:26,706 --> 00:09:31,832 So we know that in primate hierarchies, 186 00:09:31,856 --> 00:09:34,924 if an alpha needs to take over, 187 00:09:34,948 --> 00:09:39,162 if an individual needs to take over an alpha role sort of suddenly, 188 00:09:39,186 --> 00:09:42,273 within a few days, that individual's testosterone has gone up 189 00:09:42,297 --> 00:09:45,778 significantly and his cortisol has dropped significantly. 190 00:09:45,802 --> 00:09:48,819 So we have this evidence, both that the body can shape 191 00:09:48,843 --> 00:09:51,185 the mind, at least at the facial level, 192 00:09:51,209 --> 00:09:55,314 and also that role changes can shape the mind. 193 00:09:55,338 --> 00:09:58,096 So what happens, okay, you take a role change, 194 00:09:58,120 --> 00:10:00,680 what happens if you do that at a really minimal level, 195 00:10:00,704 --> 00:10:03,133 like this tiny manipulation, this tiny intervention? 196 00:10:03,157 --> 00:10:05,967 "For two minutes," you say, "I want you to stand like this, 197 00:10:05,991 --> 00:10:08,527 and it's going to make you feel more powerful." 198 00:10:08,551 --> 00:10:11,481 So this is what we did. 199 00:10:11,505 --> 00:10:16,096 We decided to bring people into the lab and run a little experiment, 200 00:10:16,120 --> 00:10:19,645 and these people adopted, for two minutes, 201 00:10:19,669 --> 00:10:23,129 either high-power poses or low-power poses, 202 00:10:23,153 --> 00:10:25,470 and I'm just going to show you five of the poses, 203 00:10:25,494 --> 00:10:27,055 although they took on only two. 204 00:10:27,079 --> 00:10:28,559 So here's one. 205 00:10:29,809 --> 00:10:31,098 A couple more. 206 00:10:31,792 --> 00:10:36,545 This one has been dubbed the "Wonder Woman" by the media. 207 00:10:36,646 --> 00:10:37,944 Here are a couple more. 208 00:10:37,968 --> 00:10:40,298 So you can be standing or you can be sitting. 209 00:10:40,322 --> 00:10:42,283 And here are the low-power poses. 210 00:10:42,307 --> 00:10:45,037 So you're folding up, you're making yourself small. 211 00:10:46,644 --> 00:10:48,085 This one is very low-power. 212 00:10:48,109 --> 00:10:52,068 When you're touching your neck, you're really protecting yourself. 213 00:10:52,092 --> 00:10:54,089 So this is what happens. 214 00:10:54,207 --> 00:10:56,413 They come in, they spit into a vial, 215 00:10:56,437 --> 00:10:59,586 for two minutes, we say, "You need to do this or this." 216 00:10:59,610 --> 00:11:01,651 They don't look at pictures of the poses. 217 00:11:01,675 --> 00:11:04,202 We don't want to prime them with a concept of power. 218 00:11:04,226 --> 00:11:05,859 We want them to be feeling power. 219 00:11:05,883 --> 00:11:07,218 So two minutes they do this. 220 00:11:07,242 --> 00:11:10,427 We then ask them, "How powerful do you feel?" on a series of items, 221 00:11:10,451 --> 00:11:12,794 and then we give them an opportunity to gamble, 222 00:11:12,818 --> 00:11:15,559 and then we take another saliva sample. 223 00:11:15,583 --> 00:11:17,441 That's it. That's the whole experiment. 224 00:11:17,465 --> 00:11:19,026 So this is what we find. 225 00:11:19,050 --> 00:11:20,930 Risk tolerance, which is the gambling, 226 00:11:20,954 --> 00:11:25,068 we find that when you are in the high-power pose condition, 227 00:11:25,092 --> 00:11:27,226 86 percent of you will gamble. 228 00:11:27,250 --> 00:11:29,346 When you're in the low-power pose condition, 229 00:11:29,370 --> 00:11:33,346 only 60 percent, and that's a whopping significant difference. 230 00:11:33,370 --> 00:11:35,826 Here's what we find on testosterone. 231 00:11:35,850 --> 00:11:38,363 From their baseline when they come in, 232 00:11:38,387 --> 00:11:41,693 high-power people experience about a 20-percent increase, 233 00:11:41,717 --> 00:11:46,314 and low-power people experience about a 10-percent decrease. 234 00:11:46,338 --> 00:11:49,131 So again, two minutes, and you get these changes. 235 00:11:49,155 --> 00:11:51,132 Here's what you get on cortisol. 236 00:11:51,156 --> 00:11:54,930 High-power people experience about a 25-percent decrease, 237 00:11:54,954 --> 00:11:59,062 and the low-power people experience about a 15-percent increase. 238 00:11:59,086 --> 00:12:01,794 So two minutes lead to these hormonal changes 239 00:12:01,818 --> 00:12:03,438 that configure your brain 240 00:12:03,462 --> 00:12:07,739 to basically be either assertive, confident and comfortable, 241 00:12:07,763 --> 00:12:12,816 or really stress-reactive, and feeling sort of shut down. 242 00:12:12,840 --> 00:12:15,603 And we've all had the feeling, right? 243 00:12:15,627 --> 00:12:20,811 So it seems that our nonverbals do govern how we think and feel about ourselves, 244 00:12:20,835 --> 00:12:23,267 so it's not just others, but it's also ourselves. 245 00:12:23,291 --> 00:12:25,694 Also, our bodies change our minds. 246 00:12:25,718 --> 00:12:28,100 But the next question, of course, 247 00:12:28,124 --> 00:12:29,944 is, can power posing for a few minutes 248 00:12:29,968 --> 00:12:32,005 really change your life in meaningful ways? 249 00:12:32,029 --> 00:12:36,322 This is in the lab, it's this little task, it's just a couple of minutes. 250 00:12:36,346 --> 00:12:38,087 Where can you actually apply this? 251 00:12:38,111 --> 00:12:39,922 Which we cared about, of course. 252 00:12:39,946 --> 00:12:46,687 And so we think where you want to use this is evaluative situations, 253 00:12:46,711 --> 00:12:49,164 like social threat situations. 254 00:12:49,188 --> 00:12:51,744 Where are you being evaluated, either by your friends? 255 00:12:51,768 --> 00:12:53,825 For teenagers, it's at the lunchroom table. 256 00:12:53,849 --> 00:12:58,122 For some people it's speaking at a school board meeting. 257 00:12:58,146 --> 00:13:01,910 It might be giving a pitch or giving a talk like this 258 00:13:01,934 --> 00:13:04,708 or doing a job interview. 259 00:13:04,732 --> 00:13:07,400 We decided that the one that most people could relate to 260 00:13:07,424 --> 00:13:10,319 because most people had been through, was the job interview. 261 00:13:10,343 --> 00:13:13,074 So we published these findings, 262 00:13:13,098 --> 00:13:14,659 and the media are all over it, 263 00:13:14,683 --> 00:13:16,758 and they say, Okay, so this is what you do 264 00:13:16,782 --> 00:13:18,855 when you go in for the job interview, right? 265 00:13:18,879 --> 00:13:19,886 (Laughter) 266 00:13:19,910 --> 00:13:22,357 You know, so we were of course horrified, and said, 267 00:13:22,381 --> 00:13:24,653 Oh my God, no, that's not what we meant at all. 268 00:13:24,677 --> 00:13:26,917 For numerous reasons, no, don't do that. 269 00:13:26,941 --> 00:13:29,508 Again, this is not about you talking to other people. 270 00:13:29,532 --> 00:13:31,093 It's you talking to yourself. 271 00:13:31,117 --> 00:13:34,176 What do you do before you go into a job interview? You do this. 272 00:13:34,200 --> 00:13:36,742 You're sitting down. You're looking at your iPhone -- 273 00:13:36,766 --> 00:13:39,028 or your Android, not trying to leave anyone out. 274 00:13:39,052 --> 00:13:40,922 You're looking at your notes, 275 00:13:40,946 --> 00:13:42,946 you're hunching up, making yourself small, 276 00:13:42,970 --> 00:13:45,399 when really what you should be doing maybe is this, 277 00:13:45,423 --> 00:13:48,460 like, in the bathroom, right? Do that. Find two minutes. 278 00:13:48,484 --> 00:13:50,246 So that's what we want to test. Okay? 279 00:13:50,270 --> 00:13:52,064 So we bring people into a lab, 280 00:13:52,088 --> 00:13:55,441 and they do either high- or low-power poses again, 281 00:13:55,465 --> 00:13:58,073 they go through a very stressful job interview. 282 00:13:58,097 --> 00:14:01,689 It's five minutes long. They are being recorded. 283 00:14:01,713 --> 00:14:03,670 They're being judged also, 284 00:14:03,694 --> 00:14:08,175 and the judges are trained to give no nonverbal feedback, 285 00:14:08,199 --> 00:14:09,758 so they look like this. 286 00:14:09,985 --> 00:14:12,066 Imagine this is the person interviewing you. 287 00:14:12,090 --> 00:14:16,689 So for five minutes, nothing, and this is worse than being heckled. 288 00:14:16,713 --> 00:14:18,353 People hate this. 289 00:14:18,377 --> 00:14:22,093 It's what Marianne LaFrance calls "standing in social quicksand." 290 00:14:22,117 --> 00:14:23,902 So this really spikes your cortisol. 291 00:14:23,926 --> 00:14:26,212 So this is the job interview we put them through, 292 00:14:26,236 --> 00:14:28,433 because we really wanted to see what happened. 293 00:14:28,457 --> 00:14:31,540 We then have these coders look at these tapes, four of them. 294 00:14:31,564 --> 00:14:34,712 They're blind to the hypothesis. They're blind to the conditions. 295 00:14:34,736 --> 00:14:37,497 They have no idea who's been posing in what pose, 296 00:14:37,521 --> 00:14:42,587 and they end up looking at these sets of tapes, 297 00:14:42,611 --> 00:14:44,759 and they say, "We want to hire these people," 298 00:14:44,783 --> 00:14:46,284 all the high-power posers. 299 00:14:46,308 --> 00:14:48,081 "We don't want to hire these people. 300 00:14:48,105 --> 00:14:51,922 We also evaluate these people much more positively overall." 301 00:14:51,946 --> 00:14:53,586 But what's driving it? 302 00:14:53,610 --> 00:14:55,602 It's not about the content of the speech. 303 00:14:55,626 --> 00:14:58,478 It's about the presence that they're bringing to the speech. 304 00:14:58,502 --> 00:15:00,979 Because we rate them on all these variables 305 00:15:01,003 --> 00:15:04,542 related to competence, like, how well-structured is the speech? 306 00:15:04,566 --> 00:15:06,800 How good is it? What are their qualifications? 307 00:15:06,824 --> 00:15:09,450 No effect on those things. This is what's affected. 308 00:15:09,474 --> 00:15:11,173 These kinds of things. 309 00:15:11,197 --> 00:15:13,588 People are bringing their true selves, basically. 310 00:15:13,612 --> 00:15:15,002 They're bringing themselves. 311 00:15:15,026 --> 00:15:17,125 They bring their ideas, but as themselves, 312 00:15:17,149 --> 00:15:19,361 with no, you know, residue over them. 313 00:15:19,385 --> 00:15:24,292 So this is what's driving the effect, or mediating the effect. 314 00:15:24,316 --> 00:15:27,660 So when I tell people about this, 315 00:15:27,684 --> 00:15:31,039 that our bodies change our minds and our minds can change our behavior, 316 00:15:31,063 --> 00:15:33,815 and our behavior can change our outcomes, they say to me, 317 00:15:33,839 --> 00:15:35,382 "It feels fake." Right? 318 00:15:35,406 --> 00:15:37,284 So I said, fake it till you make it. 319 00:15:37,308 --> 00:15:39,161 It's not me. 320 00:15:39,185 --> 00:15:42,336 I don't want to get there and then still feel like a fraud. 321 00:15:42,360 --> 00:15:44,170 I don't want to feel like an impostor. 322 00:15:44,194 --> 00:15:48,267 I don't want to get there only to feel like I'm not supposed to be here. 323 00:15:48,291 --> 00:15:50,454 And that really resonated with me, 324 00:15:50,478 --> 00:15:53,700 because I want to tell you a little story about being an impostor 325 00:15:53,724 --> 00:15:55,922 and feeling like I'm not supposed to be here. 326 00:15:55,946 --> 00:15:58,863 When I was 19, I was in a really bad car accident. 327 00:15:58,887 --> 00:16:02,268 I was thrown out of a car, rolled several times. 328 00:16:02,292 --> 00:16:04,150 I was thrown from the car. 329 00:16:04,174 --> 00:16:07,138 And I woke up in a head injury rehab ward, 330 00:16:07,162 --> 00:16:09,371 and I had been withdrawn from college, 331 00:16:09,395 --> 00:16:15,083 and I learned that my IQ had dropped by two standard deviations, 332 00:16:15,107 --> 00:16:17,671 which was very traumatic. 333 00:16:17,695 --> 00:16:20,542 I knew my IQ because I had identified with being smart, 334 00:16:20,566 --> 00:16:22,554 and I had been called gifted as a child. 335 00:16:22,578 --> 00:16:25,754 So I'm taken out of college, I keep trying to go back. 336 00:16:25,778 --> 00:16:27,978 They say, "You're not going to finish college. 337 00:16:28,002 --> 00:16:30,555 Just, you know, there are other things for you to do, 338 00:16:30,579 --> 00:16:32,579 but that's not going to work out for you." 339 00:16:32,603 --> 00:16:36,137 So I really struggled with this, and I have to say, 340 00:16:36,161 --> 00:16:38,911 having your identity taken from you, your core identity, 341 00:16:38,935 --> 00:16:40,770 and for me it was being smart, 342 00:16:40,794 --> 00:16:42,433 having that taken from you, 343 00:16:42,457 --> 00:16:45,556 there's nothing that leaves you feeling more powerless than that. 344 00:16:45,580 --> 00:16:47,359 So I felt entirely powerless. 345 00:16:47,383 --> 00:16:49,245 I worked and worked, and I got lucky, 346 00:16:49,269 --> 00:16:51,115 and worked, and got lucky, and worked. 347 00:16:51,139 --> 00:16:53,367 Eventually I graduated from college. 348 00:16:53,391 --> 00:16:55,391 It took me four years longer than my peers, 349 00:16:55,415 --> 00:16:59,732 and I convinced someone, my angel advisor, Susan Fiske, 350 00:16:59,756 --> 00:17:02,676 to take me on, and so I ended up at Princeton, 351 00:17:02,700 --> 00:17:05,527 and I was like, I am not supposed to be here. 352 00:17:05,551 --> 00:17:06,821 I am an impostor. 353 00:17:06,845 --> 00:17:08,750 And the night before my first-year talk, 354 00:17:08,774 --> 00:17:12,273 and the first-year talk at Princeton is a 20-minute talk to 20 people. 355 00:17:12,297 --> 00:17:13,475 That's it. 356 00:17:13,499 --> 00:17:15,962 I was so afraid of being found out the next day 357 00:17:15,986 --> 00:17:18,775 that I called her and said, "I'm quitting." 358 00:17:18,799 --> 00:17:20,631 She was like, "You are not quitting, 359 00:17:20,655 --> 00:17:23,189 because I took a gamble on you, and you're staying. 360 00:17:23,213 --> 00:17:25,980 You're going to stay, and this is what you're going to do. 361 00:17:26,004 --> 00:17:27,337 You are going to fake it. 362 00:17:27,361 --> 00:17:30,517 You're going to do every talk that you ever get asked to do. 363 00:17:30,541 --> 00:17:32,780 You're just going to do it and do it and do it, 364 00:17:32,804 --> 00:17:35,225 even if you're terrified and just paralyzed 365 00:17:35,249 --> 00:17:37,598 and having an out-of-body experience, 366 00:17:37,622 --> 00:17:40,968 until you have this moment where you say, 'Oh my gosh, I'm doing it. 367 00:17:40,992 --> 00:17:43,934 Like, I have become this. I am actually doing this.'" 368 00:17:43,958 --> 00:17:45,053 So that's what I did. 369 00:17:45,077 --> 00:17:46,461 Five years in grad school, 370 00:17:46,485 --> 00:17:48,585 a few years, you know, I'm at Northwestern, 371 00:17:48,609 --> 00:17:50,672 I moved to Harvard, I'm at Harvard, 372 00:17:50,696 --> 00:17:54,672 I'm not really thinking about it anymore, but for a long time I had been thinking, 373 00:17:54,696 --> 00:17:56,478 "Not supposed to be here." 374 00:17:56,502 --> 00:17:59,195 So at the end of my first year at Harvard, 375 00:17:59,219 --> 00:18:03,520 a student who had not talked in class the entire semester, 376 00:18:03,544 --> 00:18:07,211 who I had said, "Look, you've gotta participate or else you're going to fail," 377 00:18:07,235 --> 00:18:09,759 came into my office. I really didn't know her at all. 378 00:18:09,783 --> 00:18:13,211 She came in totally defeated, and she said, 379 00:18:13,235 --> 00:18:16,361 "I'm not supposed to be here." 380 00:18:20,111 --> 00:18:22,068 And that was the moment for me. 381 00:18:22,092 --> 00:18:23,684 Because two things happened. 382 00:18:23,708 --> 00:18:24,978 One was that I realized, 383 00:18:25,002 --> 00:18:28,112 oh my gosh, I don't feel like that anymore. 384 00:18:28,136 --> 00:18:31,136 I don't feel that anymore, but she does, and I get that feeling. 385 00:18:31,160 --> 00:18:33,431 And the second was, she is supposed to be here! 386 00:18:33,455 --> 00:18:35,408 Like, she can fake it, she can become it. 387 00:18:35,432 --> 00:18:38,975 So I was like, "Yes, you are! You are supposed to be here! 388 00:18:38,999 --> 00:18:40,761 And tomorrow you're going to fake it, 389 00:18:40,785 --> 00:18:43,474 you're going to make yourself powerful, and, you know -- 390 00:18:43,498 --> 00:18:48,891 (Applause) 391 00:18:48,915 --> 00:18:52,969 And you're going to go into the classroom, 392 00:18:52,993 --> 00:18:55,393 and you are going to give the best comment ever." 393 00:18:55,417 --> 00:18:58,398 You know? And she gave the best comment ever, 394 00:18:58,422 --> 00:19:00,361 and people turned around and were like, 395 00:19:00,385 --> 00:19:03,305 oh my God, I didn't even notice her sitting there. (Laughter) 396 00:19:03,329 --> 00:19:05,122 She comes back to me months later, 397 00:19:05,146 --> 00:19:08,186 and I realized that she had not just faked it till she made it, 398 00:19:08,210 --> 00:19:10,584 she had actually faked it till she became it. 399 00:19:10,608 --> 00:19:12,407 So she had changed. 400 00:19:12,431 --> 00:19:16,491 And so I want to say to you, don't fake it till you make it. 401 00:19:16,515 --> 00:19:19,288 Fake it till you become it. 402 00:19:19,312 --> 00:19:22,929 Do it enough until you actually become it and internalize. 403 00:19:22,953 --> 00:19:25,584 The last thing I'm going to leave you with is this. 404 00:19:25,608 --> 00:19:30,056 Tiny tweaks can lead to big changes. 405 00:19:30,080 --> 00:19:32,553 So, this is two minutes. 406 00:19:32,577 --> 00:19:34,387 Two minutes, two minutes, two minutes. 407 00:19:34,411 --> 00:19:37,535 Before you go into the next stressful evaluative situation, 408 00:19:37,559 --> 00:19:40,241 for two minutes, try doing this, in the elevator, 409 00:19:40,265 --> 00:19:43,480 in a bathroom stall, at your desk behind closed doors. 410 00:19:43,504 --> 00:19:44,907 That's what you want to do. 411 00:19:44,931 --> 00:19:47,742 Configure your brain to cope the best in that situation. 412 00:19:47,766 --> 00:19:50,707 Get your testosterone up. Get your cortisol down. 413 00:19:50,731 --> 00:19:54,673 Don't leave that situation feeling like, oh, I didn't show them who I am. 414 00:19:54,697 --> 00:19:56,397 Leave that situation feeling like, 415 00:19:56,421 --> 00:19:59,393 I really feel like I got to say who I am and show who I am. 416 00:19:59,417 --> 00:20:05,184 So I want to ask you first, you know, both to try power posing, 417 00:20:05,208 --> 00:20:10,298 and also I want to ask you to share the science, because this is simple. 418 00:20:10,322 --> 00:20:12,475 I don't have ego involved in this. (Laughter) 419 00:20:12,499 --> 00:20:14,262 Give it away. Share it with people, 420 00:20:14,286 --> 00:20:16,706 because the people who can use it the most 421 00:20:16,730 --> 00:20:20,081 are the ones with no resources and no technology 422 00:20:20,105 --> 00:20:22,279 and no status and no power. 423 00:20:22,303 --> 00:20:24,851 Give it to them because they can do it in private. 424 00:20:24,875 --> 00:20:27,319 They need their bodies, privacy and two minutes, 425 00:20:27,343 --> 00:20:30,469 and it can significantly change the outcomes of their life. 426 00:20:30,493 --> 00:20:31,624 Thank you. 427 00:20:31,648 --> 00:20:34,679 (Applause)