Kinesics
By Tan Wei Heng, Toh Wei Chuan,
Khor Yuk Liang, Ch'ng Liyang William
Power Pose
Medical research has shown that the mind and affect the body. This phenomenon is known as the placebo effect.
For example, your friend has volunteered for a study to determine the effectiveness of a new headache drug. After taking the drug, he finds that his headache quickly dissipates and he feels much better. However, he later learns that he was in the placebo group and that the drug he was given was just a sugar pill.
By thinking the pills are benefitting you, it can have some medical benefits.
Now take a moment to think. If the mind can affect the body, can it work the other way around? Is it possible that body language can affect the biochemistry in the body, affecting the mind?
As suggested by Amy Cuddy, a social psychologist in Harvard University, the body can indeed affect the mind. Amy Cuddy and Dana Carney did a research and found that adopting a different posture can affect your confidence.
A high power pose is one such as the wonder women pose. These pose involves making yourself look big, signifying dominance. Her research results showed that individuals’s testosterones raised significantly and cortisol dropped significantly. Testosterone is the dominance hormone and cortisol is a stress hormone. This results in increased confidence and reduced stress.
Tips
A low power pose involves making yourself very small. Actions like crossing your arms and slouching makes you small and conveys the message that you are protecting yourself. This results in a decrease in testosterone and increase in cortisol. Ultimately causing you to be less confident.
Sit up straight and don't slouch. This will make you seem more confident.
In addition, what you want to do before you go for an interview or a presentation is go to the washroom and do one high power pose for 2 minutes.
A separate research done by Amy Cuddy showed that most of the people who did the high power pose before going into the interview were more likely to be chosen for the job or scholarship.
And most importantly:
SUMMARY
