Power Posing

How many times has it happened to you to see someone for the first time and immediately understand that you would dislike that person? Or, on the contrary, to feel they were super nice, almost as if you had known them forever?

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Yet, these are only feelings and assumptions based on what you see for the first time. It is prejudice that, in a split second, allows you to evaluate a person. And we must admit, the human predictive capacity in this sense is quite amazing because we hardly change our opinion about a person by much after we’ve had time to get to know them a little more.

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What is it that influences our judgment, though? It is what people, without speaking, tell us about themselves.

Non-verbal Communication
According to Albert Mehrabian, a researcher of body language, only 7% of communication is words. 38% is indeed vocal, and as much as 55% is body language. It has certainly happened to you to hear the voice of a stranger, perhaps on the phone, and to be able to imagine him or her, both physically and character-wise. That shows the power of that 38% influence. Not to talk about the 55%: postures, gestures, facial expressions, gaze. These are all elements that, with minimum effort, guarantee maximum results in communication. And I say minimum effort because very often, those who adopt them do not do so voluntarily.

Miley Cyrus via Instagram

Without realizing it, we ourselves cast loquacious glances and leak our feelings through a shrug of the shoulders, a furrowed brow, a bitten lip, a twitching foot or hand. Only through the face, indeed, we are able to express happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, disgust, fear, confusion, excitement, desire, and satisfaction. Which are the same expressions that allow those who encode them to decide whether they can trust us or believe what we are saying. What we say, then, is nothing but the tip of an iceberg.

The Power of Body Language
Our words only stay afloat, acquiring value and credibility, if underneath they have a structure that supports them. And this structure is composed of prosody - stress, intonation, tone, pitch, intensity, pauses, silence, breaths - but also of posture, gesture, facial expressions, and eye-contact. A person who smiles, who is open, who listens to you by going along with what you say with assertive head movements; a person who sits composed, who is not afraid to expose his/her hands to give shape to what he/she says; a person who looks you in the eye when he/she speaks, making poses and stresses when needed in the speech, is a person who can convey confidence. And this is amazing because, as psychologist and writer Amy Cuddy outlines, it is possible to learn body language and to train in order to be able to present yourself in the best way possible. Nowadays we all know the influence mindfulness can exert on aspects of our character or routine (we can correct nervous tics or even small obsessions). And it works exactly the same the other way round: just as your mind can change your body, your body can change your mind.

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For instance, it has been tested that, if before an interview, instead of sitting down and looking anxiously at your phone, hunching up and making yourself smaller and smaller, you pose for 2 minutes like a superhero in the bathroom – hands on your hips, chest open – your self-confidence boosts, and you’ll send positive vibes to those interacting with you so that people will gain a good impression of you. This shows, as Amy Cuddy states, that “tiny tweaks can lead to big changes. Configure your brain to cope the best in the situation. Try power posing and share the science.”