PRESENCE

Harvard Business School social psychologist Amy Cuddy's TED talk on body language went live in the Fall of 2012. That talk is up to 15 Million views and ranks among the top-ten most viewed TED talks of all time.

Cuddy’s general area of research is on how people judge and influence one another and themselves. Her studies suggest that judgments along two critical trait dimensions—warmth/trustworthiness and competence/power—shape social interactions. They influence who gets hired and who doesn’t, when we are more or less likely to take risks, how our relationships play out, and more.

More specifically, Cuddy focuses on how we embody and express these traits, linking our body language to our hormone levels, our feelings, and our behavior. Her latest research shows that faking body postures that convey competence and power (“power posing”; think of a peacock puffing himself up)—even for as little as two minutes—changes our testosterone and cortisol levels, increases our appetite for risk, causes us to perform better in job interviews, and generally configures our brains to cope well in stressful situations. In short, as David Brooks summarized, “If you act powerfully, you will begin to think powerfully.”