Can changing your posture instantly give you a boost in confidence? According to experiments done by Harvard Business School professor Amy Cuddy, yes, it can.
In her new book, “Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges,” Cuddy details a series of experiments she conducted with her colleagues Dana Carney and Andy Yap. They asked research participants to look at diagrams of people in an assortment of “power poses,” then had them emulate those poses.
“Power poses” include the “Wonder Woman” pose, where the hands are resting on the hips and the legs are wide apart, as well as other expansive poses, such as sitting on a tipped chair with one’s hands resting on the back of the head and legs resting high on a table.
A cosplayer dressed as Wonder Woman, at the 2014 New York Comic Con at Jacob Javitz Center on Oct. 9, 2014, in New York. Photo by Daniel Zuchnik/Getty Images
