As you may have heard, and pardon the mixed metaphor, psychologists are up in arms about putting your hands on your hips. I’m talking about “power poses”, the simple physical gestures that, according to a TED talk by the Harvard academic Amy Cuddy, can transform your life. Before a job interview, adopt a pose like Wonder Woman – feet apart, hands on hips, shoulders back – and your stress hormones will fall, testosterone will rise, you’ll feel a surge of boldness, and have more chance of landing the job.
Or maybe not. A major attempt to replicate the original studies failed, and one of the researchers has admitted: “I do not believe that ‘power pose’ effects are real.” A related finding – that merely fixing a smile on your face can make you more upbeat – is looking shaky, too. All these techniques for boosting confidence feel like they ought to work. But scientists are no longer confident that they do.
What’s weird about the gleeful debunking of power poses is… obviously they work. For me, I mean. Before a public talk or similarly daunting situation, if I remember to stand up straight and broaden my chest, I feel more confident. (Try it now. Unslouch – because you were slouching, weren’t you? – and see if you notice a mood shift.) Likewise, making myself smile usually brings a small improvement; it’s no cure for depression, but the difference is detectable. There’s a reason people have been saying “fake it till you make it” for decades: experience shows it’s true.
Of course, that’s not what researchers mean when they ask if the poses “work”. I’ve no idea if my hormones are changed, or even if most other people feel the confidence boost. These questions are intellectually intriguing, and scientists must try to get them right. But when I’m considering implementing a trick like power posing, they’re not hugely relevant. If my objective is to feel more confident, the relevant question is: do I?
Some of the disconnect between science and real life stems from the placebo effect. Presumably, when things like power poses work, it’s partly because I expect them to. For researchers, that’s a problem, so they’re constantly seeking ways to run blind tests in which people don’t realise they’re power posing, smiling, etc. (In one study, people were asked to hold a pen between their teeth, making the corners of the mouth rise as if in a grin.)
Walking into the job interview, though, you don’t care if the added confidence comes from expectations. You just want the added confidence. It’s quite possible that Cuddy’s bestselling book on the subject, Presence, could turn out to be both a) based on shoddy science, and b) truly helpful to thousands.
Perhaps the really interesting question these debunkings raise is: why are we so desperate to have our toolbox of everyday techniques “grounded in science” to start with? Wisdom results from a mixture of common sense, experience, and research. Nobody lives their lives solely in accordance with the findings of science. Nor should they. Power-pose your heart out, if it helps.
oliver.burkeman@theguardian.com
