When walking through a crowd, one tends to see the diversity in humanity: different heights, styles, saunters and namely, stances. One tends to notice another person’s posture upon any encounter. Noticing whether someone slouches or “puffs out” their chest can be key to noticing whether they’re self-conscious or overconfident. Picking up on body language cues is advantageous in navigating both social and business situations. Perhaps the more compelling aspect of posture is not how it affects those around you but how it affects you.
Knowing that you don’t look as poised and self-assured as those around you is bound to have a psychological impact. If you tend to compare yourself to others — something everyone does — then having subpar posture is another factor to consider when assessing your worth in particular social situations. Still, posture’s impact goes even further. Your regular posture has an effect, but manipulating your posture, even for a short period of time, can actually boost your confidence.
According to a TED Talk by Amy Cuddy, an American social psychologist, using power poses, essentially spreading your body into stances that take up space, has physiological effects that alter hormones such as testosterone and cortisol which are associated with stress and power. Testosterone increases one’s animalistic sense of power. It gives a person their fighting strength. On the other hand, excess cortisol is related to high levels of unresolved stress. Power posing for only two minutes by spreading out your arms and legs through starfishing or striking a “Wonder Woman” pose will increase one’s testosterone level and decrease cortisol level— physiologically making one more capable in the situation at hand.
Cuddy’s findings, published in the 2010 addition of Psychological Science, are situational, but improving postural deficits also improves a person’s general mental state. A study conducted by Erik Peper, Richard Harvey, I-Mei Lin and Jacob Perez suggests that poor posture is not only correlated with negative emotional states but increases their likelihood. In the study, subjects were more capable of recalling negative memories while slouching and positive memories while sitting up straight. These finding certainly tie in with Cuddy’s: good posture encourages positive feedback from the brain and vice versa.
All considered, sitting up straight and keeping your chin held high can help some people get through rough patches and improve one’s general emotional health. Sometimes we are left powerless in the world, and this is a way to create your own power.
