Amy Cuddy's "Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are" TED talk is fascinating because it is so simple. The speaker begins by showing how body language is widely recognized and proven as being important factors in social situations. We judge people, consciously or not, on their body language. What Cuddy wanted to know is whether our own body language affects the way we think and feel about ourselves, to the point where our body language could eventually determine our behaviors and our outcomes in life.The researcher performed a study in which she asked participants to adopt either a high power or a low power pose for just two minutes. After the poses, she had the participants choose whether or not to play a gambling game, and then she measured the cortisol and testosterone levels of the participants. Cortisol is a hormone that is linked to stress. High levels of cortisol indicate high levels of stress. Testosterone is linked to being powerful, with...

The researcher found that indeed cortisol was lower and testosterone was higher for people in the "high power" pose group versus the low power pose. Similarly, the researcher found that those in the high power scenario were significantly more willing to take a gamble versus those in the low power pose. The theory was that high power people in the real world tend to be more willing to take risks, and this was borne out in the research. The people who assumed the high power pose were indeed more likely to gamble.
The implications of the research were tremendous. The researcher wanted to show that there are real world applications for the research in helping people who typically feel powerless, especially women, to change the way they carry themselves. By making a simple change to our body language, we not only affect the way others perceive…