--- title: How to Use Body Language to Become More Confident description: “Don’t fake it ’til you make it. Fake it 'til you become it.” canonical: https://time.com/4305165/amy-cuddy-body-language-confidence-2/ author: Shane Parrish article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-04-22T19:30:04.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-05T08:50:15.290Z og:title: How to Use Body Language to Become More Confident og:description: 'Don’t fake it ’til you make it. Fake it 'til you become it' og:url: https://time.com/4305165/amy-cuddy-body-language-confidence-2/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt66d66c9639fd5860/6988905e196cf4055603b531/confident-body-pose.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5197 og:image:height: 2923 og:image:alt: confident-body-pose og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How to Use Body Language to Become More Confident twitter:description: 'Don’t fake it ’til you make it. Fake it 'til you become it' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt66d66c9639fd5860/6988905e196cf4055603b531/confident-body-pose.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How to Use Body Language to Become More Confident > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=6d62c242-17c2-41ce-a931-972971c1616d&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Game Changer: Amy Cuddy, Power Poser [Watch (HLS stream): Game Changer: Amy Cuddy, Power Poser](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/ZUGEf6U2.m3u8) (5:58)  _Published 2012-03-19. Using a few simple tweaks to body language, Harvard researcher Amy Cuddy discovers ways to help people become more powerful_ by [Shane Parrish/Farnam St](https://time.com/author/shane-parrish/) ## Shane Parrish/Farnam St Apr 22, 2016 7:30 PM UTC Using a few simple tweaks to body language, Harvard researcher Amy Cuddy discovers ways to help people become more powerful by [Shane Parrish/Farnam St](https://time.com/author/shane-parrish/) ## Shane Parrish/Farnam St Apr 22, 2016 7:30 PM UTC We all pretty much know that our mood is reflected in our body language. When you think of somewhat lacking confidence or lacking enthusiasm, a common mental image comes to mind, and research has shown it to be about right: Hunching, smallness, droopiness, etc. This seems obviously and intuitively true. Unsurprisingly, our cousins in the animal kingdom are similar in their displays of body language. In her book [_Presence_](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316256579/ref=as%5Fli%5Fqf%5Fsp%5Fasin%5Fil%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0316256579&linkCode=as2&tag=farnamstreet-20&linkId=REDQFDY5K4Q26ZMP), Harvard psychologist **Amy Cuddy** has an interesting section on the study of body language in animals–which is in many ways much simpler to do because primates and snakes, lacking the same theories of mind as humans, don’t really fake their body language. --- > “” --- So we’re not alone: body language is a key indicator across the animal kingdom. But the more interesting question is the inversion of that idea: Can we manipulate our minds by altering our body language? Can we actually “fake it” ’til we “make it”? Amy Cuddy seems to think so, but she has something to add. Cuddy gave her first [TED talk](https://www.ted.com/talks/amy%5Fcuddy%5Fyour%5Fbody%5Flanguage%5Fshapes%5Fwho%5Fyou%5Fare/transcript?language=en) in 2012 on body language and how it influences our interactions with others, both how we act and how others perceive us. It turned out to be a hit, with over 30 million views to date. The key idea in the speech was the “power pose” – manipulating your own body language to make yourself feel more poised and confident. Here’s a key section of the speech: --- > “” --- There are a few very interesting pieces in here. Not only are the poses of confident body language having a significant chemical effect in the “posers,” but it’s affecting their behavior in a significant way. A higher propensity to gamble stemming from increased confidence. Of course, social science has already told us fairly clearly that the latter is true: Confidence _does_ lead to a higher propensity to gamble. If the gamble remains the same (the odds are generally not favorable towards the gambler), we might call any increase in confidence in the face of the same odds a propensity towards [_over_](https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2015/04/bias-from-overconfidence/)[\-confidence](https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2015/04/bias-from-overconfidence/). (And of course, confidence has a host of _positive_effects on decision making as well, like less dithering.) So changing body language can actually cause us to make more _mistakes_ if we’re operating in the wrong realm; this is something we must stay on guard against. **Is this a situation where great confidence is warranted and desired?** **Join over 60,000 readers and get a free weekly update via email** [**here**](http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/newsletter/)**.** Cuddy’s main point is that there real practical effects to manipulating our body language: We really can influence perception. In one experiment, some interviewees were directed to do “power posing” before an interview, whereas others we not. Upon seeing the videos of both, a group of third-party observers — unaware that one group had been posing and another had not, and in fact had no idea the aims of the study — wanted to hire the high-power posers: --- > “” --- In her book, Cuddy says this is not because we’re fooling them into believing we’re more confident than we really are. It’s because we’re fooling ourselves _out_ of our own **lack** of self-confidence. What the interviewer sees is real. Inauthenticity is too noticeable; it usually backfires. --- > “” --- Cuddy concludes her book by bringing in a theory of “Self-nudging” – manipulating our own body language to get ourselves in the right frame of mind, where we can be authentically present and comfortable in our skin. So, can we “fake it til we make it?” Sure, but go one step further. --- > “” --- **_This piece originally appeared on_** [**_Farnam Street_**](https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2016/01/amy-cuddy-body-language/)**_._** ## Transcript [00:00] Power is expressed through these highly specific, [00:03] evolved, nonverbal displays. [ MUSIC ] I think it's [00:07] interesting to look at images of Obama where he will [00:10] be leaning back with his feet up on his desk, and, you [00:13] know, really spread out, when he's sort of in his own [00:15] space. Powerlessness, on the other hand, is expressed [00:19] through the very opposite nonverbal displays. When [00:22] that comes to mind is an image of Michelle Obama on [00:26] the cover of Vogue where she's all sort of crossed up [00:29] in making herself really small, which to me doesn't [00:32] even fit her, it doesn't suit her. [ MUSIC ] [00:38] I'm Amy Cuddy and I'm a social psychologist and [00:41] Professor Harvard Business School. [ MUSIC ] My main [00:45] collaborator in this research, Dana Carney, and I we're [00:49] having a conversation after teaching MBA students at [00:52] two different schools. One of the things that we noticed [00:54] was that the students who were participating a lot had [00:57] different body language from the students who were [00:59] not participating a lot. Who intended to be women [01:03] and non- white men. What we were really interested in [01:07] knowing was whether or not you could change their [01:10] body language and actually change the way they felt [01:13] and behaved. Testosterone is known [01:18] as the dominance hormone. It's associated with [01:21] confidence and assertiveness. Cortisol, on the other [01:24] hand, is known as the stress hormone, and that's [01:26] associated with an inability to adapt in highly stressful [01:31] situations. [ MUSIC ] [01:34] People looking at primate hierarchies notice that of [01:38] one member of the hierarchy becomes more powerful. [01:42] Within a short period of time that members [01:46] testosterone level rises and his cortisol level drops. [01:50] So, we started wondering if you pose as if you have [01:53] power, will your body and your mind change in a way [01:57] that looks as if you have power? So in short we're really [02:00] asking, you know, can you fake it till you make it. So to [02:04] test the predictions, we had people come into the lab [02:07] we took a saliva sample to get their baseline hormone [02:10] levels. After that we randomly assigned them to one of [02:13] two conditions. [ MUSIC ] It was a high- power- pose [02:16] condition or a low- power- pose condition. So what we [02:18] found was that after just two minutes of high- power [02:22] posing or low- power posing. You get these changes in [02:25] testosterone, cortisol, and risk- taking behavior in [02:28] ways that are consistent With actually having power in [02:31] the real world. [ SOUND ] The lab is set up [02:36] for psychophysiologicall studies. So we're measuring [02:39] things like heart and respiratory rate in addition to the [02:42] hormone measures. [ SOUND ] [02:47] What we know is that sitting or standing in these high [02:50] power poses causes these changes that are consistent [02:53] with having power. What we want to know now is how [02:57] far does that go outside the lab? You know, what can [03:00] you do with that? Where can you take that? Greed, for [03:02] lack of a better word, is [03:06] good. Greed is right. What we were interested [03:11] in is not turning Gordon Gekkos into bigger Gordon [03:15] Gekkos. What we were interested in. Were these [03:18] students who are sitting quietly? Even if they were [03:21] really smart but lacking the confidence to really get in [03:24] there. And we knew that would be a problem for them, [03:26] not only in the classroom but after they leave school in [03:29] job interviews, leading team meeting, just sort of in life [03:33] in general. [ MUSIC ] If you think about what people are [03:36] doing before a job interview, what you picture, [03:39] probably, is somebody sitting in the chair and they're [03:43] sort of hunching over their iPhone or their BlackBerry. [03:45] And they're making themselves small. What we're [03:47] finding so far, and this is ongoing research, is that the [03:51] people who sit. [ MUSIC ] Or stand in these high [03:53] powered poses for just a couple minutes. They're [03:55] evaluated more positively overall. And they're more [03:59] likely to get the job. So you can go ahead and put your [04:02] hands behind your head like this. People st, started [04:05] asking us, are you recommending that we just, you [04:07] know, put our feet up on our desk and our hands [04:09] behind our heads, and we're in a job interview? We [04:11] weren't recommending any of those things. You know, [04:13] this was not about what you do during the interaction, [04:15] this is what you do before the interaction. They should [04:18] be finding a space, even if it's a bathroom stall, to [04:21] expand and make themselves as big as possible. Walk [04:24] up and down the hallways swinging your arms, stand [04:26] on your toes. [ SOUND ]. I've [04:32] heard from a World- Class Violinist, who now [04:36] power- poses before he performs and he says it's [04:38] dramatically improved his performances. [ MUSIC ] [04:43] I've heard from an older person, a retiree who [04:47] uses power poses before she goes into talk to her [04:50] doctor. I, I can't believe the range of applications. I'm [04:54] learning so much. [ MUSIC ] [04:58] When I was 19, I was in a really bad car accident and [05:01] had a very serious brain injury. I had doctors telling [05:04] me, you probably aren't gonna finish college. [ MUSIC ] [05:08] The neuropsy testing was sort of suggesting the same [05:10] thing, that I had lost IQ points, you know, significant [05:14] percentage of my IQ points. And I finally decided that [05:19] the doctors were just wrong I didn't have to accept [05:22] things as they appeared to be. So I think it's that same [05:26] irrational and stubborn optimist in me that led me to [05:30] belive that you could make this kind of change This is [05:34] a really tiny tweak. This is something so small that you [05:38] can change and get a pretty big effect. I mean we [05:41] don't know how long it lasts, but it's a big effect. What [05:44] are the other tiny tweaks that you can make that can [05:48] change and improve your life, and other people's lives? ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4305165/amy-cuddy-body-language-confidence-2/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4305165/amy-cuddy-body-language-confidence-2/"},"headline":"How to Use Body Language to Become More Confident","datePublished":"2016-04-22T19:30:04.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-05T08:50:15.290Z","description":"'Don’t fake it ’til you make it. 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