Increase Risk Tolerance Through Posture
When our parents told us to stand up straight they were doing a lot more for us than staving off crooked spine syndrome, they were empowering us to take risk. Who knew?
For the record, I despise the phrase ‘fake it, until you make it’. I hate the idea that if you act a certain way, eventually it becomes true. If you are depressed, act happy and eventually you will be happy. Or your natural cycle catches up to your act. I’m certain there is truth to it, but it feels wrong to me. Here is a case where science backs up the phrase. Those people who hold ‘power poses’ register an increase in testosterone and an increased ability to take risk.
The full research conducted by Amy J.C. Cuddy at the Harvard Business School entitled Power Posing: Fake It Until You Make It covers the process by which the research was conducted. The part that intrigued me the most is the part relating to the ability to take risk. Here is a notable selection from the research article, the emphasis is mine.
Subjects in the high-power group were manipulated into two expansive poses for one minute each: first, the classic feet on desk, hands behind head; then, standing and leaning on one’s hands over a desk. Those in the low-power group were posed for the time period in two restrictive poses: sitting in a chair with arms held close and hands folded, and standing with arms and legs crossed tightly. Saliva samples taken before and after the posing measured testosterone and cortisol levels. To evaluate risk tolerance, participants were given $2 and told they could roll a die for even odds of winning $4. Finally, participants were asked to indicate how “powerful” and “in charge” they felt on a scale from one to four.
Controlling for subjects’ baseline levels of both hormones, Cuddy and her coauthors found that high-power poses decreased cortisol by about 25 percent and increased testosterone by about 19 percent for both men and women. In contrast, low-power poses increased cortisol about 17 percent and decreased testosterone about 10 percent.
Not surprisingly, high-power posers of both sexes also reported greater feelings of being powerful and in charge. In addition, those in the high-power group were more likely to take the risk of gambling their $2; 86 percent rolled the die in the high-power group as opposed to 60 percent of the low-power posers.
How we hold ourselves says a lot about who we are. When we are in power, we need to assume a certain posture to non-verbally tell others we are the ones in charge. Over all the millennia of evolution we can confuse the cause and effect. The effect of having power is needing to hold ourselves a certain way. If we strike a power pose our brain immediately thinks ‘we are in charge’ and starts pumping the testosterone and shifting our hormones which makes us more powerful. Of course this is just my interpretation of this phenomenon.
My interpretation also allows me to slither away from the faking/making issue. If we are in a power pose, we are powerful. Try putting your feet up on your desk at work and see how many people react in a ‘get your feet off the desk’ sort of way. As soon as you are able to do it and not get a backlash, then you are powerful.
Of course I have to compare this to my normal posture in my last job which was forehead on desk, bouncing against the desk, hand in my hair as I begged the person on the phone to please reboot their computer. I really think that probably wasn’t the most powerful posture I could have been taking.
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About Sean
Sean D. Francis is a technologist, writer, and geek. He podcasts, makes video, and dabbles in all the geeky genres including horror, sci-fi, and fantasy. View all posts by Sean → This entry was posted in Thoughts and tagged risk, self improvement. Bookmark the permalink.← A Toast to the Holidays | Stand Tall, Be Bold, and Expect Good Things →
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