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The secrets of body language

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Re: The secrets of body language

#81

Post by newman314 »

Evbn wrote: post #79
pfarrell wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you are unconsciously responding to the "power move"? I had a boss who would routinely show up late to sales calls _we_ were making. We were the salesmen; we'd show up 10 minutes late. He said it was classic power strategy. Make them think they're waiting on you. I was pissed, back then. Today, I'm less incredulous and wonder if he was on to something.

It is a classic gimmick that salespeople do to convince themselves that they have a special skill beyond lying through their teeth at a customer.

Nah, he was likely just an asshole.

Re: The secrets of body language

#82

Post by Evbn »

everyone wrote: post #65

The title of this is complete bullshit! Did the writer actually read the study hes referencing? One of the conclusions is that crossed arms is meaningless!

Which gets more clicks: spreading a rumor or refuting it?

Link bait is a classic "power pose".

Re: The secrets of body language

#83

Post by mamoswined »

zeteo wrote: post #73
mamoswined wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the perspective of primate social structures, the "low power" poses are incredibly important. For a male chimpanzee who doesn't have the physical strength or social clout to defend himself, adopting a submissive posture in the presence of higher ranking male can mean the difference between being tolerated and being beaten up. In a modern environment, I would hope that your boss would not beat you up for adopting…

Crouching, having your arms crossed etc. doesn't mean "don't beat me up". Sure, you might not be completely confident, but there's a long way from there to submissive. And, as I mentioned above, is it necessarily such a good social signal to fake confidence all the time?

I was discussing their possible evolutionary origins. Hopefully being beaten up is not a possibility in your meetings, but we evolved in an environment where it was until very recently. The whole point of the original article is that such behavior is often unconscious.

Crossed arms is an interesting case because I don't think it's a submissive behavior in other primates. It probably is more indicative of boredom, which is probably also not what you want to signal in meetings. I don't really consider myself a dominant or submissive person, but in the past I think my posture and demeanor radiated distraction and boredom. This isn't very inspiring for the rest of the team. I read an article similar to the one there that inspired me to clean up my act.

Re: The secrets of body language

#84

Post by nate »

zeteo wrote: post #66

This kind of article doesn't address the issue known as Chesterton's fence [1]. If so-called "low power" poses are so bad for you, why have they survived evolution? Why do we have such strong ingrained impulses to assume them in the first place? "Experts" need to give a very, very convincing answer to this question before urging us to abandon such poses. Anecdotally, I've often been with groups of engineers where eve…

I found this pic interesting:

http://blog.bufferapp.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Screen-...

What I've found recently is I feel like I think better when I scrunch into a position like this. I don't know why, and it's not like my own scientific study.

Maybe it's just like going into an isolated place like a shower helps me think better, this type of position seems to as well. I'll cross my arms, and even scrunch my shoulders over. It might even look like I'm in pain.

But how many times have you also seen someone say "Let me think", and they might cross one arm over their chest to hold the other arm at the elbow so that arm can rub their head and cover their eyes.

So this thesis about these poses being better for power, and confidence is interesting. But I'm curious if there's a lot of usefulness from both.

Re: The secrets of body language

#85

Post by Yourfags »

Mz wrote: post #74
zeteo wrote: post #66

This kind of article doesn't address the issue known as Chesterton's fence [1]. If so-called "low power" poses are so bad for you, why have they survived evolution? Why do we have such strong ingrained impulses to assume them in the first place? "Experts" need to give a very, very convincing answer to this question before urging us to abandon such poses. Anecdotally, I've often been with groups of engineers where eve…

I am female. My behavior is frequently interpreted by other people as extremely aggressive, attention mongering and so on. (Edit: I suspect a lot of it would be interpreted differently if I were male and it would be less of an issue.) It has gotten me loads of extremely negative attention. I have spent many years trying to learn to fly under the radar and deflect attention. This problem began very early in life with…

Are you trying to say you get a lot of attention and don't like it/can't handle it and thus you think being subordinate (low power poses0 is the answer to not being able to cope with things? Come on your argument is that if you fail at something you get burned? There's nothing truer to to life except that we're going to be uncomfortable in it for a long time, but it's easy to ignore if you choose. I understand not wanting to draw attention to yourself, that's a personal thing and a choice only you can really make, but saying "it hurts, I don't want to fly any higher" is never going to change reality, and I think it's sad that someone is posting about life is "forcing" them to do something they don't seem to want.

Re: The secrets of body language

#86

Post by Mz »

Yourfags wrote: post #85
Mz wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am female. My behavior is frequently interpreted by other people as extremely aggressive, attention mongering and so on. (Edit: I suspect a lot of it would be interpreted differently if I were male and it would be less of an issue.) It has gotten me loads of extremely negative attention. I have spent many years trying to learn to fly under the radar and deflect attention. This problem began very early in life with…

Are you trying to say you get a lot of attention and don't like it/can't handle it and thus you think being subordinate (low power poses0 is the answer to not being able to cope with things? Come on your argument is that if you fail at something you get burned? There's nothing truer to to life except that we're going to be uncomfortable in it for a long time, but it's easy to ignore if you choose. I understand not wa…

I didn't say anything like that. You can read remarks by anyone in the public eye about the fact that there is a very real downside to it. For some people the cost is more of a problem than for others. I was simply agreeing with the OP that the situation is not as cut and dried as "dominant behavior good, low status/submissive/nondominant behavior bad."

Re: The secrets of body language

#87

Post by marcosdumay »

altrego99 wrote: post #58
jjuliano wrote: post #57

I believe that we humans can also detect fake and unnatural body language. What I don't like about is when people try to be impressive and poses a fake and unnatural body language to convey a certain scenario or meaning. Body language is all about the meaning of the messages they convey and the GENUINE emotion they are experiencing. It should not be faked, for the purpose of conveying a meaning or a make believe scen…

All I can say is don't fake it. If you want to do a body language, feel it from within - instead of simply rearranging your arms and legs.

One of the pieces of research he cites (the one I've actualy read :) concludes that faking it will make it easier for you to feel it from whithin.

Re: The secrets of body language

#88

Post by thatthatis »

egypturnash wrote: post #72
kyllo wrote: post #60

This is the actual definition of "cargo cult" behavior. It's getting cause and effect backwards because you don't understand their relationship, and trying to imitate the effect in the futile hope that it will cause the cause. People who sit all relaxed like that do so because they have power. They don't have power because they sit like that, and sitting like that will not magically confer power to you.

Here's some anecdata. I took burlesque dance classes for a while. One of the things taught in this class was how to look confident, because projecting confidence is also pretty damn sexy. Curiously enough, as I started learning these postures and using them, I found myself becoming a lot more confident. This was not something anyone told me to expect; it just sort of happened. It's spread out over a lot of how I move…

Two weird feedback exploits I like:

1) smiling can lead to feeling happy 2) deep slow breathing can lead to feeling calm

Re: The secrets of body language

#90

Post by svachalek »

nostrademons wrote: post #67
felideon wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know what you mean, but given the context of a job interview, by definition[1] you are in a lower power position. I agree with sibling comments, though, that respectfulness is not mutually exclusive with alpha -ness. And if in general you are a respectful person, a high-power posture will probably not impact their opinion of your respectfulness too much. [1] Assuming you really want the job and unless you are a hot…

I've gone into every job interview I've had with the attitude that I'm a hot shot who is gracing my employer with my willingness to work for them[1]. I've gotten offers at about 50% of them, which means that I've turned down more companies than have turned down me. Confidence really does work. If you sincerely believe in your abilities, it's much easier to convince others to believe in them. [1] This is not mutually…

Interesting. Whenever I see aggressive confidence in an interviewee, I immediately think Dunning-Kruger because statistically it's by far the most likely cause. Either way it's down to empirical evidence though.

Anyway, as far as anecdotal evidence goes, I tend to intentionally give off a pretty neutral vibe and rarely worry about flunking an interview. (I chalk it up to mad skillz rather than body language though.)

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