Proof For ‘Fake It Until You Make It’!
It’s the stuff of cheesy, pop-psychology legend. ‘Fake it until you make it’! Yeah, right! Excuse me if I refuse the snake oil and select a sick bag instead. Only one problem. It seems to be true.
First there was Aristotle:
“Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way. We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.”
Then the experiences of Teddy Roosevelt and the observations of William James. And finally, Robert Greene’s power law 34 :
“Be royal in your fashion: act like a king to be treated like one.”
I’ve recently read an excellent book by Richard Wiseman called 59 Seconds: Think a little, Change a lot. In it he gives many examples of such ‘proprioceptive psychology’. Not only certain thoughts and emotions cause regular behaviours, but the causation works the other way around too! He quotes dozens of academic studies that demonstrate, among other things, that:
- the act of smiling makes you feel happier
- arm crossing increases persistence and performance
- lying down increases creativity
- increased heart rate and eye contact lead to love
In each of these cases, we’re progammed to think that the internal feelings come first, and that the body language is an expression of what already exists. Not necessarily. You – or someone else – can make these feelings occur by practising the behaviour.
I’ve found another confirmation of this in an article Power Posing: Brief Nonverbal Displays Affect NeuroendocrineLevels and Risk Tolerance. The gist of it is that those who adopt typical power poses – demonstrating expansiveness and openness – experience heightened levels of testosterone and lowered levels of cortisol. The first increases competitiveness and openness to challenge, while the second deals with stress.
Let me put it plainly. Adopting certain non-verbal communication patterns doesn’t just change how you feel. Deeper than that, it alters the chemistry of your body and brain.
IMHO that’s the real power of body language – what it does to you! How you then go on to influence other people is a secondary product of this.
Fake it until you make it. Easy on the cheese… heavy on the chemicals!
Image credit: gnuckx.
