麻豆传媒

JOHN BARGH may be a professor at Yale, but even he occasionally needs to pump himself up before facing a lecture hall full of students. 鈥淚鈥檒l sometimes listen to Led Zeppelin,鈥� he says. 鈥淲hen you have a performance situation and you have to get psyched, music is great.鈥�

Confidence is something we tend to regard as coming from within, but Bargh, a social psychologist, is one of many researching how subtle influences 鈥� from music to how we walk 鈥� can affect it. It鈥檚 an idea that has grabbed the public imagination: a lecture by Amy Cuddy of the Harvard Business School, entitled 鈥淵our body language shapes who you are鈥�, is the second most watched TED talk ever, with over 32 million views and counting. Cuddy recommends striking superhero-style 鈥減ower poses鈥� to buoy self-assurance in advance of high-stakes situations: her research suggests that doing this can improve performance significantly.

Not everyone may feel comfortable adopting a Superman stance, but nonetheless the appeal of 鈥渇ake it till you make it鈥� is obvious. Who wouldn鈥檛 want to vanquish self-doubt by straightening their back? The question is whether it really works. 鈥淵ou cannot trick your brain into thinking you are actually physically strong and big when in reality you might not be,鈥� says Joseph Cesario, a psychologist at Michigan State University in East Lansing. So who鈥檚 right, and are there really secrets to confidence?

Body over mind

It has long been thought that everything we think, feel and do comes from the mind 鈥� the font of a fully conscious and largely immutable personality. But since the 1970s, psychologists have been exploring how various stimuli might unconsciously influence our thoughts, emotions and actions, shaping us without our even knowing. Over the years, researchers have identified a slew of examples. , for instance, apparently makes them more eager to take part in a lottery.

And it鈥檚 not just words that may have an effect. One notable study by Bargh suggested that makes people more likely to judge others as warm. Similar recent research has hinted that , eating sweet things can make people take a , and donning a doctor鈥檚 coat may make people .

But the field is not without controversy. In recent years, high-profile studies have been criticised as being not replicable, including one by Bargh that found people slowed their walking pace after hearing words associated with the elderly, such as 鈥渂ingo鈥� and 鈥淔lorida鈥�. But researchers have succeeded in replicating some important findings, and they seem to suggest that we may be shaped by our environment and bodily attitude much more than we imagine.

Confidence is a natural focus for this sort of research. It can have an : the Ancient Greeks invented the word hubris for a reason, and studies have shown, for example, that . But in many important situations, such as public appearances and academic assessments, confidence can affect performance no matter how skilled the person is to begin with.

This phenomenon was highlighted in the mid-1990s in well-known experiments by Claude Steele, now at the University of California, Berkeley. He found that African Americans performed less well on a test when it was billed as a measure of intellectual ability. He called it 鈥渟tereotype threat鈥�, hypothesising that simply mentioning intelligence in the test-takers鈥� minds about themselves, namely that they are less academically able. Other groups seem susceptible to similar dynamics. .

Steele鈥檚 studies show how we can be subconsciously susceptible to influences that are pervasive in society, creating hurdles that some groups may have to overcome. But if subconscious cues can hurt performance, can they be used to help it too? In a 2013 paper, social psychologist Ioana Latu, then at the University of Neuch芒tel in Switzerland, and colleagues recruited about 150 male and female students to give a speech in front of a virtual audience. They found that men spoke longer 鈥� a standard indicator of confidence 鈥� and were rated more highly by an independent panel. But the researchers tweaked the experiment for some participants by putting a photo of either Hillary Clinton, Angela Merkel or Bill Clinton in the back of the virtual auditorium. It made no difference to the men, which Latu speculates could be because people in powerful positions, as men have often traditionally been, may be less influenced by outside information. But it made a difference to the women: the and were rated more highly when exposed to the images of Merkel or Hillary Clinton. 鈥淭he gender performance gap disappeared in the presence of the female role models,鈥� says Latu.

鈥淲omen speakers were rated higher if female role models were present鈥�

Why should these stimuli, and the state of mind they impart, be powerful? One answer might lie deep in our social primate minds. Having a low social status makes us worry, and worrying takes up cognitive capacity. That鈥檚 behind Steele鈥檚 theory of stereotype threat. 鈥淲e are so anxious not to confirm the stereotype that we end up confirming it because we do not have enough cognitive capacity to put into the task,鈥� says Latu.

People who have low status, whether among friends or at work, must constantly monitor the highly ranked members of their group and respond to their actions. This additional cognitive burden makes it more difficult for them to stay focused on personal goals and planning. Almost everyone is susceptible to this: studies have shown you can manipulate how well people do on a task just by making them a 鈥渟uperior鈥� , or by exposing them to disempowering words like 鈥渙bey鈥�. Feeling empowered, by contrast, makes people more .

As you might suspect, there can be downsides to social power 鈥� it may drain away empathy and make people . But in many situations, power-related traits might help performance by making people more likely to , and or negotiations.

Accept this at face value, and the question becomes one of how people can achieve that sense of confidence. Recent work suggests it鈥檚 not just about studying hard or improving skills. It may also involve less obvious things.

Primed for power

One of those is our bodies. Cuddy鈥檚 research, for example, found that people who prepared for a speech by standing with hands on their hips and shoulders thrown back from evaluators. She also found that people who adopt more , which boosts motivation and risk-taking, whereas those that take up insecure poses produce more of the stress hormone cortisol. And Johannes Michalak at the University of Hildesheim in Germany, has shown that depressed people sitting in a from a list than those asked to sit up straight.

There are yet other ways of manipulating confidence. Joris Lammers of the University of Cologne in Germany, for example, has found that people who were made to write about a time when they felt powerful before going for a mock business school interview were by independent judges than those who wrote nothing. The worst performers were those who wrote about a time when they felt powerless.

A recent study suggests why these sorts of exercises might work. Researchers at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, scanned the brains of 24 women during a maths test after putting them through a written exercise similar to that used by Lammers, reinforced by a role-playing task that gave them a high or low social role. Compared with those primed to feel disempowered, women who had been put in a powerful state of mind not only scored better on the test but rather than cognitive interference.

It would be natural to hope that making people aware of these findings might help to redress inequalities and perhaps even provide a magic bullet for improving performance. But questions remain about how effective these various techniques really are and how long any benefit lasts. Michalak warns against jumping to conclusions. 鈥淭he effect would be relatively short,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut if you can train patients to change their posture or way of moving, I think it can have a more lasting effect.鈥�

There鈥檚 another potential pitfall. Participants in psychological studies aren鈥檛 aware of what outcomes the researchers are interested in 鈥� they don鈥檛 know that they are being primed. This is a potential hurdle for people who want to prime themselves. 鈥淲hen a person does it intentionally and with awareness, that is a different process to how it happens naturally 鈥� kind of like a tennis player consciously trying to do everything right on their serve and having it all fall apart,鈥� Bargh says.

Some have questioned how big an effect body language really has. In a 2013 study, Cesario and Melissa McDonald, also at Michigan State, looked at whether people鈥檚 behaviour in a gambling game was more influenced by posture or the situation they imagined themselves in. They asked undergraduates to adopt a typical power pose: standing at the head of a table, with head upright. Then they had them envision a scenario in which they were either in charge (an executive at their desk) or submissive (being frisked by the police). Other students imagined the same scenarios while in a submissive posture.

Cultural taboos

The researchers found that those who imagined scenarios of power took more gambling risks, while those who imagined they were submissive were more cautious. . The upshot, according to Cesario, is that context matters: if you鈥檙e lower on the social totem pole, no amount of power posing is going to make you forget it.

There are also potential cultural barriers. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 picture people I know from Korea feeling comfortable doing these poses,鈥� says Korean-born Lora Park of the University at Buffalo in New York.

To look at the , Park asked American and East Asian students to adopt three expansive positions: hands-spread-on-desk, sitting upright and feet-on-desk. All the students demonstrated a greater sense of power in the first two positions. The third, however, was a step too far for the East Asian students. 鈥淭he expansive feet-on-desk posture was perceived as being the most violating of East Asian norms of collectivism and modesty,鈥� Park says.

Intangible and often ephemeral, confidence is clearly a complicated thing. Grasp at it, and it may disappear. Harness it, and you may overstep the mark. Unravelling its secrets might help to right some of society鈥檚 wrongs. In the meantime, it may simply be worth considering how subtle influences shape how you feel about yourself. Park鈥檚 advice on the subject is simple: 鈥淪tand tall but don鈥檛 put your feet up.鈥�

Read more: 鈥�How to hack your confidence鈥�

All about that bass

From Serena Williams to Michael Phelps, athletes across sports share one ritual: pumping themselves up with music before a race or match. But which type of music is best? Dennis Hsu, a self-styled 鈥渟ports geek鈥� at the University of Hong Kong, wanted to find out.

He and his colleagues selected 31 pieces of music from genres including heavy metal, punk, reggae and hip hop. They then had undergraduates listen to excerpts and rate how powerful, dominant and determined each made them feel.

The students rated We Will Rock You (Queen), Get Ready for This (2 Unlimited) and In Da Club (50 Cent) as the most empowering. Least empowering were Because We Can (Fatboy Slim), Who Let the Dogs Out (Baha Men), and Big Poppa (The Notorious B.I.G.).

Those tunes reflect a range of genres, so what was it about them that had an effect? The researchers suspected the . They found that raising its level made participants feel more empowered; lowering it had the opposite effect. 鈥淲ith bass, people hear power and dominance,鈥� Hsu says.

It鈥檚 important to use music sparingly, however. 鈥淭he easiest analogy is coffee,鈥� he says. 鈥淵our first drink has a strong effect, but if you keep drinking you need more to have the same effect.鈥�

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淶ero to hero鈥�