What Is Body Language?

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In 2010, Amy Cuddy and two other authors published a research study that suggested that if you stood confidently, with your hands on your hips like Wonder Woman, you would actually transform your mental state by increasing testosterone and decreasing cortisol. Her TED talk of 2012, “Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are,” which has gained more than 77 million views so far, took the idea a little further, saying that while body language indicates to other people how we feel, specifically how powerful we seem, our own body language also suggests to ourselves how powerful we are. She asked the question, could you fake it until you make it? And the talk concludes with a touching story about, as Amy says, “faking it until you become it.”

That initial widespread notice brought about a reaction — other researchers failed to find the same result in terms of hormonal changes. Everyone did agree, however, that if standing confidently made........

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