That Time I Tried To Be Wonder Woman
Is it true that standing with your legs apart, hands on hips, can really change your life?
Katy Waldman, Wonder Woman
Photograph by Andrew Morgan for Slate .
Body language! You are probably aware that it factors into your social, professional, and romantic relationships—even if you’re unsure exactly how. Maybe you’ve devoured articles about how to improve yours in various women’s magazines. Maybe you’ve secretly taken the advice of that body-language expert who’s always on Bill O’Reilly’s show to dissect the hand motions and neck placements of various politicians. Maybe you’ve even saved up to attend a workshop with the Date Whisperer. Or maybe you think it’s a load of bunk—I wouldn’t know unless you told me, with your body.
Of course, nonverbal communication exists. The angle of your shoulders, the tilt of your smile: All of that undoubtedly adds up to an aura, a general impression that beams off you like a radio wave. Often, the physical messages you send elude your conscious control. I know, for instance, that sometimes my body says things like “I just learned five minutes ago that Scotch comes from Scotland, ” even while my mouth is saying, “I, too, find craft distilleries quite interesting.” Surely we all would be happier if we could regulate our corporal “speech” more skillfully. But how much happier? Just how effective are particular poses at getting you what you want?
Back in November, I read about the research of Harvard Business School professor Amy Cuddy, who proposes that certain physical stances can alter the amounts of testosterone and cortisol in your body. More testosterone means, roughly, more confidence. More cortisol translates into higher stress. Cuddy found that “high power poses” increase testosterone and inhibit cortisol, while “low power poses” do the opposite. She describes the high power poses as positions that open up the torso. Think a cobra rearing and spreading its hood to the sun, or Wonder Woman with her legs apart and her hands on her hips. The wimpy poses force the body in on itself—the arms across the chest, the shoulders forward, the head and chin down—and convey submission. In a series of 2012 experiments, Cuddy discovered that people who assumed high-power poses for a few minutes before a fake job interview were more likely to win over judges watching a videotape of the encounter. Regardless of what they actually said, these candidates radiated presence and personality—and that got them fake hired, whereas people who adopted neutral or low power poses before the interview earned only middling scores from the judges.
Naturally, Cuddy’s findings made us want to conduct our own experiment. The women of Slate brainstormed three situations in which some extra confidence might be a good thing, and I attempted to Wonder Woman the crap out of them. Results below.
The Dating Scene:
A friend and I made plans to meet at 9:00 p.m. at a popular bar in Adams Morgan. I arrived a bit early, which gave me some time to stand outside the entrance with my fists planted on my hips and my legs spread. I did not, in fact, feel powerful. I felt silly. So I walked around to the side of the bar, where I had a slimmer chance of being observed, and tried again. No discernible testosterone cascades, but after a few minutes a sediment of calm did begin to settle in my chest. I also noticed that I was getting tired from holding the power pose.
When I went inside, a greeter was stationed in the doorway, and perhaps I was more gregarious with him then I might otherwise have been. We bantered, coruscatingly, about whether he planned to ask for my ID (“No, I’m just the greeter”) and whether the upper floor experience merited the steep climb upstairs. When I traipsed up to explore, a second man blocked my ingress.
Man: May I see your ID, please?
Me (calm, clear voice as I prepared to lie): I’m afraid I don’t have it with me. But I was born in December of 1987. I’ve been of legal drinking age for six years.
Me: Um, OK. Here it is.
So, confidence. Not an acceptable alternative to a government-issued form of identification. But is that really so surprising? A few minutes later my friend arrived, and after I refreshed my testosterone levels with a quick Wonder Woman in the bathroom, we moved toward the bar.
Then what? I wish I could report I became a dervish of voluble charm, causing men to fall at my feet as I expertly and self-assuredly broadcast “presence and personality.” But the night swung toward situation-normal: a few fun but meaningless conversations with the patrons nearby, two free drinks, no numbers. Maybe I did a better job overcoming my usual shyness—in the past, I’ve been nervous about chatting up new people—but I attribute that more to my friend’s easy extraversion and, perhaps, the alcohol. So far, I couldn’t conclude that Cuddy’s empowering body language had delivered any real results.
Customer Service Encounter:
Maybe I just needed to find the right context, to situate my Amazon warrior queen in a more promising matrix of social give-and-take. To the dry cleaners!
“We’ll have this ready for you in three days, ” chirped the youngish lady behind the counter, running her finger over a smudge on my shirt’s sleeve.
“Would it be possible to pick up the cleaning any sooner?” I asked.
“I’m sorry, ” the woman replied politely, “but we’re very busy this week, with the holidays approaching. A lot of people are dropping off their nice clothes.”
“Ah, ” I said. And then: “Could you hold on one moment? I need to make a phone call.”
Of course, I did not need to make a phone call. I needed to go outside, assume the Wonder Woman pose for 90 seconds, and then bend this uncooperative dry cleaning operative to my will.
肢体语言会影响你的自信吗？
那个时候我努力成为神奇女郎
肢体语言！你可能意识到它已经深入到你的社会生活、职场打拼和情感交际--即使你不确定是以何种方式。或许你已经将各色各样女性杂志上关于如何改善你自己的文章津津有味地读了个遍。或许你已经秘密地听取了那些经常在比尔?赖利节目上剖析各种政治场合官员的手部动作和颈部位置的肢体语言的专家的建议。或许你甚至存钱和约会告密者参加专题研讨会。亦或许你认为那就是一堆废话--我不会知道除非你告诉我通过你的身体。
当然，存在不用言辞表达的交流。你肩膀的角度，微笑的弧度；所有的那些，毫无疑问，都会为气氛增色，一个普通的表情能从你脸上像无线电波一样发射。经常地，你所发出的肢体信息都逃过了你有意的控制。我知道，比如说，有时候我的身体表达说“五分钟前我刚刚知道苏格兰威士忌来自于苏格兰，”然而我的嘴里却在说，“我也是刚发现工艺酿酒厂真有趣。”当然我们会更高兴如果我们可以将身体语言表达地更巧妙。但是会有多高兴？特别的伪装如何有效地得到你所想要的？
回望11月，我读了哈佛商学院教授艾米?卡迪的一份研究，文中提出特定的身体姿势可以改变你身体里的睾丸素和皮质醇分泌数量。更多的睾丸素意味着，粗略的说，更加自信。更多的皮质醇则是更高的压力。卡迪发现“高功率姿势”增加睾丸素，抑制皮质醇，而“低功率姿势”则产生相反的效果。她描述道高功姿势率能产生使人奋发的功效，想想饲养的一条眼镜蛇，扩展它的的风帽对着太阳，或者是一位神奇女郎两腿分开站立，双手插在腰间。懦弱阻挡了身体自身的力量--双手抱胸，肩膀向前，头部低下--表达谦恭。在2012年一系列的实验中，卡迪发现那些在假求职面试之前，用几分钟采用高功率姿势更有可能赢得二次评审的机会。不管他们到底说了什么，这些候选人所显露出的风度和个性使他们被雇佣了，然而那些在面试之前毫不作为或采用低功率姿势只能得到平平常常的分数。自然地，卡迪的发现使我们想要实施自己的实验。在斯莱特之女性头脑风暴的三种情形中，拥有一些额外的信心可能是好事，并且我试图成为神奇女郎征服它们。结果如下。
约会场景：
一个朋友和我约定九点在亚当斯?摩根有名的酒吧见面。我来的稍微有点早，因此我两手叉腰，双腿分开地站在外面。事实上，我并没有感觉强大，我觉得愚蠢，所以我走到了酒吧的一边，在那儿不怎么会引起别人的注意，我再次尝试了一下。 没有明显的睾丸激素增加，但是几分钟之后冷静如沉淀物一般积淀在我的胸口。我也注意到我正厌倦于保持这种伪装。
当我走进去，一个招待员站在门口，或许我跟他更合的来，否则我不会这样做。我们开着玩笑，关于他是不是准备跟我要身份证（不，我只是一个招待员）和关于楼上的体验是否值得危险的尝试。当我漫步着准备去检验，另一个男人阻挡了我的前进。
男人：我可以看看你的身份证吗？
我（冷静，平和的声音就像我准备撒谎）：我恐怕没有随身携带，但是我出生在1987年的12月份，我达到法定饮酒年龄六年了。
男人：你不能进去，我需要查看一下你的身份证。
我：嗯，好吧，在这儿。
所以，自信的。没有一个可以替代政府所颁发的身份证明。但是那真的如此令人惊讶吗？几分钟后我的朋友到了，当我在洗手间里如同一个神奇女郎快速地刷新了我的睾酮水平之后，我和朋友走向了酒吧。
然后怎么了？我希望我可以报告我成为苦行僧的健谈的魅力，让男人们拜倒在我的脚下因我广为传播的巧妙而自信般的风度和个性。但是夜晚又恢复正常：一些和附近的顾客有趣而无意义的交谈，两杯免费饮料，数不胜数。或许我很好的克服了我平时的羞怯--在过去，我因与陌生人交谈而感到紧张--但是我把此更多地归功于我朋友的大方外向，或许，酒也起了一定的作用。到目前为止，我还不能证实卡迪的强大身体语言有什么实质性效果。
客户服务：
或许我只需要找到合适的环境使我的亚马孙勇士女王处于更有前途的社会妥协互让的矩阵之中。致干洗工！
“我们会在三天内为你处理好这些”柜台后年轻的女士叽叽喳喳地说道，她的手指在我衬衫的污迹上来回摆弄。
“我能早点来拿干净的衣服吗”我问道。
“对不起”这位女士客气地说，“因为假期临近，很多人都把他们高档的衣服送来干洗，所以我们这周会很忙。”
“啊，”我说，“你能等一会儿吗，我要去打个电话。”
当然，我并不需要打电话，我只是想出去，试想那位神奇女郎装模作样了90秒，最终屈服于按照我的意愿来进行这项不合作的干洗。
一分半钟之后，我大步走回了商店放置我衬衫的柜台处，认为这是合法的权利。我声明道“我讨厌成为麻烦，但是这件衬衫今晚必须洗干净，有什么方法能使它及时地解决。”
她不解地看着我，感觉非常的反感，我继续说道：“我知道你们通常不提供当天服务，但这真的很紧急.”
后来，奇迹发生了。这位干洗女工给了我一个不怀好意的微笑。“如果这真的很紧急，”她说，“今天下午就可以准备好。”
成功！（如果成功是得到你所想要的，很明显这就是！）
办公室：
前面两个场景只是重要部分的前奏：人与人之间的竞技加上最高的赌注才是最中肯的卡迪实验。只是想想就使我的手心冒汗，我准备向我的老板请求提工资。
在她的书《男性的终结》里，汉娜?罗森论述想把男性踢出工作场地的女性所处于的微妙困境。不像她们的男性同事，职业女性不会因坚持不懈或有进取心而获得赞誉。相反，她们有可能因主张自我而受到惩罚：罗森调动了我们对现实生活中的神奇女郎下意识厌恶的搐动。然而女性员工犹豫太多只会加强秘书刻板的印象，不能为时机扫除障碍，错过了那些自然降临于人生的机会。一个伪装的姿势会有所帮助吗？
我发送了一封邮件给Big Kahuna请求就我新一年的工资与他见一面谈谈。我想他应该会回信息提议一个时间，这样我就可以提前准备好我的神奇女郎姿态。但是他只是在他回办公室的路上停在我的桌前，说：“现在怎么样？”可能因为他是一个代理上司又可能是因为他知道最好不要给我们员工任何时间去准备。
“当然可以！”我热情地回答道，心中有点恐慌。我跟随着他，穿过长廊，一路上我的手都紧贴臀部，肩膀也没有巧妙地打开，祈祷着他不会转身看见我像傻子似的移动。悠闲的路程大概花了半分钟。是不是我的神经末端清空了突触的睾丸酮，酶化了我大部分的皮质醇？很难说：这是我的第一次工资谈判，我不知道没有了伪装我会怎么样。但是当我坐在他的办公室里，我轻轻地挺了挺胸。为了获得额外的能量，我采取了一个不太明显的有效姿态--双腿微微分开，下巴抬起，身体前驱。关键在于显露镇静而不自大；如果我能够那样做，我就是，他们所说的， 在谈判。
总之，他说了一个数字,我热情地点点头，无论他打喷嚏，或是给我一个游艇，甚至是降我的级我都会做的一个动作。确认之后，我们到达了会议的谈判阶段（我：“这是我谈判的部分吗？”他：“这是你努力的部分。”），我提了一个更高的数字。然后我们又谈了一会儿，最终把工资敲定在两个数之间。不熟悉工作中外交手段的黑暗艺术，听到这些，应该会很惊讶，但是这次谈话显露了一些偏离--如果只是轻微的话，我情不自禁地怀疑是被神奇女郎的姿态教唆的。
当然，任何那个下午我在我身上察觉到的额外的自信只能够简单地反映安慰效应。或许这个秘密，身体语言的内部功效本身就是明显的胡说。然而，我在突然地情况下暂时采取的高功率姿势态，请求老板给予比最初的工资更高的薪水。发生的一些事缓解了我的紧张，将我重新定义地更加大胆，更加爽快，更加果断。那种感觉不可思议。我敢说--是美妙的。
