A good video on body language, non-verbal communication, and improving yourself

November 13, 2012 by Joshua
in Awareness, Blog, Tips

This TED talk on body language covers several things I cover in my seminar. I recommend watching it.

The speaker is Amy Cuddy. From Wikipedia

Amy J. C. Cuddy is an American social psychologist known for her studies of the relations between stereotyping and behavior. She is Associate Professor in the Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit at Harvard Business School.

Cuddy studies the origins and outcomes of how people judge and influence each other. She has conducted experimental and correlational research on stereotyping and discrimination against various groups (e.g., Asian Americans, elderly people, Latinos, working mothers), the causes and consequences of feeling ambivalent emotions (e.g., envy and pity), nonverbal behavior and communication, and hormonal responses to social stimuli. Amy Cuddy was listed #1 in Time Magazine’s list of “Game Changers, …innovators and problem-solvers that are inspiring change in America”.

She talks about how we perceive and communicate nonverbally to others and ourselves, how we can influence others and ourselves deliberately, effects of changing our behavior, and more.

She also talks about the concept of faking it until you make it, a strategy I find tremendously effective. I also find the opposite of that strategy — not changing yourself because you feel fake — one of the biggest impediments to improving yourself. She tells an anecdote on a case where it worked well.

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