Amy Cuddy was involved in a serious car accident when she was a student, and doctors believed that she would not be able to complete college. But Cuddy prevailed, and that experience taught her a lot about persistence. Now she is a professor and social psychologist at Harvard Business School.
The challenges that Cuddy faced when she was a student have made her keenly aware of her own students' attitudes and feelings. In her classes, she observed important differences between the body language of male and female MBA students, the the implications those differences had on student success rate.
These observations led her to research power dynamics based on non-verbal communication - how we judge others and how we are judged without saying a word. Cuddy's work caught the public's attention. Her TED Talk has been viewed more than 20 million times.
Provide a short written response to the following questions.
1. What happened to Cuddy when she was a college student?
2. What did she notice at Harvard Business School?
3. Why do you think Cuddy's TED Talk has been so popular?
The challenges that Cuddy faced when she was a student have made her keenly aware of her own students' attitudes and feelings. In her classes, she observed important differences between the body language of male and female MBA students, the the implications those differences had on student success rate.
These observations led her to research power dynamics based on non-verbal communication - how we judge others and how we are judged without saying a word. Cuddy's work caught the public's attention. Her TED Talk has been viewed more than 20 million times.
Provide a short written response to the following questions.
1. What happened to Cuddy when she was a college student?
2. What did she notice at Harvard Business School?
3. Why do you think Cuddy's TED Talk has been so popular?
Project
A. Work in groups. You are going to recreate Cuddy's experiment with low and high-power poses.
1. In your group, prepare a short presentation about Cuddy's research.
2. Choose someone to be the judge. The judge should leave the room. Two students practice high-power poses. The two other students practice low-power poses.
3. Ask the judge to come back. Each student gives his or her presentation prepared in step 1.
4. The judge decides who did the high-power and lower power poses.
B. As a class, discuss the results of the experiment. Use the questions below and think of your own questions.
Explore
Find out about the differences in nonverbal communication between various cultures. Is body language the same from culture to culture? Or can you find some important differences? What are the similarities and differences?
A. Work in groups. You are going to recreate Cuddy's experiment with low and high-power poses.
1. In your group, prepare a short presentation about Cuddy's research.
2. Choose someone to be the judge. The judge should leave the room. Two students practice high-power poses. The two other students practice low-power poses.
3. Ask the judge to come back. Each student gives his or her presentation prepared in step 1.
4. The judge decides who did the high-power and lower power poses.
B. As a class, discuss the results of the experiment. Use the questions below and think of your own questions.
- Were the judges correct
- Did the lower-power posers feel less confident.
- Did the higher-power posers feel more confident.
Explore
Find out about the differences in nonverbal communication between various cultures. Is body language the same from culture to culture? Or can you find some important differences? What are the similarities and differences?