VOA慢速英语2015 身体姿势能改变人的心理

Your Body Posture¹ Can Change Your Brain 身体姿势能改变人的心理

From VOA Learning English, this is the Health & Lifestyle report.

We have known for a long time that our body posture – the way we hold our bodies when we sit, stand or walk -- tells the world a lot about us.

People who walk with their heads bent² down can appear unsure, or not confident, about themselves. While people who walk with their shoulders back and heads held high appear confident.

But can our body posture affect the way we see ourselves? A social psychologist named Amy Cuddy believes it can. And she wants to share this information with the world.

The now-famous TED³ talk

More than 24 million people have viewed Amy Cuddy’s TED talk on power posing. It is the second most viewed TED talk in the history of all TED talks. TED is a non-profit organization with one goal: to spread ideas in the form of short talks.

The power of the “power pose” has taken on a life of its own. Ms. Cuddy speaks all over the world sharing the power of the two-minute power pose. She says her goal it to empower the powerless. 

Before facing your next stressful situation or a difficult challenge, Ms. Cuddy wants you to take two minutes to power pose. Spread your arms wide above your head as if you are winning a race.

Or, stand like the superhero Wonder Woman with hands on hips⁴ and feet shoulder-width apart. Hold these poses for at least two minutes. According to research by Ms. Cuddy and her colleagues your brain chemistry will change, giving you more confidence. 

The experiment

Amy Cuddy is a professor at Harvard Business School. Back in 2010, she became interested in male and female body language from watching students in one of her classes. She said, for the most part, the men held power poses. These students would take up a lot of physical room in the class. They would raise their hands and answer questions.

Ms. Cuddy said the female students, for the most part, did the exact opposite. They sat with their legs together and made their bodies as small as possible. They seemed unsure when they raised their hands to answer questions. 

Ms. Cuddy knew much about body language as a social scientist. Body language is what the look of our physical self communicates to others. But Professor Cuddy started to wonder what our individual body language says to our individual selves.

So, she set up an experiment with colleague Dana Carney, then a social psychologist at Columbia University. The two women wanted to know if a person’s body language affected⁵ the brain’s chemistry.

They asked 42 men and women to randomly⁷ hold high- or low-power poses. The researchers did not tell any of the participants in the experiment what they were testing. People in the high-power pose group held poses such as putting their feet on a desk with their hands behind their heads or stretching arms out wide as if winning a race.

People in the low-power group held poses such as sitting in a chair with arms held close to the body with hands folded or standing⁸ with arms and legs crossed tightly.

Both groups held the poses for two minutes. Then Ms. Cuddy and Ms. Carney tested hormone⁹ levels of the study subjects. The brain chemistry of both groups had changed.

The researchers found that two minutes of high-power posing lowered the stress hormone cortisol and increased levels of testosterone. Also, all the subjects in the high-power pose group said they felt powerful and in control after the pose. They also took more risks during the experiment.

Lower-power posing did the opposite – it raised cortisol levels and lowered testosterone levels. These low-power posers also took fewer risks during the course of the experiment. 

How do these chemicals affect the brain?

Too much cortisol interferes¹⁰ with learning and memory. High cortisol levels also increase the risk of depression and mental health problems. Testosterone, on the other hand, is the hormone linked to assertiveness¹¹ and confidence.

Ms. Cuddy, Ms. Carney and another Columbia University researcher, Andy Yap, co-wrote the 2010 study. It was published in the journal “Psychological Science.”  Ms. Cuddy and her colleagues found that body language and posture can temporarily change the chemistry of our brains.

Ms. Cuddy has said her goal for researching this subject was not to create testosterone-driven, super-competitive people. She has said that this research can have real life-changing effects on people who feel powerless – people who are healing from an illness, facing a job loss, or dealing¹² with abuse or bullying¹³.

She adds that anyone needing higher confidence levels -- from athletes and performers to people heading into a job interview -- could benefit from power posing.

Fake it ‘till you make it

Ms. Cuddy says she also wants to help people who have what some psychologists call the “imposter syndrome¹⁴.” The “imposter syndrome” is the feeling that you do not deserve to be where you are and that you will soon be discovered to be a fake, or … well, an imposter.

She knows the imposter syndrome well. 

At age 19 while in college getting her undergraduate degree, Ms. Cuddy was in a serious car accident. The accident left her with a severe brain injury.

Doctors advised her to give up her dreams of getting an advanced degree and take another path in life. She says she was always known as an intelligent girl and good student. The news was difficult to hear.

Finally, Ms. Cuddy decided¹⁵ to stay in college. She worked hard and, even though it took her four years longer than everyone else, she finally got her degree. She wanted to get her Master’s degree at Princeton University and found an advisor¹⁶ who believed in her.

But Ms. Cuddy lost her nerve. She told her advisor she wanted to quit. She felt like an imposter who was not good enough to be at Princeton. Her advisor ordered her to go to class and to just fake it. Fake it till you make it, is the expression her advisor used.

Ms. Cuddy continued “faking it,” getting more and more confident. She faked it all the way to Harvard Business School where she is now a professor. Then Ms. Cuddy simply forgot to fake it.

She forgot until one day when a female student came into her office and said she wanted to quit.

This student said she felt as if she didn’t belong. Ms. Cuddy told the girl, “You do belong!” and gave the student the “fake it ‘till you make it” speech that Ms. Cuddy’s advisor gave her all those years ago.

It was at that moment Amy Cuddy realized that finally she had made it. She no longer felt like an imposter. She had become the person she wanted to be. She has since changed the expression to “fake it ‘till you become it.”

Amy Cuddy urges people to share the information on power posing with anyone who may need to feel more powerful. It is simple, free and might be life-changing.

Words in This Story

confident – adj. having a feeling or belief that you can do something well or succeed at something

testosterone – n. hormone that causes the development of the male reproductive system and characteristics of the adult male body; also found in small doses in women

assertiveness – n. the quality of being self-assured and confident without being aggressive

random⁶ – adj. lacking a definite plan, purpose, or pattern. Randomly is the adverb.

cortisol  – n. hormone which may become elevated in response to physical or psychological stress

imposter – n. a person who deceives others by pretending to be someone else

fake – adj. not true or real: meant to look real or genuine but not real or genuine

1 posture   

n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势

参考例句：

• The government adopted an uncompromising posture on the issue of independence.政府在独立这一问题上采取了毫不妥协的态度。
• He tore off his coat and assumed a fighting posture.他脱掉上衣，摆出一副打架的架势。

2 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

• He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
• We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。

3 ted   

vt.翻晒，撒，撒开

参考例句：

• The invaders gut ted the village.侵略者把村中财物洗劫一空。
• She often teds the corn when it's sunny.天好的时候她就翻晒玉米。

4 hips   

abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的

参考例句：

• She stood with her hands on her hips. 她双手叉腰站着。
• They wiggled their hips to the sound of pop music. 他们随着流行音乐的声音摇晃着臀部。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

6 random   

adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动

参考例句：

• The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。

7 randomly   

adv.随便地，未加计划地

参考例句：

• Within the hot gas chamber, molecules are moving randomly in all directions. 在灼热的气体燃烧室内，分子在各个方向上作无规运动。 来自辞典例句
• Transformed cells are loosely attached, rounded and randomly oriented. 转化细胞则不大贴壁、圆缩并呈杂乱分布。 来自辞典例句

8 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

9 hormone   

n.荷尔蒙，激素，内分泌

参考例句：

• Hormone implants are used as growth boosters.激素植入物被用作生长辅助剂。
• This hormone interacts closely with other hormones in the body.这种荷尔蒙与体內其他荷尔蒙紧密地相互作用。

10 interferes   

vi. 妨碍，冲突，干涉

参考例句：

• The noise interferes with my work. 这噪音妨碍我的工作。
• That interferes with my plan. 那干扰了我的计划。

11 assertiveness   

n.过分自信

参考例句：

• Her assertiveness was starting to be seen as arrogance. 她的自信已开始被认为是自负了。
• Role playing is an important element in assertiveness training. 在果敢自信训练班上，角色扮演是个重要内容。

12 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

13 bullying   

v.恐吓，威逼( bully的现在分词 )；豪；跋扈

参考例句：

• Many cases of bullying go unreported . 很多恐吓案件都没有人告发。
• All cases of bullying will be severely dealt with. 所有以大欺小的情况都将受到严肃处理。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 syndrome   

n.综合病症；并存特性

参考例句：

• The Institute says that an unidentified virus is to blame for the syndrome. 该研究所表示,引起这种综合症的是一种尚未确认的病毒。
• Results indicated that 11 fetuses had Down syndrome. 结果表明有11个胎儿患有唐氏综合征。

15 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

16 advisor   

n.顾问，指导老师，劝告者

参考例句：

• They employed me as an advisor.他们聘请我当顾问。
• The professor is engaged as a technical advisor.这位教授被聘请为技术顾问。