# Body language and seeming authoritative--can it really be learned? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 24, 2015, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-language-and-seeming-authoritative-can-it-really-be-learned/728674 "2015-08-24T01:51:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-language-and-seeming-authoritative-can-it-really-be-learned/728674/1 "2015-08-24T01:51:45Z")
Saw this in my facebook feed today: [How to Project Power - The New York Times](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/magazine/how-to-project-power.html?WT.mc_id=2015-AUGUST-FB-WCA-MC9_AUD_DEV-0801-0831&WT.mc_ev=click&ad-keywords=AUDDEVREMARK&_r=0) It’s a psychologist who did research into the body language and speech habits of people who are perceived as authoritative. She then went on to teach workshops on this, ostensibly to teach people how to seem more authoritative. But missing from the article is any particular evidence that it can be taught. Do we know? Can a person learn to adopt authoritative body language and speech patterns, even to the extent that it actually works to make others perceive them as more authoritative? ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-language-and-seeming-authoritative-can-it-really-be-learned/728674/2 "2015-08-24T02:29:54Z")
Sure. It’s called “acting.” Just look at any decent actor in multiple roles and see how they change their body language with each role. The difficulty with doing it in real life is that doing it credibly requires consistency, which requires a lot of concentration on what you’re doing with your body at all times. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-language-and-seeming-authoritative-can-it-really-be-learned/728674/3 "2015-08-24T02:39:37Z")
Absolutely. Remember your teachers, their “teacher voice” and that “look” that could make you sit down and shut up? They didn’t come out of school knowing how to do that. They learned it. And for the first few years, they were totally faking it. Even after a person learns it, they tend to turn it on and off as the situation warrants. I would sometimes have my own mother as a substitute teacher (very weird!) and I was always flabbergasted at the change in her body language and speech when she was in front of the class. I tend to be pretty easy going, as my leadership style tends to be more consensus and team oriented than authoritarian, but push me too far or put me in an emergency and “the nurse voice” comes out. The one that sounds a lot like Nurse Rached, and can freeze two little old ladies in the process of whacking each other with their canes because someone said someone’s granddaughter didn’t wear a slip under her dress at church. (I wish I was making that up. Okay, no I don’t, 'cause it was really hysterical after the event. No one was seriously hurt.) ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-language-and-seeming-authoritative-can-it-really-be-learned/728674/4 "2015-08-24T04:21:10Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Sure. It’s called “acting.” Just look at any decent actor in multiple roles and see how they change their body language with each role. > > The difficulty with doing it in real life is that doing it credibly requires consistency, which requires a lot of concentration on what you’re doing with your body at all times. Or, go to a studio and watch some show being filmed. (Can you still do that? When I was very young, living in The Valley, I occasionally went to one of the major TV studios and watched some show being filmed.) Watch a particular take being filmed repeatedly until the director decides they got it just exactly right. The first take, you might not really notice all the subtle body languages. The raised eyebrow; the twitch of the finger as the cowboy sticks his finger in the other cowboy’s face as he says “Now I’m a give you just twenty-four hours to get outta town”; the sneer on the lip; and the exact placement of his feet. It all seems natural and spontaneous. Now watch as they film the same take again, and note that they do exactly the same body language again. The eyebrow, the twitch of the finger, the sneer, the placement of the feet. All exactly the same the second time. Suddenly, it doesn’t appear natural and spontaneous at all. But when you see it on the TV at home, you only see it once. (Unless you are watching the summer re-runs.) So it all seems natural and spontaneous. ETA: Or, go watch a trained sea lion show. Then hang around a few hours, or come back the next week, and watch the same show again. You’ll see the same thing – in both the trainers/actors and seals alike! Even if there’s a different trainer/actor running the show the next time you see it! (Yes, I’ve actually done that.) ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-language-and-seeming-authoritative-can-it-really-be-learned/728674/5 "2015-08-24T04:28:10Z")
It’s definitely something that can be learned and practiced. Like everything else, some people will just have a knack for it and others will need to work at it a lot. I learned a lot of useful tips from a public speaking coach who used to help me with presentations at my last job. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-language-and-seeming-authoritative-can-it-really-be-learned/728674/6 "2015-08-24T09:31:35Z")
If you work a sales job, you will be taught techniques of posture and eye contact. The Dale Carnegie company conducts seminars to teach it. It often requires a conscious effort to do it, and once you leave the sales job, you will probably lose the habit pretty quickly, but it can be learned. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-language-and-seeming-authoritative-can-it-really-be-learned/728674/7 "2015-08-24T14:00:33Z")
Yes it can be learned. Get up off your ass and go take a class in it right now! ---
**Author:** ![Surreal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Surreal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surreal)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-language-and-seeming-authoritative-can-it-really-be-learned/728674/8 "2015-08-24T14:47:31Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Saw this in my facebook feed today: [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/magazine/how-to-project-power.html?WT.mc\_id=2015-AUGUST-FB-WCA-MC9\_AUD\_DEV-0801-0831&WT.mc\_ev=click&ad-keywords=AUDDEVREMARK&\_r=0](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/magazine/how-to-project-power.html?WT.mc_id=2015-AUGUST-FB-WCA-MC9_AUD_DEV-0801-0831&WT.mc_ev=click&ad-keywords=AUDDEVREMARK&_r=0) > > It’s a psychologist who did research into the body language and speech habits of people who are perceived as authoritative. She then went on to teach workshops on this, ostensibly to teach people how to seem more authoritative. But missing from the article is any particular evidence that it can be taught. > > Do we know? Can a person learn to adopt authoritative body language and speech patterns, even to the extent that it actually works to make others perceive them as more authoritative? The evidence in support of the notion that you can become more authoritative simply by adopting authoritative body language is rather flimsy: > **[A TED talk on "power poses" got 25 million views — even though the evidence...](https://www.vox.com/2015/5/8/8573293/power-pose-science)** > > Vox is a general interest news site for the 21st century. Its mission: to help everyone understand our complicated world, so that we can all help shape it. In text, video and audio, our reporters explain politics, policy, world affairs, technology,... > [@](#): > > While Cuddy’s video has been viewed more than 25 million times, one of the key studies that underpinned it involved only 42 participants. That’s a very small sample — so it may come as no surprise that w **hen researchers from the University of Zurich, Stockholm School of Economics, and Dartmouth College tried to replicate the findings, their experiment mostly failed.** > > Their follow-up replication study involved 200 participants, and the researchers discovered that while many self-reported feeling more powerful, those subjective reports weren’t backed up by more objective criteria. > > “Using a much larger sample size but similar procedures as [the Cuddy study] did,” the researchers write, “ **we failed to confirm an effect of power posing on testosterone, cortisol, and financial risk taking. We did find that power posing affected self-reported feelings of power; however, this did not yield behavioral effects.** ”