With bonus season rapidly approaching, one must ask his/herself an important question. This year, you can be one of two people– the guy who takes whatever number is offered him or the guy who picks one out of thin air, regardless of performance, visualizes it and brings it on home. If you want the latter, you can have it. But you’re going to have to allow yourself to be coached by the experts. To that end, today FINS offers a tip on what sort of body language emboldens a person to make big bets or demands.
Subjects who kicked back and threw their feet on a desk or leaned over and planted their hands far apart on a desk for about a minute showed spikes in testosterone, a hormone that cultivates dominant behavior, muscle growth and risk tolerance. At the same time, they showed decreases in cortisol, a hormone that is released as a response to stress. The results were consistent for males and females alike. The research, which was just published in Psychological Science journal, also showed that “high-powered posers” behaved differently and made different decisions based on the hormonal shift. After the initial posing experiment, each of the 42 subjects was given $2 and the choice of gambling the money on a 50/50 chance to win $4. Some 86% of those who had just struck powerful stances took the bet, compared to 60% of the subjects who had been in weaker positions.
