#392 Posture Impacts Children's Self-Esteem

Do people with high self-esteem adopt an open (power) posture, or does an open posture produce high self-esteem?

 

In general, it's commonly believed that your feelings produce your outward appearance, but that concept is being challenged.

 

In the late 70's Richard Bandler and John Grinder founded a controversial psychological technique called NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming), which challenged many of the beliefs in modern psychology.

 

One of which was the idea that you could (through various methods, one of which being posture) change your own moods, emotions, and behaviours.

 

Of course, NLP was dismissed, and Bandler and Grinder labeled quacks, even though many people have studied NLP and noted that it had helped them in their lives.

 

On today's episode, we review an experiment involving posture (power posing) on 108 German 4th Graders.

 

What we cover

• The general idea in psychology that feelings/emotional states produce physical posture and other physical traits.
• The results of the study.
• Our interpretation of the results and how we think that applies to children's self-esteem and health in general.
• Can you leverage any of this information to produce a state of higher self-esteem in yourself or your children?