This is an ABC podcast.

My main collaborator and I really wanted to know, can you fake it so you make it?

In 2012, this TED Talk put forward a simple yet powerful idea.

Tiny tweaks can lead to big changes.

Before you go into the next stressful evaluative situation,

for two minutes, try doing this.

Here the speaker, Harvard researcher Amy Cuddy,

struck a power pose,

hands on hips, wide stance, chest open.

When you pretend to be powerful, you are more likely to actually feel powerful.

This idea about the power of, well, power posing, would catch on like wildfire.

Amy's talk would rack up millions of views. She'd go on to write a book, and the implications

for people who often lack power were vast. She'd go on to write a book, and the implications for people who often

lack power were vast. She basically came to argue that power posing could help women in

particular feel more powerful, and that this could close the various gender gaps that plague us

in the States, and I'd imagine Australia as well. So the idea of just standing in sort of an

assertive pose for

about a minute before a big meeting, this caught on. Like, people seriously believe this.

But in the years following that TED talk, the research behind power posing would start to unravel.

And what happened with power posing is just one example of a much wider issue with a lot of pop psychology.

I think American culture has always had this fascination that we can just sort of manifest good things for ourselves.

You're listening to All In the Mind. I'm Sana Khadar.

...