Fake it until you make it?

I'm sure you've heard it before: Fake it until you make it. Or, perhaps you heard about how power poses can instill a sense of confidence and empower an individual. Or, maybe you had a nagging mother, telling you to watch your posture, and stand up straight.

Ever curious about the validity and truth of these claims, I decided to tackle the concept of good posture, not from a physiological point of view, but from a psychological perspective.

Primarily, I wanted to know if you are slouched over because you feel defeated or depressed, or if you are also feeling defeated or depressed because you are slouched over.

Here's a link to a study that looked at just that:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02699931.2016.1225003

This reminds me of those pencil in the mouth experiments(Darwin-facial feedback hypothesis).

Summarized: Apparently, if you held a pencil in your teeth, it forced your mouth into a smile. If you held a pencil in your lips, it forced your mouth into a pout. Participants were then tested to assess whether smiling or pouting affected their perception(emotional). For a long time(nearly a century), it was believed that it did affect mood. It was believed that participants who had forced themselves to smile turned out to be in a better mood than those who frowned.

Well, it turned out that later on(2012), researchers found some flaws in how the experiments were conducted. Researchers tried to replicate the experiment, but got different results. Results, that disproved the previous results.

It turned out to all be BS.

Here's a link if you're interested in reading more:
https://replicationindex.com/category/pen-in-mouth-paradigm/

I guess my primary question here in this new study is if body posture plays an important role in recovering from negative mood because it actually does, or only because we believe it does.

What I am getting at is the idea of pulling yourself together. The attempt to regain control over oneself and their emotions, which would be in line with sitting up straight, and properly.

Is it a cheerful body pose, or one of asserting control over oneself?

Also, how depressing would it be to be told to stoop over and to be reminded to stay that way. Who wouldn't be thinking defeated and depressive thoughts?

The question comes to my mind if the reason people have adopted certain postures is what really affects their moods rather than the postures themselves.

In other words, is the body posture a result of something else (say serotonin levels for example)?

I personally believe that both breathing and relaxation exercises work because they are a distraction. They redirect focus. They reduce panic and they give a person a sense of control.

What is provokes/enforces a person's behavior? Why do they do what they do?

After reading this study, I was left with more questions than answers.

I personally didn't like the way the study was conducted, or who it was conducted on.

I mean really, can we discern anything at all from the results?

I am left wanting to stick with what I know works, rather than wasting my time on something that may or may not.

What about you?

Now that we know the pencil experiment turned out to be BS, can we, should we put any stock in a study that examines body posture?

What about your personal experience?

For me, I can't say. I have pretty good posture most of the time.

I'm also in a pretty good mood most of the time.

I don't know, maybe there is something to it afterall?

-Akiroq

Ryan McGuire Pixabay