<story><title>The secrets of body language</title><url>http://blog.bufferapp.com/improve-my-body-language-secrets</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>JabavuAdams</author><text>But isn&apos;t giving respect low-power? If you&apos;re the alpha, others give &lt;i&gt;you&lt;/i&gt; respect, and you do as you please. I&apos;m exaggerating, obviously, but respect is a form of deference. Deference is low-power.</text></item><item><author>felideon</author><text>Good point.  For example, I tend to lean forward (with forearms on the table) out of respect.  It shows I&apos;m interested but I can see how it could be misconstrued as a nervousness, or &apos;low-power&apos;.</text></item><item><author>a_p</author><text>Body language experts are trained to look for &lt;i&gt;groups&lt;/i&gt; of behaviors. Often, certain behaviors such as crossed arms  could just mean the subject is cold. It is also hard to judge someone&apos;s body language after you have just met them; it is much better to compare their behavior to the &quot;baseline&quot; of their normal behavior. That is because certain behaviors are not innate but learned unconsciously from parents, relatives, close friends, and is also dependent upon regional culture.  If you want to learn about body language, you should spend a lot of time practicing watching several different people and finding groups of behaviors that signal their respective moods before you start to start to make inferences with confidence. It is helpful to watch people from different cultures or different classes so that you may see how much variation there is. Otherwise, decisions made with little knowledge and practice is actually harmful because your inferences will likely be wrong. &quot;You should never cross your arms again&quot; may be good advice, but only because you can then guard yourself from people that overestimate their powers of observation.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nodemaker</author><text>If you know what being alpha is and you are trying to be it, you are not alpha at all by definition.&lt;p&gt;In any case I think this alpha-male theory is pop evolutionary psychology that plays on the minds of insecure men.</text></comment>
<story><title>The secrets of body language</title><url>http://blog.bufferapp.com/improve-my-body-language-secrets</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>JabavuAdams</author><text>But isn&apos;t giving respect low-power? If you&apos;re the alpha, others give &lt;i&gt;you&lt;/i&gt; respect, and you do as you please. I&apos;m exaggerating, obviously, but respect is a form of deference. Deference is low-power.</text></item><item><author>felideon</author><text>Good point.  For example, I tend to lean forward (with forearms on the table) out of respect.  It shows I&apos;m interested but I can see how it could be misconstrued as a nervousness, or &apos;low-power&apos;.</text></item><item><author>a_p</author><text>Body language experts are trained to look for &lt;i&gt;groups&lt;/i&gt; of behaviors. Often, certain behaviors such as crossed arms  could just mean the subject is cold. It is also hard to judge someone&apos;s body language after you have just met them; it is much better to compare their behavior to the &quot;baseline&quot; of their normal behavior. That is because certain behaviors are not innate but learned unconsciously from parents, relatives, close friends, and is also dependent upon regional culture.  If you want to learn about body language, you should spend a lot of time practicing watching several different people and finding groups of behaviors that signal their respective moods before you start to start to make inferences with confidence. It is helpful to watch people from different cultures or different classes so that you may see how much variation there is. Otherwise, decisions made with little knowledge and practice is actually harmful because your inferences will likely be wrong. &quot;You should never cross your arms again&quot; may be good advice, but only because you can then guard yourself from people that overestimate their powers of observation.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>felideon</author><text>I know what you mean, but given the context of a job interview, by definition[1] you are in a lower power position.&lt;p&gt;I agree with sibling comments, though, that respectfulness is not mutually exclusive with &lt;i&gt;alpha&lt;/i&gt;-ness.  And if in general you are a respectful person, a high-power posture will probably not impact their opinion of your respectfulness too much.&lt;p&gt;[1] Assuming you really want the job and unless you are a hot shot who is gracing them with your willingness to work for them.</text></comment>