A new study out of Northumbria University just gave short men a quick fix to feeling and appearing just as confident as a large man, and it’s all in the way he walks.
In a study published in Scientific Reports, the Researchers motion-captured 52 men walking and showed these stripped-down, faceless avatars to 137 people. The participants determined that swagger and sway made a man look dominant, sometimes much more so than a perfectly sculpted, musclebound man—the kind we stereotypically associate with radiating power and confidence.
In fact, smaller guys with the right kind of strut can look just as formidable as a bigger guy who has been cursed with a mundane walk.
How to Walk the Walk If You Want to Look Confident
There were two components to a good, confident walk. The first was torso sway, meaning how much the upper body rocks from side to side with every step. The second was shoulder abduction, meaning holding your shoulders out wide.
With their powers combined, they simulate the inflated upper body posture of a bigger, more physically powerful man, even if the person doing the cool walk is a shrimpy lightweight.
In other words, if you mimic the way bigger, stronger dudes move, people may perceive you as a better, stronger dude than you physically are and will ever be. Porting to the research, our brains process a person’s gait as a standalone threat detector.
Suppose we see someone walking in a particular way. In that case, our minds tell us to beware of them because they might be capable of physical violence, even if that gigantic beast of a man is actually a gentle giant at heart.
Walking Tough Can Make Short Guys More Intimidating. Here’s How to Do It.
Motion cuts through the visual noise. Strip away someone’s aesthetics, as the researchers did with motion capture technology that reduced participants to a plain, generic mannequin, and all you’re left with is that person’s natural, unconscious expression of self through movement.
That movement is an aesthetic in itself, but one that triggers something primal inside of us. Our brains are wired to read these cues instantly.
A confident walk isn’t about how big and strong you are; it’s about how you look when you move, simple as that. Your gait precedes you, instantly providing onlookers with a peek into who you are, even if it isn’t the whole picture, or even a fraction of the picture.
Everyone is detecting it, whether you want them to or not.
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