Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges

by Amy Cuddy

Around 2005, a group of economists and psychologists began to explore the notion, based on the results of many studies, that the best way to change people’s behavior for the better might not be to request or demand big changes in attitudes and preferences but to subtly, almost imperceptibly, nudge people in a healthful direction. The tactics of this approach are neither dramatic nor bold, and the changes produced are, in the beginning, conservative. But over time, the changes spread and fortify. They incrementally build upon themselves, ultimately changing not only behavior but also attitudes and even social norms, which reinforce and extend behavioral changes throughout and across communities. They become the new status quo. In 2008, University of Chicago economist Richard Thaler and Harvard Law School professor Cass Sunstein published the bestselling book Nudge, which inspired policy makers around the world to reexamine their assumptions about human behavior. In