THE MOLECULE OF MOREa confederate, secretly working for the researchers. The confederate
assumed either a dominant posture (one arm draped over the back of
an empty chair next to her, legs crossed so her right ankle rested on
her left thigh), or a submissive posture (legs together, hands in her lap,
hunched slightly forward). The question was, would the participant
mirror the confederate’s posture or adopt a complementary, opposite
posture?
Most of the time, we mirror the actions of people we’re talking to.
If one person touches his face or gestures with his hands, so does the
other. But this time it was different. When it comes to dominant and
submissive postures, the research participants were more likely to adopt
a complementary posture rather than mirror the same posture. Domi-
nance triggered submission, and submission triggered dominance.
It didn’t happen all the time, though. A minority of participants
mirrored the confederate. Would that have an effect on the underlying
relationship? The researchers gave the participants a survey to fill out.
They wanted to know how they experienced the interaction with the
confederate. Did they like her? Did they feel comfortable with her? It
didn’t matter if the confederate took a dominant or submissive pos-
ture. Participants who took the complementary posture not only liked
the confederates more, they also felt more comfortable with them com-
pared to the participants who mirrored the confederates.
Finally, researchers asked the participants a series of questions to
find out if they were aware of how they were responding to the confed-
erate. Did they know their posture was being influenced by the posture
of the other person in the room? It turned out they had no idea. It all
occurred outside of their consciousness.
We unconsciously know when someone has a high expectation of
success, and we get out of their way. We submit to their will—the over-
whelming expression of their self-efficacy, powered by control dopa-
mine. Our brains evolved this way for a good reason: it’s a bad idea
to get into fights you can’t win. If you’re picking up signals that your
adversary has a high expectation of success, the odds are that this is a
fight you want to avoid. This type of behavior is clearly seen in non-
human primates. Chimpanzees observing a dominant display constrict